http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060913/ap_on_sc/space_shuttle
I’m a bit concerned about this. I realize that things get clumsy with those gloves and all, but it seems to me that losing bolts (and spatulas) ought to be a major concern, considering the damage they can do. I don’t know exactly the procedures used now, but the article doesn’t mention any. There oughtta be.
As long as the bolt remains nearby there shouldn’t be a problem (and, in the short term, it will stay close. It can’t have gotten much of a kick away from the shuttle, and it’s still subject to the same laws of motion. read Arthur C. Clarke’s story “Jupiter 5” sometime.
But as time goes by and atmospheric drag and other effects start to shift the orbit around, and as other mission go up into slightly different orbits, that bolt can cause real harm if its velocity is significantly different from that of the object it encounters. Psint chips habve caused damage to windows and the like.
Isn’t there already an awful lot of junk up there from all the previous missions? Wikipedia gives the amount at 100 tons of space debris currently orbiting the planet.
Obviously, we don’t want to add to that by dumping stuff in space, but this isn’t really a new problem.
Granted, and I’ve known of it for a long time. But “Oh, well, it’s just another bolt in the pile” doesn’t cut it when that bolt can come along and puncture the next mission’s air tank.
In the novel 2001 the nutsd securing the AE-35 unit were attached with wires so they’d stay in place. Dave or whoever had to cut them loose to get the panel off. I don’t recall how he kept everything together after that, but losing them to space wasn’t acceptable.
Y’know what this sounds like? Sounds like me working on my lawn mower this spring. “Drat, lost that screw – oh, well, they always put too many screws in these damn things anyway.” Hey, here’s an entrepreneurial idea: Ace in Space! Talk about your Helpful Hardware Man!
Since the lost bolt is orbiting with the station, how long before it moves away and starts to re-enter? Would something that small survive re entry or would it burn up? Who is liable should the bolt kill somebody?
I was wondering that. If the Space Station is in orbital equilibrium (I guess that’s a term…) and the bolt was tossed towards space, wouldn’t it float away forever?
Nope. It’s still partway down a gravity well. It’d have to be thrown away with sufficient oomph to escape the gravity well to keep on going. Otherwise, for small perturbations it simply executes oscillating motion around its original orbit. For bigger pushes, it goes into an elliptical orbit that still isn’t far from the original. To make it go away, either down to the earth or out into space, requires effort – the kind that means strapping a rocket onto it, or firing it out of something.
A small push away from the original orbit will just put the bolt into a new stable orbit of its own. The only thing that would cause it to oscillate around the original orbit would be if the space station was big enough to have a significant gravity well of its own.
The stable orbit is viewable as an oscillation around the original orbit. The period of oscillation is an orbital period – it doesn’t look like a lot of wiggles around the original orbit, just one. Plot it out and see.
Ok, now this might be a bit of a vague question, but… how fast would the bolt have to be propelled in an earthward direction to cause it to snag the atmosphere and re-enter before, say, completing another whole orbit? I know that this wouldn’t be as effective as just slowing it down and allowing it to drop out of orbit, but humour me… WAGs and educted approximations are just fine - faster than a bullet from an average handgun?
A small push away from the original orbit will just put the bolt into a new stable orbit of its own. The only thing that would cause it to oscillate around the original orbit would be if the space station was big enough to have a significant gravity well of its own.