bob@etive.ed.ac.uk (Bob Gray) (03/31/89)
In article <2168@wyse.wyse.com> mikew@wyse.com (Mike Wexler) writes: >mission was? I can think of several possibilities: > 3. so they can analyze the effects of long term exposure to LEO. This seems like the best reason for bringing Salyut 7 down in one bit. Taking it apart in a laboratory back on Earth will provide the Soviets with a lot of very valuable information on how materials and machinery wear and deteriorate during long term exposure to conditions in orbit. Build for a short lifetime, analyse anything that goes wrong, re-design, re-build. That seems to be the usual Soviet space exploration technique. Contrast with the NASA method of a designing the space station to have a 30 year life expectancy, using new alloys and plastics, none of which have had any long term exposure to conditions in orbit. Bob.
ahiggins@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Andrew Higgins) (04/02/89)
In article <2168@wyse.wyse.com> mikew@wyse.com (Mike Wexler) writes: > mission was? I can think of several possibilities: > [reasons for recovery of Salyut 7] > 3. so they can analyze the effects of long term exposure to LEO. I've also heard a 4th reason (a bit more PR oriented) for this mission: displaying Salyut 7 at the Paris 1992 Air Show. -- Andrew J. Higgins | Illini Space Development Society ahiggins@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu | a chapter of the National Space Society phone: (217) 359-0056 | at the University of Illinois P.O. Box 2255 - Station A, Champaign, IL 61825 "We are all tired of being stuck on this cosmical speck with its monotonous ocean, leaden sky and single moon that is half useless....so it seems to me that the future glory of the human race lies in the exploration of at least the solar system!" - John Jacob Astor, 1894