A new use for the ISS |
A new use for the ISS |
Jul 12 2008, 10:25 PM
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The Poet Dude Group: Moderator Posts: 5551 Joined: 15-March 04 From: Kendal, Cumbria, UK Member No.: 60 |
I know there's about as much chance of this happening as there is of Keira Knightley ringing me up and asking me to show her the stars on the next clear night, but what a wonderful, wonderful idea...
Moving the ISS -------------------- |
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Jul 12 2008, 11:07 PM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
Well, one hole to punch, anyhow (although I like the idea, too!) I guess that you could fly the ISS to the Moon pretty easily but not rapidly with an ion engine, and to Mars with much more difficulty from a logistics standpoint. I'm concerned about the crew's radiation exposure in either scenario, though. Right now, it's below the Van Allen belts and relatively protected. We'd need to add a pretty heavy radiation shelter for solar flares at the very least, and not at all sure how rad-hardened the rest of the station systems are for such events.
Another concern is how many of the extant station experiments are designed to examine the LEO environment for commercial applications? (Kibo springs to mind.) Going outside of the Van Allen regions would invalidate such results, and presumably tick off the investigators. Other than that...Putting it around the Moon might be a good idea. It could serve as a gateway, a transfer point from an Orion transfer vehicle to a hopefully reusable ISS-to-ground shuttle (using LOX produced in situ at a base site). Sounds cost-effective to me, if practical: more hardware reuse, less overall boost mass from Earth to the Moon. Plus, of course, the right instruments could provide an extremely detailed survey of the Moon at any wavelength you want... -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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