Say goodbye to the ISS

[Harmon Seaver]

On Sun, Feb 02, 2003 at 08:27:06PM -0800, Steve Schear wrote:
> I can't imagine that it would be so difficult to construct a small, 
> remotely-controlled, gyro stabilized, tethered probe that would be carried 
> on all shuttle missions and could be deployed from the cargo bay to closely 
> inspect the exterior of the craft for possible damage.  Even if the shuttle 
> could not be immediately repaired, it could be somehow moored at some part 
> of the station and left there till a repair mission could be effected or 
> perhaps sacrificed by a controlled burn re-entry over an unpopulated area 
> of the earth as some satellites have already ended their days.  In any case 
> astronauts would then not need to "live-test" a possibly damaged shuttle as 
> those on Columbia did Saturday.

   If they had thought there was damage, couldn't they have just done a tethered
space walk to look at it? I thought space walks were a normal practice on both
the shuttle and ISS. 




-- 
Harmon Seaver	
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com