Columbus Laboratory on ISS (19 Feb 2008)

[emc]

Today's image gave me a real lift. What a cool reflection! Just wondered what caused the apparent skid marks on astronaut Clay Anderson's visor?

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080123.html

Now I have a clear picture of what may have caused the visor skid marks and what one preventative measure could be
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080219.html

[emc]

I am curious about the metal panels around the laboratory... Won't they conduct heat? Is that the intention? Looks evident from the astronauts uses of what appears to be a thermal shielding blanket.

[FieryIce]

Wouldn’t you just love to have Hans Schlegel’s view from that vantage point and the experience of being out there?

[neufer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christophe ... rth_voyage

<<On his fourth voyage Columbus and his men were stranded on Jamaica for a year. A Spaniard, Diego Mendez, and some natives paddled a canoe to get help from Hispaniola. That island's governor, Nicolás de Ovando, detested Columbus and obstructed all efforts to rescue him and his men. In the meantime Columbus, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, successfully intimidated the natives by correctly predicting a lunar eclipse for February 29, 1504, using the Ephemeris of the German astronomer Regiomontanus.>>

<<Hans Schlegel [ESA Astronaut (Germany)] : Born August 3, 1951 in *Überlingen* , Germany, but considers Aachen to be his hometown.>>

Schlegel means drumstick or mallet in German.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regiomontanus
<<Johannes Müller von Königsberg (June 6, 1436 – July 6, 1476) was born in the Franconian village of *Unfinden* near Königsberg, Bavaria, not in the more famous Königsberg in East Prussia. Thus, he is also called Johannes Müller, der Königsberger (Johannes Müller of Königsberg). His full Latin name was Joannes de Regio monte, which abbreviated to Regiomontanus (from the Latin for "Königsberg"—"King's Mountain"). In 1475 he went to Rome to work with Pope Sixtus IV on calendar reform. On the way he could publish his "Ephemeris" in Venice. Regiomontanus died mysteriously in Rome, July 6, 1476, a month after his fortieth birthday. Some say he died of plague, others by (more likely) assassination.>>

Code: Select all

.              U.T.
.           Greatest    Saros          Pen.   Umb. S.D. S.D.  GST    Moon  Moon
.    Date    Eclipse Type #    Gamma   Mag.   Mag. Par  Tot  (0 UT)   RA    Dec
                                                                 h     h      °
1504 Mar 01  00:42   T  105   0.406  2.156  1.100 103m  24m  11.2  11.40   4.3
2008 Feb 21  03:26   T  133  -0.399  2.171  1.111 103m  25m  10.0  10.25  10.5
---------------------------------------------------
Fri 1504 Mar 1 0:42 UTC
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar
.
.             Right                   Distance    From 18°N 76°48'W:
.           Ascension    Declination      (AU)   Altitude Azimuth
.
Moon        11h 23m 58s    +4° 18.8'   60.7 ER    21.147  -87.657 Up
.
Sun         23h 23m 15s    -3° 58.2'     0.996   -21.209   92.750 Set
Mercury     23h 52m 42s    -1° 28.3'     1.283   -13.447   92.862 Set
Venus       20h 24m 40s   -15° 59.8'     0.564   -66.666   91.239 Set
Mars         6h 38m 40s   +26°  8.9'     1.048    81.608  166.526 Up
Jupiter      6h 21m 51s   +23° 39.8'     4.885    81.782  134.632 Up
Saturn       6h 47m 23s   +22° 56.7'     8.631    85.055 -179.907 Up
Uranus      22h 56m 23s    -7° 35.4'    21.052   -28.662   91.107 Set
Neptune     19h 48m 57s   -20° 44.9'    30.696   -75.221   76.782 Set
---------------------------------------------------
Thu 2008 Feb 21 3:27 UTC
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar
.
.             Right                   Distance    From 18°N 76°48'W:
.           Ascension    Declination      (AU)   Altitude Azimuth
.
Moon        10h 14m 47s   +10° 28.2'   60.5 ER    61.585  -78.519 Up
.
Sun         22h 15m 28s   -10° 48.6'     0.989   -61.532  100.689 Set
Mercury     20h 41m 53s   -16° 20.9'     0.772   -84.869  108.017 Set
Venus       20h 26m 40s   -19° 26.1'     1.440   -88.121   39.972 Set
Mars         5h 45m  1s   +26° 23.5'     0.951    52.957  110.202 Up
Jupiter     19h  0m 40s   -22° 36.7'     5.840   -70.503  -72.926 Set
Saturn      10h 31m 41s   +11° 13.9'     8.293    57.847  -82.412 Up
Uranus      23h 15m 53s    -5° 32.4'    21.046   -45.687  100.807 Set
Neptune     21h 38m 14s   -14° 25.4'    31.015   -71.256   98.190 Set
Pluto       18h  2m 25s   -17°  8.3'    31.881   -56.878  -86.041 Set

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/L ... Feb21T.GIF

[marion ballantyne]

Wonderful APOD, looking forward to news from the BIO LAB, especially work on micro organisms, and how will gravity effect the growth of plants?

[neufer]

Wonderful APOD, looking forward to news from the BIO LAB, especially work on micro organisms, and how will gravity effect the growth of plants?

Have you read any "BIO LAB" type work done in centrifuges?

http://cgbr.arc.nasa.gov/all_pubs.html

[emc]

Wouldn’t you just love to have Hans Schlegel’s view from that vantage point and the experience of being out there?

Yes. I would love to travel into space after it is figured out how to be done without external combustion. We have enough of that already Besides controlled explosion seems so crude compared to the movies where the machines merely flick on the "after lights" 8)

[neufer]

I would love to travel into space after it is figured out how to be done without external combustion. We have enough of that already Besides controlled explosion seems so crude compared to the movies where the machines merely flick on the "after lights" 8)

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050328.html
http://centennialchallenges.nasa.gov/
http://centennialchallenges.nasa.gov/cc ... htm#tether
----------------------------------------------
Beam Power Challenge

<<The Beam Power Challenge is designed to promote the development of new power distribution technologies. These technologies can be applied to many aspects of space exploration, including surface- or space-based point-to-point power transmission or delivery for robotic and/or human expeditions to planetary surfaces. This challenge may also support the development of far-term space infrastructure concepts such as space elevators and solar power satellites.>>
----------------------------------------------
Tether Challenge

<<The purpose of the Tether Challenge is to develop very strong tether material for use in various structural applications. The competition requires a 50% improvement in breaking force from year to year, starting with a commercially available tether in 2005. Additional requirements (such as operating temperature range, vacuum compatibility, and controlled electrical conductivity) will be added in future years.

The Tether Challenge will be conducted in two rounds. The first round will pit tethers from two teams directly against each other to determine the team with the strongest tether. The second round will determine if the first-round winner is at least 50% stronger than a house tether that represents off-the-shelf materials. If it is, that team will win the competition.>>
-----------------------------------------------

[emc]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080219.html
Don't tell my boss, but I'm finding it hard to concentrate today because I keep wanting to go back to this APOD and admire the view. It is not only breathtaking asthetically, it also sets my imagination running as to what might be discovered in the ISS Columbia "high" tech laboratory. Like maybe a need for a much larger mfg facility.

[iamlucky13]

I am curious about the metal panels around the laboratory... Won't they conduct heat? Is that the intention? Looks evident from the astronauts uses of what appears to be a thermal shielding blanket.

I haven't found any detailed information anywhere, but I believe those are there for micrometeorite protection. The module wall consists of several layers, including this armor, a pressure layer, an insulating layer, and a radiation protection layer. They're also polished, presummably as much to make them reflect heat as for aesthetics.

I think the thermal blanket was temporary in place for the several days between when Atlantis opened her payload bay exposing the module to sunlight and when it was fully plumbed into the station's cooling system, so Hans is removing it.

By the way, some good ESA info on the Columbus module:

http://www.esa.int/esaHS/ESAAYI0VMOC_iss_0.html

[neufer]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080219.html
Don't tell my boss, but I'm finding it hard to concentrate today because I keep wanting to go back to this APOD and admire the view. It is not only breathtaking asthetically, it also sets my imagination running as to what might be discovered in the ISS Columbia "high" tech laboratory. Like maybe a need for a much larger mfg facility.

Can one CURTSEY in zero G?
"Perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere."
---------------------------------------
<<Presently [Alice] began again. "I wonder if I shall fall fight through
the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk
with their heads downwards! The antipathies, I think-" (she was rather
glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn't sound at all
the right word) "-but I shall have to ask them what the name of the
country is, you know. Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand? Or
Australia?" (and she tried to *CURTSEY* as she spoke- fancy,
*CURTSEYing* as you're falling through the air! Do you think you
could manage it?) "And what an ignorant little girl she'll think me
for asking! No, it'll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written
up somewhere.">>
---------------------------------------
42 was an important number for both Lewis Carroll and Douglas Adams,
possibly, because that was the number of minutes it took to reach Australia.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Forty-Two George Jelliss
"In binary notation 42 = 101010."
http://www.outlanders.fsnet.co.uk/tlh501.htm

<<Devotees of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy will know that "the
Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything"
was determined by the computer 'Deep Thought' to be Forty-two.
Unfortunately in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe it was found
that 'the Question to the Ultimate Answer' was 'What do you get if you
multiply six by nine?' In base 13 as it happens '42' = (4 x 13) + 2 =
54, so a simple programming error might account for the anomaly!

Readers of an older generation were unsurprised by these revelations,
since they were well aware of the importance of 42 in the paradoxical
world of Lewis Carroll. For a start, the original title page of Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland boasted it contained 42 illustrations. And at
the trial of the Knave of Hearts when Alice started to grow larger again
the King invoked: "Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to
leave the court", and later claimed: "It's the oldest rule in the book".

Another Carrollian Rule 42, that of the Naval Code, according to the
Preface to The Hunting of the Snark, states: "No-one shall speak to the
Man at the Helm, and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no-one". The
first Fit of that poem mentions that the Baker, destined to be victim of
the Boojum, "had forty-two boxes all carefully packed, with his name
painted clearly on each ... all left behind on the beach", and "he had
seven coats on when he came, with three pairs of boots but had wholly
forgotten his name" in other words he was clearly "all at sixes and
sevens".

In the second part of Carroll's later work Sylvie and Bruno, the German
professor describes a railway system in which the trains move under
gravity: "Each railway is in a long tunnel, perfectly straight: so of
course the middle of it is nearer the centre of the globe than the two
ends: so every train runs halfway downhill, and that gives it force
enough to run the other half uphill" (what is this if not an example of
Science Fiction worthy of Verne?). I am informed (reliably?) that such a
grav(it)y train would make all its trips in 42 minutes, the same time it
would take an object to fall through the centre of the earth, the time
constant regardless of the tunnel's length.>>
-------------------------------------------------------------------

[Arramon]

Taken from EADS Astrium's Columbus, Europe's laboratory for the ISS Nov 2007 pdf:
http://www.astrium.eads.net/launch-spec ... f/download

The structure

The basis for the Columbus module is a cylindrical pressure vessel, 4.2 m
in diameter and 6.2 m in length, closed by two conical ends. It was built
from an aluminium alloy with 3.8-mm bulkheads for the cylinder and 7-
mm bulkheads for the cones.

The pressure vessel is derived from the structure developed for the three
Italian Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules (MPLMs) carried onboard the U.S.
space shuttle since 2001 to deliver large equipment to the ISS. This
common design allowed the programme to shave costs from scale effect.
Like the MPLMs, the Columbus module is equipped at one end with a
Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM), a U.S. docking collar provided by
Boeing. This system - passive on Columbus - is designed for dockings
performed with the remote manipulating arms of the shuttle or the ISS. It
incorporates a square hatch, 1.3-m in diameter, wide enough to make
way for standard science equipment, which are too large to get through
the 80-cm rounded hatches like the hatch on the docking system of the
ATV freighter. Thanks to this CBM, Columbus will be docked on the
starboard side of the "Harmony" module (Node 2), located at the forward
end of the ISS.

The other end of the module was sealed after integration of the internal
equipment. Columbus features no porthole.

The meteorid and debris shield

Since Columbus will be docked on the part of the ISS located "forward"
relatively to its orbital motion, the European module will be particularly
exposed to impacts from micrometeorids (with a relative velocity of about
17/18 km/s) and space debris (10/11 km/s).

Its protection will be provided by an armoured shield, the Meteorid and
Debris Protection System (MDPS), built by Astrium in its plant in Saint-
Médard-en-Jalles, near Bordeaux, France.

This shield consists in 81 panels of two different designs:

- Simple panels, with a 1.6-mm thick aluminium sheet, are located on
the "aft" side of the module and on the "inner" cone, which features the
docking system.
- Dual panels, with a 2.5-mm thick aluminium sheet and another
sheet composed of 18 layers of Kevlar reinforced with epoxy resin and
covered with four layers of Nextel, are placed on the "forward" side and
the "outer" cone.

On the dual panels, the armour plates are separated by several
centimetres of empty space. Like the simple panels, they are mounted at
several centimetres from the actual skin of the pressure vessel. Their
mission is to dissipate the energy from the small-sized meteorids and
space debris before they reach the structure of the pressurized module
itself.

[orin stepanek]

The Columbus lab is said to be about 6 meters long. That must be counting the antenna. Judging from the astronaut working on it; the cylinder appears to be about 2 meters long.
Orin

[auroradude]

The Columbus lab is said to be about 6 meters long. That must be counting the antenna. Judging from the astronaut working on it; the cylinder appears to be about 2 meters long.

Actually, the suited astronaut is about 2 meters long.

[orin stepanek]

The Columbus lab is said to be about 6 meters long. That must be counting the antenna. Judging from the astronaut working on it; the cylinder appears to be about 2 meters long.

Actually, the suited astronaut is about 2 meters long.

True enough; Still the capsule isn't 6 meters long; so still must count the antenna!
Orin

[auroradude]

I see that the length of the module is rounded up and quoted as 7 meters or 23 feet at a few sites.

This link has a detailed cut-away view and lists the length as 6.87 meters.


http://www.esa.int/esaHS/ESAFRG0VMOC_iss_0.html


The internal volume of 75 cubic meters listed is less than the overall calculated volume of approx 97 cubic meters according to the overall dimentions so either the overall length does include some external structure or it simply accounts for all the protective layers or both.

[neufer]

The internal volume of 75 cubic meters listed is less than the overall calculated volume of approx 97 cubic meters according to the overall dimensions so either the overall length does include some external structure or it simply accounts for all the protective layers or both.

Speaking of protective layers...shouldn't they be in white lab coats rather than shorts & overalls?
--------------------------------------------------
Satellite Shootdown As Early As Wed.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 19, 2008

(CBS/AP) <<The attempted shootdown, already approved by President Bush, is seen by some as blurring the lines between defending against a weapon like a long-range missile and targeting satellites in orbit. The three-stage Navy missile, designated the SM-3, has chalked up a high rate of success in a series of tests since 2002 — in each case targeting a short- or medium-range ballistic missile, never a satellite. A hurry-up program to adapt the missile for this anti-satellite mission was completed in a matter of weeks; Navy officials say the changes will be reversed once this satellite is down. >>

[auroradude]

[/quote]Speaking of protective layers...shouldn't they be in white lab coats rather than shorts & overalls? [quote]

I dunno. They list the inside temerature as variable between 16 and 27 degrees (C) (approx. 61 to 81 degrees (F)) so either shorts or overalls might be appropriate.

[emc]

Speaking of protective layers...shouldn't they be in white lab coats rather than shorts & overalls?

Actually two are playing an RPG and one is dancing with an MP3. It's fun to live on the ISS... How's your zeroG EHC???

[marion ballantyne]

Thanks Neufer for the information on the journals but they do seem like rather a long read, so as time is of the essence I will unfortunately have to put that one on hold for the present.
I have come up with a NASA site instead.
GROWING PLANTS IN ZERO - G
There is good information on experiments carried out on passed missions.

[neufer]

Thanks Neufer for the information on the journals but they do seem like rather a long read, so as time is of the essence I will unfortunately have to put that one on hold for the present.
I have come up with a NASA site instead.
GROWING PLANTS IN ZERO - G
There is good information on experiments carried out on passed missions.

You mean this?

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/cre ... les13.html
---------------------------------------
Also:

Klaus Schmidt wrote the Asterisk:

<<About growing plants in Zero-G. The Russians made experiments from their first space stations on. They had big difficulties to get them grow and still have problems with cultivating them. Often the plants grow and flower but won't seed. I guess that will be a major research field for the Russians on the ISS besides their also long history of materials processing.>>

[neufer]

Actually two are playing an RPG and one is dancing with an MP3. It's fun to live on the ISS... How's your zeroG EHC???

It all depends on what ISS is.

[emc]

Satellite Shootdown As Early As Wed.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 19, 2008

Actually two are playing an RPG and one is dancing with an MP3. It's fun to live on the ISS... How's your zeroG EHC???

It all depends on what ISS is.

Hopefully not the target you alluded to... http://www.reuters.com/article/domestic ... 4420080220

[neufer]

Satellite Shootdown As Early As Wed.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 19, 2008

Actually two are playing an RPG and one is dancing with an MP3. It's fun to live on the ISS... How's your zeroG EHC???

It all depends on what ISS is.
http://www.department56mall.com/images/ ... -59345.jpg

Hopefully not the target you alluded to... http://www.reuters.com/article/domestic ... 4420080220

Hopefully not the RPG you alluded to...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_propelled_grenade

[emc]

Rocket Propelled Grenade??? perish the thought... but it would be interesting in zeroG trying to move out of the way... kinda like Role Playing in some outer space Game.