Question Your World: Orbiting Refuel and Repair Stations?
Consider yourself lucky if you’ve never run out of gas while
driving your car. This small and easily preventable
inconvenience can be a real problem for getting to work on time
or just looking smooth on a date. The problem becomes way worse
when you’re far from the closest gas station. It’s bad enough to
be stranded fifty miles away, but imagine being hundreds of
miles away from the Earth’s surface and running into the same
issue. Running out of fuel in such a hostile and foreign
environment would be a really dangerous problem. Engineers and
scientists are currently tackling this problem by designing
orbiting refueling and repair stations, or as they call them
MEVs - Mission Extension Vehicles. Listen to this week’s
Question Your World Radio report by the Science Museum of
Virginia.