[achtung]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11304559

* Swantz crosses fingers

Please let this happen. It'll make the ISS worth something.

[Flipside]

That would be wonderful, both from a scientific and a political perspective.

* Flipside crosses his fingers too.

[Thaeris]

This, for all technical purposes, should be entirely doable right now as well. Hell, we did this in the late 60's, damnit!

The only real problem is getting the funding...

And actually, the far more interesting concept is the actual deployment and implementation of the vehicle itself. This project, if it gets the go-ahead, could possilby make for the first purpose built, non-orbital, manned spacecraft to be assembled... in space. Essentially, if the idea is research, then enough space to do research and deploy any possible test systems is essential. Rather than send up a single large space vehicle, which itself will be limited in volume due to launch vehicle power and size constraints, we might consider an approach similar to the building of the ISS and Mir themselves - we send up multiple space vessels with moduar components - then we assemble those components at the ISS.

When we're done, we lauch the vessel. When the vessel is finished with its mission, it returns to the ISS. And when we need it once more, we send it out on another mission.

 

[General Battuta]

This is the approach that's always seemed most sensible for a manned Mars mission - LEO assembly piecewise.

[NGTM-1R]

Work, dammit...

[Mongoose]

Hey, it worked in Armageddon, right?

[Kosh]

For missions away from the Earth it makes a lot more sense to to have "space only" ships that will never enter the Earth's atmosphere than what we have been planning. This way the ship can go faster, be bigger, etc since it wont have any of the limitations that an atomospheric capable craft would have......

[Nuke]

i sure as hell wouldnt mind them using the iss as a shipyard in space. we would also need fuel depots (ion thruster propellant doesnt use up that much space), junkyards (stop throwing your perfectly good used space ship and satellite hulls into the atmosphere!), warehouses, and all that stuff. we could capture apophis and use it as a space station, and space mining testbed. theres lots of things we should and could be doing, but were not. we also need to stop making disposable space ships. once a ship is used up its fuel (or gets close to it), that ship needs to be put into a parking orbit where it can be serviced. when a future mission comes along, that needs it, re repair and refuel the ship and use it for the mission.

[Grizzly]

But if we make the ISS bigger, and bigger, won't it increase the chances of it being hit by an asteroid and breaking up in the lower athmossphere?

[Kosh]

If there's an asteroid big enough to knock it out of orbit then we've probably got bigger problems.

[The E]

Also, in a catastrophic breakdown like that, it's far more likely that the pieces will burn up on reentry, not to mention that it'll take a while (The ISS orbit isn't stable IIRC, it requires control burns every now and then).

[Mikes]

If there's an asteroid big enough to knock it out of orbit then we've probably got bigger problems.

A mere "handful" of asteroid would blow the ISS to kingdom come .... if it goes just fast enough.

[watsisname]

The ISS is at risk of getting taken out by a meteor or orbital debris all the time.  Indeed there have already been numerous instances of them having to make an evasive maneuver due to orbital debris that got too close for comfort.

Increasing the size of the ISS only means it's just slightly harder to avoid the risk that is always there to begin with, since you have to move a more massive object.

[Bobboau]

but it's not like it has missed those collisions by a few feet, it is after all called space because there is a lot of it. if the ISS was increased by a factor of 10 it wouldn't make it any more or less of a target so long as the weight to thrust ratio was kept the same.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Yes, please do...

Also, like Bob said, they take a margin of a couple kilometers at least if they know something big is passing by. Whether the station itself is 100 or 200 metres long wouldn't really matter.

[Nuke]

at the scale of space, compairing a car to an aircraft carrier is like compairing an electron with a proton, or a grain of sand with a fleck of dust. its a tiny target regardless. the only reason we have to concern about them is that space is full of more junk than we think it is.

i still think we should leave every scrap of space debrits we can in an orbital junk yard, and thus bring the art of kludge into the final frontier. soon we will be flying space ships held together by duct tape and bailing wire.

[SpardaSon21]

 
We aren't Orks.

[Mongoose]

i still think we should leave every scrap of space debrits we can in an orbital junk yard, and thus bring the art of kludge into the final frontier. soon we will be flying space ships held together by duct tape and bailing wire.

Didn't you learn anything from Mackie?  That's no way to fly a ship.

[Nuke]

i still think we should leave every scrap of space debrits we can in an orbital junk yard, and thus bring the art of kludge into the final frontier. soon we will be flying space ships held together by duct tape and bailing wire.

Didn't you learn anything from Mackie?  That's no way to fly a ship.

seriously! think about it. its like mad max in space!

[Klaustrophobia]

i've kludged on a fusion reactor, but i think spacecraft is where i'm going to have to draw the line.