Air leak in Russian section of ISS continues
Dmitri Rogozon, the head of Roscosmos, yesterday announced that they will be sending to ISS special equipment for investigating a new air leak in the Russia section of ISS.
This apparently is not the 1-2 inch long crack in the Zvezda module that leaked previously and was found and sealed. Moreover, the article at the link admits that their astronauts found no sign of damage on the outside of Zvezda when they did a space walk in November, suggesting that this first leak was not caused by a micrometeorite hit.
All the known facts so far strongly suggest that the leaks are because of Zvezda’s 20-year-old age, and might be stress fractures caused by the three dozen or so dockings and undockings that have occurred there since its launch.
That the Russians are being so vague about the entire matter reinforces that conclusion. They have never released an image of the first leak, and provided no details about the equipment being sent to the station.
And if Zvezda is beginning to crack due to age, I am not sure what repairs they can do to stop it.
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Empty it, Isolate it, and kick it free.
Pay Musk to build a replacement and launch fast.
Don’t just quit the Fed. Also quit NASA (at least in the current configuration). Limit NASA to state money management and absolute basic research (space astronomy, planetary research, future technologies, …). No government funding for manned spaceflight that serves no purpose that justifies the enormous government sums that are being spent on it.
Mr. Zimmerman, I understand a little bit your enthusiasm (or rather your obsession) for the planet Mars. It is of course worthwhile to learn as much scientifically as possible about it, although the study of the planet Venus – in terms of knowledge for the development of our planet Earth – is at least, if not more important than Mars in my opinion.
By the way, I don’t believe in the colonization of Mars. He is dead and will just be a beautiful, fascinating corpse in the future. Why should Mars (its atmosphere corresponds technically to a bad vacuum) be colonized if hardly anyone wants to live in the deserts and polar regions of the Earth or in Siberia? That are areas – with right atmosphere, gravity and radiation protection – which are a 1000 times more livable than deadly Mars!