Posts by imanidiot

Re: Too Soon.

Are you a friend of AmanfromMars?

Re: Perfect workers

I've never seen German employees behaving like robots. They do suffer from very strict adherence to hierarchy though. The boss is the boss, and you don't discuss things or issues to anyone above your direct boss or outside your own branch.

Re: Build a New One

See my reply above. It's on the books and in development.

The Roman Space Telescope will be based on the donated NRO spy sats

Re: So you're telling me there's a chance

I think I listed all 6 ;)

2 on EVA

2 spotters

1 canadarm operator

1 orbiter operations/pilot/engineer

The problem with doing spacewalks by venting the entire dragon is that everyone has to be in EVA suits, and there's no-one left in shirtsleeves environment to do the checklists and spotting and such. This seriously hampers operations. On top of that you lose a layer of safety, because what if you can't get the spacecraft re-pressurized? The pressure suits the crews wear during launch and docking operations are not suitable for long term wear (I think they're about 8 hour max) and depend on the capsule providing air and cooling. On shuttle they had a contingency plan of riding down in the cargo bay if the airlock failed, but that's not an option on dragon. AFAIK dragon also doesn't have the provisions needed to purposefully vent and re-pressurize on orbit, nor do I think the forward hatch is really suited for going on an EVA in terms of maneuvering space inside the craft (EVA suits are big, bulky and not a lot of flex). Gemini was a lot simpler in that regard, just open the hatch and stand up. Then sit back down and close the hatch (Which almost went wrong on Gemini 4)

The only thing I could imagine is either SpaceX designing a hab module that can be launched on an F9 containing an airlock that they can then rendezvous with in orbit, but while the design and development speed of SpaceX has been is impressive I doubt they'd have that ready before HST re-enters in 2028 (barring a robotic rendezvous and orbit raising mission). The cost of such an undertaking would probably approaching building a new Hubble class space scope too, so not really worth the effort. Alternatively IF starship development takes a leap and they have an orbital vehicle, I can imagine them outfitting an early model of this as such a hab module and use this or using an early cargo version to capture and raise the HST orbit to create some extra time. However, right now I don't see Starship getting developed that fast (even with the Human Lunar Lander system development)

Re: Build a New One

WFIRST/Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is in development. It's a much wider field of view, but much higher resolution instrument and iirc covers similar wavelengths of photons.

Re: Faulty backup computer

I'd find it strange radiation damage (which, by it's very nature is random) would damage both computers in exactly the same way.

Re: Faulty backup computer

Since both the main and backup show the exact same problem the thinking is now the problem lies outside the payload computer itself. As indicated in the article the main suspects now are either what amounts to basically a co-processor/IO board or a power supply issue keeping the memory and compute modules from working. There's spares for both of those aboard too, but "cutting over" to them is a very complex procedure nobody has ever done before (If I understand correctly they've never even tried this on the hardware analogs here on earth and getting it wrong will likely render the whole payload computer definitively out of action) so understandably they're taking their time to make sure they get everything right and try it on the hardware here on earth first before sending the commands to HST in orbit

Re: So you're telling me there's a chance

All previous Hubble Service Missions were executed with the crew of 6. 2 on EVA to perform the work, a spotter inside the shuttle to assist with their respective work, keep track of checklist items, what work was performed, etc, one person operating the Canadarm to maneuver one of the astronauts or equipment around as they worked and a person to monitor and operate the orbiter. IE, during the actual servicing all 6 crew members were busy on tasks. While it might be possible to reduce the crew count somewhat, you're not going to do a servicing mission on something as complex as Hubble with a crew less than a minimum of 4 imho. A 6 member crew really hits the sweetspot of "everyone has work to do" without overloading any individual.

And even IF the shuttle had been still flying, preparing a service mission after a fault like this would probably still take another year or 2 to train and prepare tools and hardware.

Re: Maximum weekly working hours

Had a short period of that in the past too. Fortunately we were right in a period of discussing the structure of our work and client contract negotiations. Our boss was somehow genuinely surprised when 6 of us unanimously stated we would much rather actually be at work and working while on call (and shift the weekend if working, so work on Saturday and Sunday, then get Monday and Tuesday off the next week). Took a bit of haggling and back and forth but in the end it ended up with us just working 2 alternating shifts and 1 weekend a month, and being on call during work.

The problem as I see it here is that the sort of people on the boss/manager side are often the sort of high/over-achievers that genuinely don't see a problem with always being able to take a call (and don't understand why just picking up the phone like a glorified secretary isn't sufficient). They are so used to always having their phone on them and answering it at any time that it seems normal and logical to them. While to us techies it meant being unable to truly just enjoy the day because "being able to take a call" and getting to the client site within 1 hour had to always be in our minds. For some that basically meant not being able to go anywhere as they lived nearly an hour away to begin with. So for us working early/late 2 shifts with the occasional weekend was ideal.

Re: This is unnecessary

I'd have made a written and signed statement about the incident and handed that to the junior. Plus told him that if they end up in court over that new contract I witnessed the exchange and am willing to testify against the boss. (And advise him to go to a lawyer about having the boss/company tear up the new contract with threats of legal action about coercion). Mention the L word and many many companies suddenly reconsider their hardline stance.

Re: Not office hours? No contact

While I can see the point, people need to realize that shit like this is not a good way to stay on the "keep" list. Very often it's not your immediate boss that is in charge of selecting who gets fired anyway and even if he is, it's unlikely he'd fire you JUST for not doing his bidding at 8PM that one time. Proving you're good at your job is more likely to keep you around. (If you have ambitions to take over your boss's job, don't show him that unless you can't avoid it. That's a surefire way to get on the shitlist)

Re: Well, Quite Frankly...

Not quite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman_Space_Telescope

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (the telescope formerly known as WFIRST) is still on the books and has been approved to move ahead. Basically an NRO spy satellite converted for Infra-red space telescope use, very similar in size and capability to Hubble (though wider field of view iirc).

The hope/plan is that this new scope will be capable of robotic servicing.

Re: Well, Quite Frankly...

How so exactly? What use is putting an HST class scope that far out into the void? (I think HST wouldn't even work that far away from the sun as the solar panels are unlikely to produce much power)

Re: Candid question

Given the recency I think several astronomers are either furiously writing research scope documentation to request scope time on one of the big terrestrial ones or waiting in the queue for scope time on one of the big terrestrial ones.

Re: If Microsoft

Most Mechanical engineers working with Solidworks (Or NX, Catia, ProEngineer/Creo, Fusion, etc) don't really care much about the operating system as long as it's sufficiently secure and doesn't regularly crash (which is often more down to the CAD software than the operating system). They most of the day inside the CAD environment anyway, so imho it really doesn't matter much if it's Windows or MacOS or some flavour of Linux running that software.

Re: Excellent engineering

Doesn't help. Most of the dust on the panels is very very fine dust that is clinging to the surface through static charge, so eve, having them 90 degrees to the surface wouldn't help much. There is some theorizing that having the panels at an angle to the winds MIGHT help but that's not much more than vague theory afaik.

I think only the footage of the archery player standing up with assistance of the exoskeleton is actually fully real. In the shoot of the blind person standing up the footage of the Spot is clearly either blue screen or CGI. Same with the dancing girl. The rest seems to be either artsy B-roll footage or CGI

Re: And shut the door on your way out ...

I think you're remembering an incident from the first service mission where one of the astronauts anchored himself to HST so that he could put more force on the door using his shoulder:

(From: https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-61/mission-sts-61.html)

"The astronauts struggled with the latches on the gyro door when two of four gyro door bolts did not reset after the astronauts installed two new gyro packages. Engineers who evaluated the situation speculated that when the doors were unlatched and opened, a temperature change might have caused them to expand or contract enough to keep the bolts from being reset.

With the efforts of determined astronauts in Endeavour's payload bay and persistent engineers on the ground, all four bolts finally latched and locked after the two spacewalkers worked simultaneously at the top and bottom of the doors. Musgrave anchored himself at the bottom of the doors with a payload retention device which enabled him to use some body force against the doors. Hoffman, who was attached to the robot arm, worked at the top of the doors. The duo successfully latched the doors when they simultaneously latched the top and bottom latches. "

Also interesting read on the events leading up to SM1 and why it was so important to NASA: https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter16.html

Re: Well tried and comprehensively already field tested .....

Surely you are aware Ireland and (Not so) United Kingdom have a bit of a history? A history that makes far less difference to the rest of the world but definitely influences relations between Ireland and the UK/England? The "lack of love" shall we say certainly extends to both sides of that particular conflict and it's not exactly ancient or forgotten history. The whole Brexit thing hasn't exactly helped ease tensions there either.

Re: Never work

But it does actually GET to (and above) 100km. Unlike that other rich boy's plaything (Virgin "not so" Galactic) that barely scrapes 80 yet pretends to be one of the big boys.