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| Sunday, 21 November 2004 |
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Junior Observer |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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The labs in space Any facility that enables humans to live in space for long periods is known as a 'Space Station'. These are used as laboratories to conduct scientific and engineering experiments. Space stations are also used as servicing centres to carry out spacecraft repairs, upgrading and even constructions.
The technology that provides a comfortable internal environment in the space station is known as the life-support system.This system of the space station must be provided with oxygen, water and food. On a regular basis these supplies are ferried to space stations from Earth. According to scientists an average human needs about 38,000 cubic inches of oxygen, about 0.5 gallons of water and about 1 lb of dry food each day. Therefore, the oxygen, water and food for a single person for a day has a mass of about 3.4 kg (about 7.5lb). The life-support system must also remove the carbon dioxide and water that humans breathe out and remove the fluid and solid waste they produce. Simple space stations with open-loop systems need all the food, water and oxygen delivered regularly and they discard all the waste. More advanced, closed-looped space stations recover oxygen from carbon dioxide and recycle the water, which reduces the supplies that must be brought from Earth to keep the crew alive. The concept of the space station was fist proposed by a Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in the early 20th century. Because of the fact that these spacecrafts would be the sites for other spacecrafts to stop and refuel, Tsiolkovsky called them 'stations'. The Soviet Union launched the first station 'Salyut 1' in April 1971. It was a simple station with an open-loop life support system. Salyut 1 was the first in a series of nine stations that were all based on the same structure, but became increasingly sophisticated. 'Mir' was the first permanently manned station. The core module of Mir was launched in 1986. It was assembled from six modules that were launched separately and docked to the core module. Mir has several closed-loop life support systems and could support a permanent crew of three astronauts. Mir crews were delivered using the Soyuz spacecraft and supplies were delivered by an unpiloted version of Soyuz, called Progress. Russia allowed the station to fall out of orbit and crash into the Pacific Ocean in March 2001. A new programme to set up a permanent space station called Freedom was announced by US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1984. Ten years later in 1994 the project was combined with the Russian Mir 2 project to produce the International Space Station (ISS). In 1998 construction of ISS began with the launch of a Russian-built module. Construction was scheduled to continue until 2006, including at least 20 planned construction flights. ISS will be used mainly as an orbiting laboratory. ****** A monster in our Galaxy?
The nebular 'eyes' and 'mouth' (C) were carved out by intense heat and winds which shoot outward from the stars located in the central bar or 'nose'. The green material remaining in the eyes and mouth comprises gas, while the red regions and tendrils beyond make up the dusty cloud that originally gave birth to the young stars. The nebula is located 3,900 light-years away in the Cygnus constellation. ***** Space food Just as refuelling, repairing and constructing spacecraft, food for the astronauts is equally important. According to international news reports European and American scientists along with top chefs are working on how to prepare food for astronauts.Space food at present comprises freeze-dried or tinned food whose contents are usually suspended in a jelly or a sauce to prevent them from dispersing messily in zero gravity. The packaged food works well in trips around Earth's backyard, say scientists adding that the mathematics change when it comes to interplanetary travel.On the planets's surface a small microbial digester will be set up to break down the urine and faeces of astronauts into nutrients and water for plants, which would grow under artificial light, atmosphere and heat in a carefully-controlled greenhouse. Scientists have identified eight plants that have potential for providing necessary vitamins, protein and carbohydrate for astronauts, who are vulnerable to losses in muscle tone and bone density. They are tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes, soyabeans, spinach, onions, wheat and rice. |
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Spacecrafts from Earth make regular visits to space stations to deliver
supplies. What are these supplies, you might wonder. Some supplies are
what's needed to help the space station complete its mission and may be
even conduct new experiments, set up satellites or provide fuel for
rockets. And others are those that enable the station to continue
operating, such as replacements for broken parts.
This is an image of a nebula called 'DR 6' taken by the Spitzer Space
Telescope and released by NASA recently. It shows a 'Monster' lurking
behind a blanket of cosmic dust in the nebula residing in the plane of our
Milky Way galaxy, home to a cluster of about 10 massive new born stars,
ranging in size from 10 to 20 times the mass of our Sun.
