Space Station Concepts

[blackstar]

Wondering if anyone knows or could find the name of the Director of Truss Structures for McDonnell Douglas in the final days of Freedom's design.

I can't remember or find it. I'm writing a memoir about my non-linear design to replace the platform's equilateral triangle truss structures that we were R&D'ing before congress pulled the plug!

Have you checked to see if there is an alumni group for people who worked on their space systems? If it exists, you can ask there. Explain up front why you are looking.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Startup wants to build a space station to refuel satellites

Orbit Fab hopes to charge $20m for a hydrazine refill – and you thought fuel prices down here were bad!

www.theregister.com

 

[steelpillow]

Startup wants to build a space station to refuel satellites

Orbit Fab hopes to charge $20m for a hydrazine refill – and you thought fuel prices down here were bad!

www.theregister.com

Can't think of a better place to store hydrazine. Oh, wait, maybe geosynchronous would be better.

 

[publiusr]

But no boil-off I presume?

 

[Byeman]

Startup wants to build a space station to refuel satellites

Orbit Fab hopes to charge $20m for a hydrazine refill – and you thought fuel prices down here were bad!

www.theregister.com

Can't think of a better place to store hydrazine. Oh, wait, maybe geosynchronous would be better.

Not really.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Vast Space to develop artificial-gravity space station

Vast Space, a Southern California startup founded by cryptocurrency billionaire Jed McCaleb, plans to establish an artificial-gravity space station in low Earth orbit.

spacenews.com

 

[publiusr]

I could see a wet stage version of that sent to Titan as a fractionating column:

Fractionating column - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

--but unmanned.

Now, would this feel some of the same forces a falling chimney encounters?

The Physics of the Falling Chimney: Why they all break when falling - Probing the Universe

When a tall structure (such as a chimney) is tipped over, it almost always breaks in mid-air as it falls. The real question here is why this

probingphysics.com

I would think a torus might also be better able to generate a mini-magnetosphere---and house--perhaps--a tokamak due to how it is built.

 

[fightingirish]

Space Station Freedom
Space Station Freedom was a NASA-led multi-national project proposed in the 1980s to construct a permanently crewed space station in low Earth orbit. Despite initial approval by President Ronald Reagan and a public announcement in the 1984 State of the Union Address, the ambitious project faced significant budget cuts and delays. Ultimately, a scaled-down version of Freedom evolved into the US Orbital Segment (USOS) of the International Space Station (ISS). [...]

Video:

View: https://youtu.be/-l-bkSxhZSg?si=0tropEj0RlS45DQr

Link:

https://youtu.be/-l-bkSxhZSg?si=0tropEj0RlS45DQr

Dear mods, if necessary, please feel free to move this post to a more suitable topic.

 

[publiusr]

A question if I may:

Suppose all but the truss and the solar panels were deorbited...leaving solar arrays intact.

Could that become a solar electric tug and spiral out of more arrays and an argon tank in place of the manned modules?

 

[martinbayer]

A question if I may:

Suppose all but the truss and the solar panels were deorbited...leaving solar arrays intact.

Could that become a solar electric tug and spiral out of more arrays and an argon tank in place of the manned modules?

Even if that separation were possible to be executed cleanly, then for what ultimate mission objective/purpose? Also, keep in mind things like https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20030068268/downloads/20030068268.pdf. What exactly are you angling for with your tug idea?

 

[publiusr]

I remember some art from a TA Heppenheimer book where a box kite spacecraft was a solar electric tug---with the claim (if memory serves) that it could slowly spiral out a 100 ton payload.

I figure Starship could put trusselators up to add to the ISS truss, rather like what Dennis Wingo proposed.

That might allow reduced Starship refueling---unmanned Starship spirals out with a faster capsule meeting up with it.

 

[skyblue]

A question if I may:

Suppose all but the truss and the solar panels were deorbited...leaving solar arrays intact.

Could that become a solar electric tug and spiral out of more arrays and an argon tank in place of the manned modules?

What's the point though, the tech has moved on? ISS solar panels are 25-30 year old technology, and degraded by all that time in space.

Solar panels on gen 3 Starlink will be nearly as wide as ISS's arrays, and 100 of them will launch on each Starship.

 

[publiusr]

I would just keep adding them.

Here is some Space Freighter art I haven’t seen elsewhere

Electricity from Space: The 1970s DOE/NASA Solar Power Satellite Studies

The story of spaceflight told through missions and programs that did not happen - that is, the great majority of them.

spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com

 

[Byeman]

What's the point though, the tech has moved on? ISS solar panels are 25-30 year old technology, and degraded by all that time in space.

Solar panels on gen 3 Starlink will be nearly as wide as ISS's arrays, and 100 of them will launch on each Starship.

ISS panels were updated with new smaller ones. They were replaced with smaller ones positioned in front of the original ones.

Roll Out Solar Array - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Byeman]

A question if I may:

Suppose all but the truss and the solar panels were deorbited...leaving solar arrays intact.

Could that become a solar electric tug and spiral out of more arrays and an argon tank in place of the manned modules?

They were already replaced.