I understand that there's supposed to be a third Russian CQ in MLM when it launches.
Nope still the plan. Not sure of the timescale but that is our next major milestone.
Woo! That will certainly enable more science to get done.We need another Crew Quarters!
Quote from: erioladastra on 03/19/2011 08:16 pmNope still the plan. Not sure of the timescale but that is our next major milestone.Well of course. That is the long-term-plan, but as long as there is no 4+-person CRV, that plan is dead in the water. Quote from: Space Pete on 03/19/2011 08:57 pmWoo! That will certainly enable more science to get done.We need another Crew Quarters! Yes, I read that as: once we finally get a 7th (or 8th) crew member, the shuffling-bags-or-doing-repair-work to actual-time-spend-on-science ratio will finally be useful. Remember we have Columbus, Destiny and KIBO on the USOS. That is one lab per crew member! Compare that to the Spacelab missions... The ISS is designed to be useful with 7 (and probably more!!) crew members and we need them ASAP. Somehow, in these past 10 years, policy makers have failed to notice that a large space station is only useful when it's packed with astronauts doing actual science (tm). *sigh*
Maybe once commercial space is operating competition between Dragon, CST and Souyz will make it feasible to send short term science crews to ISS to give it a science surge capability. The crew would consist of a pilot, an engineer, and five scientists. The pilot and engineer could assist in maintenance tasks and EVAs. The scientists could work in the labs, split into teams for 24 hour ops which would perhaps relive some of the concern regarding number of racks powered up at any given time. I would think that you would need two commercial launches to support this. Once to bring up basic science materials and supplies and return processed samples to earth. Another launch to bring the crew to and from space.
Quote from: CitabriaFlyer on 03/20/2011 11:26 amMaybe once commercial space is operating competition between Dragon, CST and Souyz will make it feasible to send short term science crews to ISS to give it a science surge capability. The crew would consist of a pilot, an engineer, and five scientists. The pilot and engineer could assist in maintenance tasks and EVAs. The scientists could work in the labs, split into teams for 24 hour ops which would perhaps relive some of the concern regarding number of racks powered up at any given time. I would think that you would need two commercial launches to support this. Once to bring up basic science materials and supplies and return processed samples to earth. Another launch to bring the crew to and from space.I had the same idea, but for logistics, not science.Assume you timed everything so that Dragon & Cygnus, or HTV & ATV, were present at ISS at the same time. You could then send up a commercial crew vehicle with a "logistics crew" to spend two weeks unloading these vehicles and filling them with trash, in addition to performing maintenance tasks.It would be just like a Shuttle mission, in the sense that you'd have six people concentrating solely on fast-paced operations, which would in turn free up the Expedition crewmembers to concentrate on science.
Maybe in the future we can add a small sleep module to the USOS
Quote from: Jason1701 on 03/20/2011 01:57 amMaybe in the future we can add a small sleep module to the USOSBigelow can supply the module. That was the original purpose of TransHab, from which all Bigelow designs are derived.
Quote from: hop on 03/13/2011 01:17 amQuote from: DarkenedOne on 03/13/2011 12:25 amWell I understand about the limitations of the Soyuz, but future planned vehicles including the Dragon, the Dreamchaster, and the Boeing CST-100 all are designed for 7 people. At least initially, I don't think any of these are planned to be able to stay at the station for a long time. "Orion CRV" is.Really?What aspects of a crewed Dragon would preclude lengthy stays at ISS?
Quote from: DarkenedOne on 03/13/2011 12:25 amWell I understand about the limitations of the Soyuz, but future planned vehicles including the Dragon, the Dreamchaster, and the Boeing CST-100 all are designed for 7 people. At least initially, I don't think any of these are planned to be able to stay at the station for a long time. "Orion CRV" is.
Well I understand about the limitations of the Soyuz, but future planned vehicles including the Dragon, the Dreamchaster, and the Boeing CST-100 all are designed for 7 people.
Quote from: Danderman on 03/18/2011 02:10 pmQuote from: hop on 03/13/2011 01:17 amQuote from: DarkenedOne on 03/13/2011 12:25 amWell I understand about the limitations of the Soyuz, but future planned vehicles including the Dragon, the Dreamchaster, and the Boeing CST-100 all are designed for 7 people. At least initially, I don't think any of these are planned to be able to stay at the station for a long time. "Orion CRV" is.Really?What aspects of a crewed Dragon would preclude lengthy stays at ISS?Given that Cargo dragon is expected to spend significant time at the station it's seems unlikely there would be major roadblocks to doing the same with the crew version. Of course there would additional work to certify it, but it would be surprising if there were really major problems.Hmm, my impression was that one of justification for "Orion CRV" was that commercial would at least initially just be taxi service. But thinking back I'm not really sure where I got that and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense
Remember: commodities to sustain a crew of 7 means that service must be available for the entire trip. Now the food & water can come from ISS, but O2 is a different matter. The services must be able to be reliable over those months on orbit. I'm not saying they can't do it, but it has to be certified to last that long.
Oxygen is rather unique in that the more you cool it the less volume it takes up.
Quote from: hop on 03/20/2011 07:02 pmQuote from: Danderman on 03/18/2011 02:10 pmQuote from: hop on 03/13/2011 01:17 amQuote from: DarkenedOne on 03/13/2011 12:25 amWell I understand about the limitations of the Soyuz, but future planned vehicles including the Dragon, the Dreamchaster, and the Boeing CST-100 all are designed for 7 people. At least initially, I don't think any of these are planned to be able to stay at the station for a long time. "Orion CRV" is.Really?What aspects of a crewed Dragon would preclude lengthy stays at ISS?Given that Cargo dragon is expected to spend significant time at the station it's seems unlikely there would be major roadblocks to doing the same with the crew version. Of course there would additional work to certify it, but it would be surprising if there were really major problems.Hmm, my impression was that one of justification for "Orion CRV" was that commercial would at least initially just be taxi service. But thinking back I'm not really sure where I got that and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense Remember: commodities to sustain a crew of 7 means that service must be available for the entire trip. Now the food & water can come from ISS, but O2 is a different matter. The services must be able to be reliable over those months on orbit. I'm not saying they can't do it, but it has to be certified to last that long.One good way would be to find mass savings in a cargo variant (which it seems they could) and fly the ECLSS on that flight and have it stay up there for that period of time.
The consumables on station, or that can be made available on station, are a fairly minor point for a surge crew. Extending more than one month, it could be a bit more challenging - but we're not there yet, and the commercial providers could fill that need, or Dragon itself.The issue is the spacecraft itself. It takes time to qualify a system. Look at all the life support systems on the station that have had issues since we started all this. Obviously we are improving, but these are systems held by specific manufacturers. If we now bring in a new system, from a new manufacturer, there is a learning curve there, from all aspects, despite all processing steps. But this is how we learn, how the strong survive, and how a system becomes more robust.Companies will eventually 'get there', but in some cases, ISS can't wait for that to happen. At least we have Progress, ATV & HTV to help the station out with logistics. What we lack is a Soyuz alternative that is up and running.
ISS has been designed to support 6 crewmembers.
A & S: Will the size of the crew come down?Suffredini: No. In fact, we’re designed on the U.S. side to take four crew. The ISS design is actually for seven. We operate with six because first, we can get all our work done with six, and second, we don’t have a vehicle that allows us to fly a seventh crew member. Our requirement for the new vehicles being designed is for four seats. So I don’t expect us to go down in crew size. I would expect us to increase it.http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/AS-Interview-Mike-Suffredini.html