Space Stations As I have said in the past, I usually write articles about one month to a month and a half before posting them. now that I only post 3 days a week.. I woke up today to the news the SpaceX rescue rocket has docked at the space station. I hope by the time you read this; the astronauts who were stranded, will be home. The idea that a powerful country like the United States would leave astronauts stranded on the space station for so long is unbelievable, both to the astronauts and their families. Speaking about astronauts and space stations, there is a lot of talk about what new ones might look like. When the Germans began to design their space station in 1945 which was when the war was all but over, they put something into their design we failed to put on ours and that was artificial gravity in the form of centrifugal force. The design called for a wheel shaped space station which would rotate to supply this force. From what I have read this was not a perfect solution to the lack of gravity since the further away a person is from the hub, the greater the force exerted. Still, it would probably be much better for the astronauts than having no gravity at all. The station being designed was not a peaceful place. It was to have a devastating solar powered beam gun which would have theoretically been able to destroy structures on earth as the station passed over them. One has to wonder why they wasted the time to design this space station when they must have known the war was lost by then and also the fact, they didn’t have a rocked powerful enough or sophisticated enough to be able to put it into orbit. I have a thought about this, but it is just a guess. Maybe scientists like Wernher von Braun and others wanted this to fall into American hands so to ensure their value as scientists and not be locked in a prison or tried at Nuremberg, Germany for war crimes which all or most of them committed including von Braun. One company had an idea for an inflatable space station module and now others are also trying to develop them for sale. While I am fascinated by the idea, I can’t help but think I would never want to be in space inside one. Actually, I have no idea why since they might even be safer. I would love to see tests conducted on them in space. What I have found out is some of the materials in at least some of them include Vectran. The material is said to be stronger than steel when inflated. Some of the tests which were conducted include over pressurizing them to the point they almost burst. I initially thought there could be no protection in an inflatable space station from micrometeoroids but I was wrong. The modules are built in layers, and the outside layer is made to protect from micrometeoroids. Some even have protection from radiation and even made to protect somewhat from space debris hits. Since they are inflatable, they can take up less room in a rocket launching them because they can be folded and not inflated until they are in orbit, meaning they are cheaper to launch than parts to a traditional space station. By the way, it turns out an inflatable module was tested for a year in space and held up even with micrometeoroid hits. It was also found the radiation count in the module was the same as the rest of the International Space Station it was attached to at the time. Meanwhile other tests are being conducted to determine longevity of an inflatable structure. Every country would love to have its own space station, but unfortunately for them they neither have the ability to launch one into orbit or maybe the means to pay the cost. They are getting close however and there are a couple of countries advancing in rocketry and satellites which might try soon. India plans to have it own space station by 2035 and is even planning to land people on the moon by 2040. While there is no announcement about South Korea wanting a space station in the future, some believe it is on their future agenda. It is being said the European Union will have their own space station by 2028. It seems Airbus is now their main contractor for the construction. One of the most amazing things which hasn’t happened or maybe we just don’t know about is the fact weapons seem to have been kept out of space. In the past we know about a Soviet space station which was designed with a cannon, some say it was fired once, while others say it was so powerful the Soviets were afraid to fire it because it might knock the space station out of orbit. It had been installed on Salyut 3. Supposedly, it was installed to prevent the station from being boarded by a hostel force, us. So far, the biggest space station ever put into orbit is the current International Space Station. Five different space agencies had a hand in its construction. The countries or continent the five agencies represent are, the United States, Canada, Russia, Japan and Europe. I remember when this was proposed being surprised by Russia taking part. There seems to be a change in the direction of the construction of space stations, it looks like the commercial sector is going to take it over, but I suspect the governments of the world may still want some which have more of a military bend and maybe even secret ones. For years secret things have been going on in space and some people believe we have a secret space station much further out which is shielded from detection. Both the U.S. and China have a space plane they send up for extended missions and these missions are secret. The planes are not permanent fixtures in space but which sometimes have missions exceeding one year in duration, before they come back to earth. Time is relative and in relatively short time we will start to see space stations around other bodies in our solar system such as the moon and others. Having a space station around near a particular asteroid might be very helpful for mining that asteroid. Things are going to change and soon we are going to have a much stronger presence in space.
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