REM%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (05/03/84)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Date: 1 May 1984 1433 PDT
From: Doug Freyburger <DOUG@JPL-VLSI.ARPA>
(1) A physical place to mount various instrument (experiment)...
(2) Three-axis stabilization and real-time data-feed telling the...
(3) Electrical power, provided by a centralized power source...
(4) Communications, including both incoming control from Earth and...
A manned station would supply all of this and more,
Unfortunately the manned statin won't be around for about ten years
according to R.Reagan's proposal. In the meantime I'd like to see
SOMETHING up there to mount long-term experiments, something that will
cost only one shuttle launch instead of twenty and cost some
infinitesimal fraction of the cost of a manned station, thus might get
up there in a couple years from now.katz%uci-750a@sri-unix.UUCP (05/03/84)
From: Martin D. Katz <katz@uci-750a> As I understand, at least one version of the plans for a manned station show the station as a manned pod surrounded by a string of unmanned platforms. I think what you are asking for is a prototype platform. Maybe a corporation can be convinced to buy an empty LEO module, fit some hinged struts on it and lease out space for instruments and experiments to be mounted by the shuttle crew?
tim%uci-750a@sri-unix.UUCP (05/03/84)
From: "Tim Shimeall" <tim@uci-750a>
Date: 2 May 1984 21:43-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
To: DOUG @ JPL-VLSI
A manned station would supply all of this and more,
Unfortunately the manned statin won't be around for about ten years
according to R.Reagan's proposal. In the meantime I'd like to see
SOMETHING up there to mount long-term experiments, something that will
cost only one shuttle launch instead of twenty and cost some
infinitesimal fraction of the cost of a manned station, thus might get
up there in a couple years from now.
Something like the space telescope? IRAS? Seriously: the manned
space station program is planned to be an Apollo-type program, and as
such, I'd expect it to include several unmanned platforms of increasing
complexity, leading up to the manned station. I know that the talk I
heard on the space station included 2 platforms, one in polar, one in
28.5-degree inclination orbit in the INITIAL space station plans.
More platforms are intended to be added as the station develops. The
only reason the platforms are lumped in with the station is that they
share the same stablization and power technologies, and so the
platforms may very well be used to test for the station.
Timkcarroll@utzoo.UUCP (Kieran A. Carroll) (05/15/84)
* Well, there will be "something up there" in the interim period, while the space station is being designed. There are free-flyer version of Spacelab, for example, which are designed to be left on orbit for a few months. There's the Long Duration Exposure Facility, ditto. There have been other proposals from the European Space Agency, if I remember aright, for unmanned stations on a small scale, that'd provide power/cooling/pointing/communications on a reusable basis, in the near future. -Kieran A. Carroll