alb@alice.UUCP (11/29/83)
As Columbia soared above the Earth today, the astronauts turned Spacelab on and entered it, officially starting its career as a space research center. All is going well with the shuttle, and NASA reports no trouble.
larry@ihuxf.UUCP (Larry Marek) (11/29/83)
Pardon my ignorance about "Space Lab" --but is that package going to be seperated from Columbia and left in orbit, or does a shuttle have to take it up each time? If it is left in orbit, will the shuttles be able to get it high enough to prevent another "Sky Lab"? If it is left in orbit, how do the people get from the shuttle to the lab? (grab it with the arm and pull it in the cargo bay each time?) It would seem awful wasteful (and hazordous to any delicate equipment) to take that rough ride "up" each time Space Lab was to be used. As a side question, can anybody provide a size comparison between Sky Lab and Space Lab?? There was a show on PBS the other day that had some footage of the inside of Sky Lab --MY GOSH IT WAS **HUGH**!! Pictures from the outside never made it seem so big - nothing to reference it with I guess. Too bad the shuttles didn't get going in time to save it. -- Larry Marek ihnp4!ihuxf!larry
okie@ihuxs.UUCP (B.K. Cobb) (11/29/83)
Spacelab will not be left in orbit; it has no guidance/stabilization systems, nor any long-term orbital life support capabilities. If it is to be used more than once, it will be lifted by shuttle each time. I, too, was amazed at the open feel and the size of Spacelab. But after thinking about it, I realized that it pretty much fills the cargo bay of the shuttle -- and that's a goodly space to fill. Plus most of the space is open, to allow a group of people to move about and work without getting in each other's way. If you'll remember, Skylab was much bigger, but it was more crowded -- divided into "decks", filled with life-support and research equipment. The only really big open space was near the passage to the docking module; they did the tests with the EVA mobility pack up in that space. The specialists that work in Spacelab actually live in the shuttle's crew compartments. Hope this helps, B.K.Cobb AT&T Bell Laboratories, Naperville, IL
alb@alice.UUCP (11/30/83)
Spacelab will be taken up in the shuttle each time it (Spacelab) is to fly; it is never released from the cargo bay.
ks@astrovax.UUCP (Karl Stapelfeldt) (11/30/83)
There are no plans to allow the Spacelab to free-fly out of the
shuttle cargo bay. It is dependent on the shuttle for transportation,
attitude control, electrical power, and crew quarters. It is intended to
be re-flown many times, however.
Skylab was indeed much larger than the Spacelab is. The pressurized
module for Spacelab is a mere 23 feet long, and the instrument pallet adds
only a dozen or so more. Skylab was fabricated from surplus Saturn V third
stages (the astronauts essentially lived inside a fuel tank), and as such
was on the order of 80 feet long. The Skylab orbital workshop was also
much more massive than the Spacelab, with a 120,000 lb vs 30,000 lb weight
comparison. I don't claim that these numbers are exact, but they're pretty
close. A good reference to check is Kenneth Gatland's (ed.) "Illustrated
Encyclopedia of Space Technology."keller@uicsl.UUCP (12/01/83)
#R:alice:-231900:uicsl:3700003:000:311 uicsl!keller Nov 30 16:04:00 1983 Spacelab doesn't fill the shuttle payload bay! In pictures and in the plastic model we have at home it is only about half as big as the payload bay could carry. Perhaps this is to leave room for other payload. Does anyone know if there are satellite launches scheduled on the same flight as Spacelab launches?
okie@ihuxs.UUCP (B.K. Cobb) (12/01/83)
I said that Spacelab "pretty much fills the cargo bay." It does if you include the experiments pallet behind it and the access tunnel to the crew compartment in front of it. That pretty effectively neutralizes any other cargo-carrying potential. You could possibly place some cargo in the areas surrounding the access tunnel, but not a great deal. B.K. Cobb AT&T Bell Laboratories, Naperville, IL
kcarroll@utzoo.UUCP (Kieran A. Carroll) (12/02/83)
As far as I know, Spacelab does "fill" the shuttle's cargo bay in one important respect -- it uses up the vehicle's payload mass allowance. Actually, while I've heard that Columbia/Spacelab will be heavy on landing (the heaviest of any landing so far), it >may< have had some unused lifting capability on launch. If so, it could have lifted extra payload, so long as it left it in orbit...