Greg_d._Moore@mts.rpi.edu (Commander Krugannal) (02/01/90)
Henry, you mention that assembly of a booster and satellite
in space is "tood difficult" by someone's standards. One
possible reason you give is that having the booster sitting
around in space for a few weeks at a time may not be a good
idea.
Well, how about launching the booster after the satellite is
in orbit? Wasn't Agena-Gemina done this way?
Someone mentioned developing a OMV. Check out the October
issue of Final Frontier from last year. They have an article
called"The Remarkable Flying Pancake" This discusses the OMV.
They show a full-scale mock-up of the OMV. It is being built
by TRW. It is 15' in diameter and 5' thick. From another source
I have heard it mentioned it will use for throttable engines based
on the LEM engine. The article is interesting. The author tried
out the simulator. He discusses two problems he encountered.
First, there is a 3 second (more when switching between TDRSS)
delay in operation. This means after you make a move, you have
to wait at least 3 seconds for feedback before you can make your
next move. The second problem is that when he tried a sim-dock
with the HST, over time, the pitch between the OMV and the HST
changed due to gravitional tides in the HST. Some simulator!
BTW, I just heard Sam Donaldson on The Letterman Show.
He was talking about "High Flight". He mis-attributed the lines
tha Reagan spoke to Reagan's SPEECHWRITE!!!!!
Finally, while I think Henry is right about close launches,
with the extended missions for Columbia, I wonder if two flights
will ever end up overlapping! That could be interesting.
BTW, does anyone have any idea what the maximum number of
people who have been in space at one time is? I think it was 9.
Two cosmonauts and 7 shuttle astronauts, but I am not sure, and
if so when it would have been.
Greg_d._Moore@mts.rpi.eduhenry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (02/02/90)
In article <10556.1192.forumexp@mts.rpi.edu> Greg_d._Moore@mts.rpi.edu (Commander Krugannal) writes: > Well, how about launching the booster after the satellite is > in orbit? Wasn't Agena-Gemina done this way? No, the Agena targets always went up before the Geminis. This makes a certain amount of sense when you think about it -- the unmanned targets were in a better position to loiter around for a few days if there were unexpected launch delays for the manned part. The same situation applies here, assuming that the payload goes up on a shuttle flight so that the docking can be flown manually. > Someone mentioned developing a OMV. Check out the October > issue of Final Frontier from last year. They have an article > called"The Remarkable Flying Pancake" This discusses the OMV. Unfortunately, the OMV in question is not up to big jobs like moving the HST to and from Clarke orbit. The original Space Tug was a different story, but *that* died long ago. -- 1972: Saturn V #15 flight-ready| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 1990: birds nesting in engines | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu