re space station redesign jsc alternative in article apr ee ubc ca davem ee ubc ca dave michelson wrote in article ralibinnc f cbl umd edu mike starburst umd edu michael f santangelo writes dbm tm lerc nasa gov david b mckissock writes text of options a and b deleted option c single core launch station this is the jsc lead option basically you take a ft diameter cylinder that s ft long slap space shuttle main engines on the backside put a nose cone on the top attached it to a regular shuttle external tank and a regular set of solid rocket motors and launch the can some key features are complete end to end ground integration and checkout tangentially mounted fixed solar panels body mounted radiators which adds protection against micrometeroid orbital debris centerline docking ports one on each end berthing ports a single pressurized volume approximately cubic feet twice the volume of skylab floors center passageway between floors kw of housekeeping power somehow i have a strange attraction for this idea living in a modular home maybe has altered my mind the only thing that scares me is the part about simply strapping ssme s and a nosecone on it and just launching it i have this vision of something going terribly wrong with the launch resulting in the complete loss of the new modular space station not just a peice of it as would be the case with staged in orbit construction i certainly like this option c it s much more like the original phase b studies from the early s good stuff this is actually more like the stuff from phase a and mol phase b ended with a power tower approach it s also very expensive in terms of upfront development costs so all you get is a redistribution of costs from the shuttle flights to the contractors who build it
