Apollo 13: NASA's got a plan for keeping the International Space Station flying through 2020, even without the space shuttles.
However, it's just that: A plan.
Success is going to depend on more than just perfectly executing that plan. The agency is going to need luck, ingenuity, and resourcefulness, in short, the kind of on-the-fly, we-can-do-anything culture immortalized in the retelling of the saving of the lives of the crew of Apollo 13.
The biggest threat to the space station is that the space shuttles are being retired. Engineers designed the space station on the idea that shuttle orbiters would visit every so often, bringing up huge loads of supplies and the outsized spare parts that can't fit inside other spacecraft that can reach the outpost.
So, NASA's been taking up extra spare parts and supplies in advance. Indeed, the last space shuttle mission is dedicated almost entirely to delivering the big stuff that NASA and its international partners think will be needed over the course of this decade -- the stuff that can only fit in the shuttle cargo bay.
NASA identified what parts it thinks it will need using forecasting tools, tests and statistical analyses. Independent audits of the work indicate the plan looks pretty good on paper, but reviewers also note that forecasts are predictions. They're not always accurate.
Decades of human spaceflight have proven the forecasts don't always come true and the assumptions made by engineers are sometimes wrong.
Falling foam can't fatally damage a shuttle orbiter's heat shielding, engineers and program managers convinced themselves, before Columbia and seven astronauts were lost in 2003 to a hunk of that foam.
Things will go wrong. Important systems will break down before NASA's analyses predicted. Some part will be needed that can't necessarily be delivered on available cargo tugs like Russia's Progress or SpaceX's Dragon. Creative solutions by the crew on orbit and engineers on the ground will undoubtedly be required to keep the spaceship safe. The twilight of the space station's career will undoubtedly feature some compromises not unlike the final years of Russia's Mir space station.
Source: http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110515/COLUMNISTS0405/105150312/John-Kelly-Luck-creativity-key-station
However, it's just that: A plan.
Success is going to depend on more than just perfectly executing that plan. The agency is going to need luck, ingenuity, and resourcefulness, in short, the kind of on-the-fly, we-can-do-anything culture immortalized in the retelling of the saving of the lives of the crew of Apollo 13.
The biggest threat to the space station is that the space shuttles are being retired. Engineers designed the space station on the idea that shuttle orbiters would visit every so often, bringing up huge loads of supplies and the outsized spare parts that can't fit inside other spacecraft that can reach the outpost.
So, NASA's been taking up extra spare parts and supplies in advance. Indeed, the last space shuttle mission is dedicated almost entirely to delivering the big stuff that NASA and its international partners think will be needed over the course of this decade -- the stuff that can only fit in the shuttle cargo bay.
NASA identified what parts it thinks it will need using forecasting tools, tests and statistical analyses. Independent audits of the work indicate the plan looks pretty good on paper, but reviewers also note that forecasts are predictions. They're not always accurate.
Decades of human spaceflight have proven the forecasts don't always come true and the assumptions made by engineers are sometimes wrong.
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| Apollo 13 |
Things will go wrong. Important systems will break down before NASA's analyses predicted. Some part will be needed that can't necessarily be delivered on available cargo tugs like Russia's Progress or SpaceX's Dragon. Creative solutions by the crew on orbit and engineers on the ground will undoubtedly be required to keep the spaceship safe. The twilight of the space station's career will undoubtedly feature some compromises not unlike the final years of Russia's Mir space station.
Source: http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110515/COLUMNISTS0405/105150312/John-Kelly-Luck-creativity-key-station
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