Space Forum / Shuttle / October 2007

With the US manned space programme essentially going to sleep on jan 1
2010 until the shuttle replacement begins (if it ever begins), would
NASA take this downtime oppportunity to revamp the telecom
infrastructure as well as IT systems used on board manned vehicles ?

For instance, replace the always problematic Windows laptops with either
MAC, Linux or Solaris ones ? Replace the time consuming Outlook with a
real email systems with SMTP servers at both ends that automatically
transfer emails and documents during periods of available telecom
withour requiring the crew to spend time to prepare their laptops for
transfers and after the transfers restart their apps ?

(NOTE: NASA should know by now the amount of time wasted during EACH
mission fixing computer problems and time spent by crews to allow ground
to come and pickup/deposit documents manually)

Also, are there any plans to upgrade TDRS satellites to support greater
bandwidth (live HD pictures anyone ?) as well as TCPIP ? Would there be
any plans to launch additional satellites to provide greater covererage
to reduce LOS periods ? Or is is thougth that orbital operations will be
so minimal that there is no longer a need for those ?

In the event of fairly substantial upgrades to the TDRS systems and
protocols, would the station be upgraded without much new hardware being
sent up ? (remembering that only Progress vehicles and possibly ATV will
be available from 2010 onwards, both of which are limited in cargo size
due to small hatch size on russian side).

Or is the plan to just re-use all of the shuttle's telecom designs and
laptops/software, just like they are essentially re-using the SRBs and
SSMEs etc etc ?