| Werher von Braun's Idea |
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| Courtesy: NASA |
The idea of space stations has been around for a relatively long time, there were mentions of such ideas in 19th century science fiction. Since then several visionaries have spoken about them, most notably Kanstantin Tsiolkovsky and Hermann Oberth, both instrumental in the birth of modern rocketry (if you have not been there click here to go TheSpaceSite.com page on the approach of modern rocketry).
The first fully documented analysis of this idea came from
Wernher Von Braun, who, in a groundbreaking article in 1952
produced a vision of how the current technology of the time could
be used to put into orbit a permanent space station. This work
was so far ahead of its time that it came a full 5 years before
Sputnik 1 was to become the world's first artificial
satellite.
Von Braun's vision of the space station has become the most
widely accepted idea of what a space station should look
like.
Von Braun's vision was to see a space station as a platform to allow interplanetary travel and had included the idea for proposal in the Apollo program, of course it was decided that in the Apollo program rockets would be launched directly from the Earth. The USSR's space program director, Sergei Korolev, had designed large manned space stations and even tested mock ups of them in the 1960's, but none of the proposals where approved for full development.
The Early Space StationsThere was no further development with the designs of space stations until after Apollo, in 1970 the US had announced plans to develop a space station and a reusable space vehicle, however the space station was quietly dropped, mainly down to an ever reducing budget.
| Salyut 1 Plan |
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| © Mark Wade |
The USSR, still smarting from their defeat in the race to the moon, saw the race for a space station to be their chance of revenge and pooled all their resources into it. They borrowed parts off of their launch vehicle, the Soyuz, and some technologies that had already been developed in the 1960's and April 19 1971 saw Salyut 1 become the worlds first manned space station.
The first attempt by cosmonauts to occupy Salyut 1 ended in failure as they could not open the hatch to enter. The second attempt was to end in tragedy, the dock was successful and the men spent 24 days aboard the station. On their return home their re-entry capsule depressurised, which in space, of course, was fatal.
Many design modifications to improve safety was to follow, as
well as the decision the all men would wear their pressurised
suits in all launch and re-entry procedures. The amount of time
required to make these modifications was in the order of 2 years,
so the USSR decided to bring down Salyut 1 in October 1971.
During this time the US came up with the idea of Skylab, this was
not the same idea as their 1970 idea, but was a much smaller
improvised idea in reaction to the disaster of Salyut 1, and the
race was on for the first 'truly' successful manned
space station.
Skylab - Cutaway |
Skylab in Orbit |
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| Both images; Courtesy: NASA | ||
The USSR space station program was back on in 1973 and, in an
attempt to beat Skylab into orbit Salyut 2 was launched in April
that year, however before the crew arrived the space station was
to have a catastrophic failure when an explosion onboard ruptured
the hull and the station depressurised and it was left to burn up
in the atmosphere.
Then, in May 1973, a secret space station, called Cosmos 557,
also failed before the crew arrived and again the station was
left to burn up.
So May 14 1973 saw the US's first manned space station
launched, Skylab, billed as the first 'truly'
successful manned station, a crew quickly set a new record of
continuous time in space by staying for 58 days, and a later crew
increased this to 84 days.
The station was abandoned in February 1974, after 171 days.
The USSR then sent up Salyut 3, the first military space
station, in June 1974, another civilian station, Salyut 4, in
December 1974 and Salyut 5, the second military station, in June
1976. There were constant technical problems with launching and
docking and almost to prove the USSR's bad luck even one of the
cosmonauts became ill and had to return.
This meant that the USSR had failed to surpass the US record of
84 consecutive days in space, although there were of course many
successes in other areas and some valuable research was
conducted.
Salyut 4 - Cutaway Courtesy: NASA |
Then came the USSR's second generation of space station, the biggest limiting time factor had been the amount of available supplies. The new generation's design included two docking bays, one for the crew and the other for visiting ships or unmanned cargo ships that could bring supplies. On Sept 29 1977 Salyut 6 was launched and one of its crew set a new continuous record in space by going on for 185 consecutive days.
Salyut 6 - Cutaway Images; © Mark Wade |
Then 3 months before Salyut 6 was deorbited, Salyut 7 was
launched on 19 April 1982. Salyut 7 suffered many problems such
fuel line damage and accidental cut off of ground control while
the station was unmanned, despite this the problems were resolved
and a new record in space was set of 237 days.
Continually pushing the barriers like this allowed more and more
information to be gained on the effect of space upon the human
body. It allowed a greater analysis of the effects of living and
working in space as there was more information made available
with each extension of the time spent in space.
In 1984 US President Reagan announced that NASA was to develop a space station and all friends and allies were invited to participate.
It took until 1989 for a final agreement between everyone to be reached.
Mir Space StationDuring this time the USSR launched Mir (core module launched Feb 19 1986) and this space station was to change the game. Mir stayed up for a total of 15 years, setting new records of time in space, taking the longest continuous time to 438 days (cosmonaut Valery Polyakov). The secret to the success was that unlike the Salyut program, Mir was designed for expansion, new modules could be docked on to the core module, which greatly enhanced its long term durability.
Mir Plan |
Mir in Orbit
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| Both images; Courtesy: NASA | ||
On October 5, 1992 the 'Implementing Agreement on Human
Space Flight Co-operation' was signed that detailed many
Shuttle-Mir co-operation plans.
In 1993, additions to the 1992 agreement increased co-operation
to the Shuttle-Mir program to include several shuttle rendezvous
with Mir, American residencies on Mir and plans for the
international space station to include the Russian
Federation.
Shuttle-Mir 1 |
Shuttle-Mir 2
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| Both images; Courtesy: NASA | ||
Mir is translated as 'peace' and without doubt the
Shuttle-Mir program contributed to world peace as the Russian
space station opened up to allow the US Shuttle to dock with it
and for US astronauts and international scientists to go on
board.
This co-operation allowed Mir to provide a large scientific
laboratory and for the shuttle to provide to provide
transportation of both people and supplies.
From Feb 1994 to June 1998 the Shuttle made 11 flights to Mir
and American astronauts spent seven residencies aboard.
Mir's life was extended to allow an international platform for
constructing the ISS.
Following President Reagan's first announcement in 1984 and the final agreement in 1989, the international Space Station now represents an unprecedented level of global co-operation. 16 different nations are in partnership in the project and again we see that space exploration provides a method to promote peace within the world.
These are exciting times as the ISS itself clearly ushers in a new impetus in man's exploration of space.
Components of ISS Image Courtesy:NASA |
The first piece of the international space station, Zarya
(translated as Sunrise) was launched unmanned in Nov 1998. Soon
after the second piece, Unity, was taken up aboard the Shuttle
and the crew connected the two pieces together in an act of
symbolism as much as anything else.
The station is being built in orbit with more than 40 flights
included in the full program, each delivering its components for
assembly by either robots or humans performing 'space walks'.
Under the current schedule of planned flights the station will
not be complete until 2006, however the station is operational
and there are some experiments underway already aboard the
station.
When completed the station will include 6 laboratories and
provide more space for research than any spacecraft ever built.
The main objective will be, of course, scientific research,
particularly in the areas of microgravity and effects of space on
the human body.
Well...for the writers of science fiction, and in the dreams
of many these stations will be the ancestors of highly advanced,
permanent space stations of the future.
These future stations will be very large with all the creature
comforts of home (e.g. gravity!) and will be used for highly
advanced research, for commercial, profit making activities (from
growing crystals for the electronics industry to space tourism)
and as a platform to the planets and perhaps even the stars.
It is clear that we are not there yet, so how far have we come?
Well it is obvious (even just be looking at the photos!) that
even the most recent effort, the international space station, is
woefully short of the technological ideas of Von Braun's in 1952
as well as the space stations that science fiction writers
imagined for decades.
It is not just the way the space stations look, the actual living
conditions are a long way from the dreams of the future, for
example living on the International Space Station won't be like
Star Trek!
In the foreseeable future the astronauts will have to deal with
very small, cramped conditions, there will be no artificial
gravity so they will always be 'weightless' and they
will not have the comfort of those wonderful science fiction
inventions of inertial dampers. More critically life in space
will not suddenly become like the safe, routine lives of science
fiction, missions will continue to be dangerous and challenging
for some time to come yet.
However, this is not to say that the space stations of past and present have been a waste of time. The main purpose of all the civilian space stations that have been put into orbit has been to advance our scientific knowledge, and each station in turn has successfully achieved this goal.
The research aboard the stations has focused mainly in two broad areas:
- Studying the possibilities and problems that space poses on life and biological processes, areas of research include: Microgravity Sciences, Life Space Sciences, and Space Technology Development
- Observational sciences, areas of research include: Earth Observation, Astronomy and Earth and Space Sciences.
The success of our space stations in accumulating knowledge in these areas could well be paving the way towards the dreams of science fiction, and the ISS could well be another stepping stone along that path.
As detailed in the previous section the effect of the recent shuttle Columbia disaster on the space program is, at the time of writing, unknown. Almost certainly the development program of the International Space Station will be put back, and developments of future space stations to allow people to live and work in space now seem further away than ever. It is no longer just a technological constraint we are facing, we are facing a safety issue, and it must be resolved before we can continue in our quest, but it must be resolved quickly to get us back on track. Once a technological breakthrough is achieved we must be ready to go by making sure all the other important issues are resolved.
Go on to Why has the quest to explore space slowed almost to a standstill?
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