Smells Like Teen Spirit

On Sunday, May 18, 2003, at 07:22 PM, Arthur P. Smith wrote:

> Communications satellites
> have also been getting larger at an accelerating pace. Within the next
> 15
> years we'll be regularly putting things in space that can not be
> launched
> in one piece, but (like ISS) will need in-orbit assembly

Actually, industry is beginning to pull back from the larger-and-larger
comm satellites.

The only project I've heard of (and I do read Space News every week)
that needs in-orbit construction is the *follow-on* to the next space
telescope. It is extremely unlikely to launch in the next 15 years.

ISS construction has, of course, been unbelievably expensive and the
ISS is far less roomy (although much better powered) than SkyLab --
which the Saturn V put up in one launch.

The International Space Station (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was old, smelly, crowded and
probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shinny, much more
roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts of how
great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.