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Petrov: "Anthrocon, Quest Airlock Depressurisation Complete. Airlock is pressure is now equal to space"
Anthrocon: "Roger Petrov, Armian and Thompson standing by for EVA?"
Thompson: "Anthrocon Mission Control, EVA leader Thompson here standing by. Armian is standing by airlock door awaiting go for EVA"
Anthrocon: "Roger, we have all-go at Mission Control for EVA. Proceed to open the airlock"
With those last confirmations, Furronaut Vladimir Petrov, back in the Space Station with the other 6 Furronauts released the airlock's final safeties.
In the Airlock, they were given the all-clear, and the Armadillo took a deep breath, the sound of his lungs echoing in his suit. The air pressure was already a near-perfect vacuum, and his Spacesuit was the only thing keeping him alive; a few layers of fabric and a polycarbonate helmet, holding the pure oxygen atmosphere within his suit. Now, he was about to glimpse out into eternal nothingness, the hatch and kevlar cover the only things that stood between him and the Endless Vacuum of Space.
He pulled back on the airlock's door, swinging it inwards towards himself. He silently mouthed to himself "Dear God, I am ready to face your wonder" and pushed the velcro-held protective flap aside.
It was black, endless black. There was nothing beyond him, not even air, and there would be nothing in the direction of his gaze of Billions of lightyears. Apart from his own breath, the entire world was a deafening silence, sound couldn't travel through nothing.
But then his gaze turned slightly upwards, and the view of an endless expanse of nothing was shattered by the view of everything. Above him stood the arc of an enormous sphere of blue and white. Within its blue, were two large masses of green. This sphere held everything he knew, everyone he loved, and he was now above it all. The sphere was the Earth: His home, and the home of everything and everyone who had ever lived. Viewing its curvature for the first time from Soyuz's Porthole was amazing enough, but now he had an unrestricted view of its endless splendour. As the light reflected off its blue oceans and white clouds, he was transfixed by the sight of the Earth, 300 kilometres beneath him.
The masses were in fact a country, New Zealand to be precise. Below, or should it be above him, was the home of 4 Million people. He was staring down, in whole at the home of 4 Million people. He could barely fathom the thought. It was one thing to view the Earth from a window, and that was already incredible, but it was another to view it from a Spacewalk. The Dillo's eyes scanned up and down the vast blue expa-…
"Hey, Armian" a crackly voice broke the silence and his train of thought, and he turned around from the view of the Earth to the American Coyote behind him, in a similar spacesuit to his own.
"Beautiful isn't it? But we got a job to do, can you move aside and tether yourself?"
"R-right, sorry," Armian sheepishly replied as he moved fully out of the airlock and tethered himself to one of the many grapple points outside. His EVA (Extra Vehicular Activiy, aka "Spacewalk") leader did the same. Armian was going to relish this Spacewalk, all 7 hours of it
(Holy Crapperjacks! It's been...4 months since I submitted something. Hopefully this should be a break in the trend. I've actually been working on this for quite a while, here's the WIP and look when I submitted that)
October 21st, 2015
Bolivian Furronaut Armian, crewmember of Expeditions 43/44/45 to the Interspecies Space Station, was on his second spaceflight. Having already made the History Books by being jointly Bolivia's first Furronaut with fellow Bolivian and lifelong friend Fox Kipijan when the two visited the ISS for 10 days 4 years ago, Armian had now become the first Bolivian to make a Spacewalk.
His first Spaceflight had been aboard the Soyuz, both he and Kipijan were part of Bolivia's Space Program, and military deal with Russia had earned two seats aboard a Soyuz for two fully-fledged Bolivian Furronauts. They enjoyed 10 days aboard the ISS, performing experiments for Bolivian Universities before catching a ride aboard the US Space Shuttle "Bolt" back to Earth.
Then, 6 months later, a Bolivia-Russia Free Trade Agreement included as part of the deal for Bolivia's two Furronauts to join the Russian Furronaut Corps, funded by both governments. Armian then became the first to return to space when he was assigned to ISS Expedition 43/44/45, to spend 6 months abroad the Orbiting Outpost.
He was even trained for a spacewalk during the mission, and now with American Furronaut Fox Thompson Rogers was beginning a 7-hour EVA to install new equipment that was just brought up aboard the British Shuttle, including a Gamma-Ray telescope, a Radio Transmitter, and new cooling pump.
Characters
Armian Copyright
armiandillo
Anthrocon: "Roger Petrov, Armian and Thompson standing by for EVA?"
Thompson: "Anthrocon Mission Control, EVA leader Thompson here standing by. Armian is standing by airlock door awaiting go for EVA"
Anthrocon: "Roger, we have all-go at Mission Control for EVA. Proceed to open the airlock"
With those last confirmations, Furronaut Vladimir Petrov, back in the Space Station with the other 6 Furronauts released the airlock's final safeties.
In the Airlock, they were given the all-clear, and the Armadillo took a deep breath, the sound of his lungs echoing in his suit. The air pressure was already a near-perfect vacuum, and his Spacesuit was the only thing keeping him alive; a few layers of fabric and a polycarbonate helmet, holding the pure oxygen atmosphere within his suit. Now, he was about to glimpse out into eternal nothingness, the hatch and kevlar cover the only things that stood between him and the Endless Vacuum of Space.
He pulled back on the airlock's door, swinging it inwards towards himself. He silently mouthed to himself "Dear God, I am ready to face your wonder" and pushed the velcro-held protective flap aside.
It was black, endless black. There was nothing beyond him, not even air, and there would be nothing in the direction of his gaze of Billions of lightyears. Apart from his own breath, the entire world was a deafening silence, sound couldn't travel through nothing.
But then his gaze turned slightly upwards, and the view of an endless expanse of nothing was shattered by the view of everything. Above him stood the arc of an enormous sphere of blue and white. Within its blue, were two large masses of green. This sphere held everything he knew, everyone he loved, and he was now above it all. The sphere was the Earth: His home, and the home of everything and everyone who had ever lived. Viewing its curvature for the first time from Soyuz's Porthole was amazing enough, but now he had an unrestricted view of its endless splendour. As the light reflected off its blue oceans and white clouds, he was transfixed by the sight of the Earth, 300 kilometres beneath him.
The masses were in fact a country, New Zealand to be precise. Below, or should it be above him, was the home of 4 Million people. He was staring down, in whole at the home of 4 Million people. He could barely fathom the thought. It was one thing to view the Earth from a window, and that was already incredible, but it was another to view it from a Spacewalk. The Dillo's eyes scanned up and down the vast blue expa-…
"Hey, Armian" a crackly voice broke the silence and his train of thought, and he turned around from the view of the Earth to the American Coyote behind him, in a similar spacesuit to his own.
"Beautiful isn't it? But we got a job to do, can you move aside and tether yourself?"
"R-right, sorry," Armian sheepishly replied as he moved fully out of the airlock and tethered himself to one of the many grapple points outside. His EVA (Extra Vehicular Activiy, aka "Spacewalk") leader did the same. Armian was going to relish this Spacewalk, all 7 hours of it
(Holy Crapperjacks! It's been...4 months since I submitted something. Hopefully this should be a break in the trend. I've actually been working on this for quite a while, here's the WIP and look when I submitted that)
October 21st, 2015
Bolivian Furronaut Armian, crewmember of Expeditions 43/44/45 to the Interspecies Space Station, was on his second spaceflight. Having already made the History Books by being jointly Bolivia's first Furronaut with fellow Bolivian and lifelong friend Fox Kipijan when the two visited the ISS for 10 days 4 years ago, Armian had now become the first Bolivian to make a Spacewalk.
His first Spaceflight had been aboard the Soyuz, both he and Kipijan were part of Bolivia's Space Program, and military deal with Russia had earned two seats aboard a Soyuz for two fully-fledged Bolivian Furronauts. They enjoyed 10 days aboard the ISS, performing experiments for Bolivian Universities before catching a ride aboard the US Space Shuttle "Bolt" back to Earth.
Then, 6 months later, a Bolivia-Russia Free Trade Agreement included as part of the deal for Bolivia's two Furronauts to join the Russian Furronaut Corps, funded by both governments. Armian then became the first to return to space when he was assigned to ISS Expedition 43/44/45, to spend 6 months abroad the Orbiting Outpost.
He was even trained for a spacewalk during the mission, and now with American Furronaut Fox Thompson Rogers was beginning a 7-hour EVA to install new equipment that was just brought up aboard the British Shuttle, including a Gamma-Ray telescope, a Radio Transmitter, and new cooling pump.
Characters
Armian Copyright
armiandillo
Category Artwork (Digital) / General Furry Art
Species Mammal (Other)
Size 1280 x 924px
File Size 537 kB
Fun picture, and your story really adds to it. How about some Space-X furrys? Space-X did a superb job of identifying a critical fault less than a second before launch, aborting the launch, verifying and repairing the problem in a few days, and then having a completely successful launch and rendezvous. NASA would have taken months...
I was actually considering how SpaceX should fit into this, because in my Universe there was never a Columbia Disaster, so the Space Shuttle wasn't suddenly judged to be too dangerous and risky, however, it was still an expensive space vehicle.
The FASA's Furry Shuttle Fleet composed of 5 Orbiters, in order of construction: Charlie, Pongo, Balto, Bolt and Peanut.
Charlie was like Space Shuttle Enterprise, built as an aerodynamic test article that was meant to be refitted for spaceworthiness, but the FSAA made major modifications to reduce weight, and decided Charlie would be retired to a museum while Pongo, Balto and Bolt were built.
Then, on January 1986, Space Shuttle Pongo disintegrated, killing all 7 Furronauts on board. The cause was eventually identified as failure on the Rubber O-rings on the SRBs due to the cold day, and the brittle rubber allowed hot gases to leak from the joints and compromise the External Tank.
To bring the fleet back up to 3 vehicles, they decided to Retrofit Charlie for Spaceworthiness, as well as ditch SRBs for LRBs in the name of safety, costs and performance. Space Shuttle Peanut was later built as well. Charlie remains in service, but as the heaviest orbiter is less used to Space Station flights, and more for Servicing the Don Bluth Space Telescope and serving as an orbiting Laboratory while the ISS was under construction
I figured that, by the Time Construction of the ISS was completed in 2007-2008, US Shuttle flights were gradually wound down in frequency. The smaller British Shuttle operated by EFSA could haul heavy supplies and crew to the ISS for a lower operating costs (due to modular design, lighter weight, and less complexity) and the US shuttles were eventually fully retired by 2015, leaving the heavy-lift capability to Europe's British Shuttles (Illustrious, Indefatigable and Immaculate)
In the meantime, the US did exactly what it's doing now, and the CCDev program eventually meant that by 2015 companies like SpaceX were fully operating to launch 7-crew capsules to the ISS for the FASA, but the shift was seamless enough that the United States didn't lose its capability for independent crewed access to space
The FASA's Furry Shuttle Fleet composed of 5 Orbiters, in order of construction: Charlie, Pongo, Balto, Bolt and Peanut.
Charlie was like Space Shuttle Enterprise, built as an aerodynamic test article that was meant to be refitted for spaceworthiness, but the FSAA made major modifications to reduce weight, and decided Charlie would be retired to a museum while Pongo, Balto and Bolt were built.
Then, on January 1986, Space Shuttle Pongo disintegrated, killing all 7 Furronauts on board. The cause was eventually identified as failure on the Rubber O-rings on the SRBs due to the cold day, and the brittle rubber allowed hot gases to leak from the joints and compromise the External Tank.
To bring the fleet back up to 3 vehicles, they decided to Retrofit Charlie for Spaceworthiness, as well as ditch SRBs for LRBs in the name of safety, costs and performance. Space Shuttle Peanut was later built as well. Charlie remains in service, but as the heaviest orbiter is less used to Space Station flights, and more for Servicing the Don Bluth Space Telescope and serving as an orbiting Laboratory while the ISS was under construction
I figured that, by the Time Construction of the ISS was completed in 2007-2008, US Shuttle flights were gradually wound down in frequency. The smaller British Shuttle operated by EFSA could haul heavy supplies and crew to the ISS for a lower operating costs (due to modular design, lighter weight, and less complexity) and the US shuttles were eventually fully retired by 2015, leaving the heavy-lift capability to Europe's British Shuttles (Illustrious, Indefatigable and Immaculate)
In the meantime, the US did exactly what it's doing now, and the CCDev program eventually meant that by 2015 companies like SpaceX were fully operating to launch 7-crew capsules to the ISS for the FASA, but the shift was seamless enough that the United States didn't lose its capability for independent crewed access to space
I love your story line, but the Space Shuttle in this world was designed to be a short lived temporary system which was to be replaced with a much lower operating cost completely reusable system in the 1990s. Why the rush to create such an expensive temporary system? Hint: the shuttle bay could carry a transcontinental Greyhound bus into orbit. Literally. It is now declassified that the real primary purpose of the Shuttle was to launch the giant KH-11 (and successors) spy satellites and perhaps even return them to earth for refurbishment and upgrades. I worked on both projects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennan
http://www.google.com/images?client.....=image_result_group
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/kh11.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space.....tems/kh-11.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space.....11-ssc-bus.htm
The Shuttle was never designed to be used beyond the 1990s; there are many critical areas, such as the wing spars, that are subject to cyclic metal fatigue, but could not be inspected for cracks nor repaired. What happened? Congress never appropriated the money to build the successor.
Space-X to the rescue!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennan
http://www.google.com/images?client.....=image_result_
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/kh11.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space.....tems/kh-11.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space.....11-ssc-bus.htm
The Shuttle was never designed to be used beyond the 1990s; there are many critical areas, such as the wing spars, that are subject to cyclic metal fatigue, but could not be inspected for cracks nor repaired. What happened? Congress never appropriated the money to build the successor.
Space-X to the rescue!
Replacement for mutilated URL for KH-11 pictures:
http://tinyurl.com/7mfj6dc
http://tinyurl.com/7mfj6dc
Well, that explains why they built such a huge, hulking goliath of a spacecraft. I knew a large reason for the shuttle's many flaws (like its tremendous size) were due to interference and demands of the US Military. Also, reading through the Shuttle Missions I noticed in the early years there were a lot of DoD Missions that launched Payloads classified to this day, I'm not surprised if some of them were these satellites. Unlike a Disposable Launcher this can actually retrive them for repair
Still, I don't view this as an entirely bad thing. After all, without the Shuttle having been built so big I don't think they could've built a space station as large as the ISS (considering the ISS was conceived as a way to keep the shuttles running), nor could they have done those critical Repairs and upgrades to Hubble.
Still, like you said they could have built a simpler, cheaper, lighter, less maintenance intensive and more durable replacement that could've matched the Shuttle in size but nooooo, they had to keep a clearly ageing vehicle running to the amazement of the original designers, like Air Koryo's 40+ year old Ilyushins and Tupolevs
Still, I don't view this as an entirely bad thing. After all, without the Shuttle having been built so big I don't think they could've built a space station as large as the ISS (considering the ISS was conceived as a way to keep the shuttles running), nor could they have done those critical Repairs and upgrades to Hubble.
Still, like you said they could have built a simpler, cheaper, lighter, less maintenance intensive and more durable replacement that could've matched the Shuttle in size but nooooo, they had to keep a clearly ageing vehicle running to the amazement of the original designers, like Air Koryo's 40+ year old Ilyushins and Tupolevs
You are right about the ISS being an excuse to keep the Shuttle funded. I remember the day that I was called into a closed high level aerospace industry meeting and we were all tasked with thinking up potentially useful things that it might be able to do so as to prevent loss of funds.
You are also right about Hubble.
You are also right about Hubble.
You know how they had the "Extended Duration Orbiter" Pallet installed to allow Shuttle Missions up to 16 Days long, and were even considering a Double-EDO Pallet for 28-day missions? I was thinking that, rather than rely on limited chemical energy of fuel cell tanks, how feasible would it have been to install a collapsible Solar Panel within the rear 1/4 of the Shuttle's Payload Bay that could have unfolded out of the bay once in orbit and allow even longer Spacelab missions?
Yes, and I wrote the first draft of the Shuttle space laboratory safety manual. I was chosen because I had both a reputation for anticipating nearly everything that could go wrong, but also how to prevent those things from happening without adversely affecting mission goals, schedules, or budgets.
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