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Space Forum / Shuttle / March 2004Here's a whacky idea...
... what would it take to turn ISS into an interplanetary craft? Engines, fuel, supplies, more fuel, more supplies, etc? It is designed for long periods of habitability at a time, seems like that's a big part of endurance space travel. Nuclear ion engines? How far/how fast could it go on those? Shielding for the Belts? JazzMan  Signature********************************************************** Please reply to jsavage"at"airmail.net. Curse those darned bulk e-mailers! ********************************************************** "Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand. It is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy." - Wendell Berry ********************************************************** "JazzMan" >Shielding for the [Van Allen] Belts? I wuz with ya up to here, where it got a little too wacky, or as Hallerb would say, to wacky. Jazzman wrote: ... what would it take to turn ISS into an interplanetary craft? Engines, fuel, supplies, more fuel, more supplies, etc? It is designed for long periods of habitability at a time, seems like that's a big part of endurance space travel. Nuclear ion engines? How far/how fast could it go on those? Shielding for the Belts? <<<<< Heres a plan thats 5 years overdue*. Stock all of the Earths used uranium on the far side of the moon. Have a lunar colony on the moon. One day, defying all laws of physics, the uranium storage not only blows up ('cuz uranium in storage can detonate just as easily as black powder, dont'cha know?). But rather than destroying the moon (must be made out of kevlar-reinforced rubber, not cheese), the explosion knocks it out of orbit, at faster than light speed, while the lunar colony and its ships remain intact. The explosion is so perfectly aligned it doesn't even affect the moon's spin rate. The moon makes it to distant galaxies in a few months or so. So the moon becomes an interplanetary mother ship..... Sorry, it hurts to try to think of more details of that rotten premise*. - George Gassaway Box score: * Space-1999, Sci-fi fans - 0 >Heres a plan thats 5 years overdue*. Stock all of the Earths used uranium on >the far side of the moon. Have a lunar colony on the moon. One day, defying all [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > >Sorry, it hurts to try to think of more details of that rotten premise*. It was bad, but it wasn't meant to be quite that bad. The original Episode 2 ("Black Sun") had the Moon going through a black hole near our solar system and showed that the Moonbase Alpha crew's journey to other worlds was being manipulated by an omnipotent being. Unfortunately, the suits decided to show "Black Sun" not as Episode 2 but as Episode 10, and the explanation was lost to the audience and the critics. Brian > The moon makes it to distant galaxies in a few months or so. > So the moon becomes an interplanetary mother ship..... What make you so sure that the moon wasn't already an interstellar mother ship in the first place? > Sorry, it hurts to try to think of more details of that rotten premise*. Well... It was a TV series premise, based on historical aspect. It should have instead featured a reactivation of the ship's main propulsion system. It should be noted though that in real life, the current stabilization propulsion is still working after thousands of years when it first entered Earth's orbit. > - George Gassaway > > Box score: > * Space-1999, Sci-fi fans - 0 >> The moon makes it to distant galaxies in a few months or so. >> So the moon becomes an interplanetary mother ship..... > > What make you so sure that the moon wasn't already an interstellar > mother ship in the first place? Oh, the fact that it's an inert ball of rock, metal and stone, perhaps? >> Sorry, it hurts to try to think of more details of that rotten premise*. > > Well... It was a TV series premise, based on historical aspect. It > should have instead featured a reactivation of the ship's main > propulsion system. Riiiiiiight . . . . > It should be noted though that in real life, the current stabilization > propulsion is still working after thousands of years when it first > entered Earth's orbit. Well, that's how gravity works, after all. SignatureHerb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D. Reformed Aerospace Engineer Remove invalid nonsense for email. >... what would it take to turn ISS into an interplanetary >craft? Engines, fuel, supplies, more fuel, more supplies, >etc? It is designed for long periods of habitability at Since it requires constant resupply and repairs. has lots of breakdowns, and lacks structural strength as well as radiation shielding the most it will ever do is go round and round, unless were lucky and itr gets safely deorbited. Then we can use the money for something useful......... Hum, think it might have a few rigidity problems, and resonance's, but if you are thinking of making something similar to save money, well, maybe. As for shielding... hmm, not sure how you could do that... Brian -- Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email. graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them Email: briang1@blueyonder.co.uk ____________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________ | ... what would it take to turn ISS into an interplanetary | craft? Engines, fuel, supplies, more fuel, more supplies, [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] | live under the laws of justice and mercy." - Wendell Berry | ********************************************************** > ... what would it take to turn ISS into an interplanetary > craft? Engines, fuel, supplies, more fuel, more supplies, > etc? It is designed for long periods of habitability at > a time, seems like that's a big part of endurance space > travel. Nuclear ion engines? How far/how fast could it > go on those? Shielding for the Belts? You mean something like this concept ? <http://www.energia.ru/english/energia/mars/concept.html> Trying to ISS itself would be stupid. Using ISS derived systems might not be. Current ISS stays are around 6mo, which is roughly the transit time to mars. Obviously you would need to take along more supplies and spares, but many of the basic systems should usable with little or no change. >> ... what would it take to turn ISS into an interplanetary >> craft? Engines, fuel, supplies, more fuel, more supplies, [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Trying to ISS itself would be stupid. Using ISS derived systems might > not be. For very loose definitions of "derived". Current ISS systems would need a lot more radiation shielding, The solar arrays would degrade quickly if the passage through the Van Allen belts takes too long. The US segment of the station is only thermally certified for LEO - not even that, it's thermally certified only for certain flight attitudes in LEO. And needless to say, the GNC software would require a total rewrite. SignatureJRF Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail, check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and think one step ahead of IBM. >Obviously you would need to take along more supplies and >spares, but many of the basic systems should usable with little or no >change. To keep costs down and minimize extra stuff needed closing the environmental loop would be very useful > ... what would it take to turn ISS into an interplanetary > craft? Engines, fuel, supplies, more fuel, more supplies, [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > JazzMan Well... One of the many aspect of the space station that people tend to forget that a space station in orbit is not a static object that doesn't go anywhere, but instead a vehicle of its own. A shield to protect it tend to be ommited, despite the fact that it's travelling at a very high speed and space is NOT empty. As for converting the current ISS for interplanetary travel. It probably took much time, effort, and resources. It's much better to design and build a new pseudo space station craft that can be use for interplanetary travel. It should be noted a space station derived space crafts would need costant resupply much like its orbital cousin. > As for converting the current ISS for interplanetary travel. Actually, it isn't a question of converting the existing ISS, but rather building the ship from existing ISS parts, designs and tooling. A lot of the designs and technologies developped for the ISS are reusable for a long duration ship to Mars. Consider the nodes and CBM hatches with interconnects. Consider the airlock. Consider the cupolla. Consider the arm. Consider the rack designs with standard fittings for power, data and cooling (water/air). Consider ECLSS. Where there would need to be differences are the shielding, as well as some structural spine to distribute acceleration so that the modules nearest to the engines don't have to bear the force of accelerating all the modules that are ahead of them. A lot of the software would be reusable, except for telecom/telemetry aspects since "live" commands would not be possible once the ship is too far. For supplies, MPLMs (with proper shielding and systems for permanent use) would be perfect. Empty ones could be left in decaying orbit around Mars to save on the return mass. And instead of "laborarories", you'd have "workshops" where they could fix the stuff that breaks. But because of the modularity, even Destiny could be converted into a workshop by just swapping racks. There are 2 big decisions to be made: how many crewmembers on the interplanetary trip, and what sort of "human" accomodations would they get ? Would there by a greenhouse to provide some "nature" ? Would crewmembers have more than just a telephone booth as a bedroom ? Would there be some recreation room ? Would there be a module dedicated to exercise, or would the equipment be distributed and hidden in other modules as is the case with ISS ? |
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