All your Rambus are belong to us - David Icke's Lizard Wizard
|
|
|
ISS coolly goes where BP couldn’t
MISSION CREW on the ISS space station have been saved from a cooling disaster, and yes, BP should be reading this, after a circuit breaker tripped and nothing happened.
On its web site the ISS said that the potential cooling outage was spotted in time and saved its personnel from a sticky, too warm situation.
"The station is in a stable configuration with most systems receiving cooling and many systems operating with redundancy following the installation of jumper cables from the Destiny Lab's power system overnight," it said.
"The crew is not in any danger and is monitoring systems and relaxing on an otherwise off duty day."
The ISS team has already made one attempt to fix the cooler, which was unsuccesful, and is currently planning a couple of spacewalks during which they will consider how insignificant we are in the universe, then stop wool-gathreing and attempt to fix the broken pump. µ
Tags: Boffin watch
Share this:
Share
3 spacewalks instead of 2.
Not getting round to it until Friday, then out again Monday to connect up the hoses.
By the way, for those whose education also skipped refrigeration, I see from "Fundamentals of Classical Thermodynamics", Wylen, Sonntag; Wiley, 1973 that they're likely using an absorption system. My only real clue is "pump" versus compressor, but since it's a more efficient way, seems likely. I'm slightly intrigued by this because an ammonia absorption system can make use of a *heat* source for putting energy into the refrigerant with the pump only moving around fluid, and therefore would be directly usable on solar power with rather simple heat collector. It may be what the old Crosley "Icy Ball" used, too. -- Unfortunately, I think ammonia is corrosive besides unpleasant if leaks, and probably only NASA can afford stainless steel systems.
As I recall that's from the end of the 19th century, at most early 20th. -- See how Luddite NASA is? Old tech is the best.