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Aviation History
1982
1982 - 1277.PDF
Europe creates a workplace in space Spacelab is Europe's first venture in manned space flight. It comprises a habit able module and pallets, which can be combined in a variety of ways for flight aboard Space Shuttle. The first Spacelab mission, which will be shared by the Euro pean Space Agency and Nasa, is due in September 1983. DAVID VELUPILLAI reports from BREMEN. BUILD a iaboratory to fly in America's Space Shuttle. Make it versatile to accommodate a wide range of experiments, sate for humans, and capable of flying 50 times. That was the task facing Europe when it de cided to create Spaceiab at Nasa's sug gestion. Early work showed that flexi bility could best be achieved by a module and pallets, and in 1974 Erno was named prime contractor. Europe had never built a manned spacecraft before, but was sensitive to the far-reaching implications of safety. Erno realised the importance of getting design concepts correct at the start, and one of the ways it did this was to enlist the aid of a McDon nell Douglas Astronautics expert. The US company was a natural choice, since it had worked on Gemini, Apollo, and the western world's only other orbiting laboratory, Skylab. Europe's Spacelab naturally has to meet Nasa's safety code for Space Shuttle, in which it is a passenger. Erno has taken a new approach to de sign, however, making safety a major The racks within the Spacelab module can easily be rolled in and out for ease of integration. This allows experiments to be fitted into one set of racks, even when the Spacelab module is flying with another group influence right from the beginning. Nasa's way is to complete preliminary design before conducting safety re views. Erno's policy was adopted to suit the different industrial climate in Europe, and is claimed to allow greater control of design. Crew safety is thus a major "de sign driver", the other one being re- Spacelab's module and pallets can be combined in many different ways to suit the customer's needs. The long-module and single pallet of Spacelab I are below left, while the three-pallet train and igloo of Spacelab 2 are at bottom left. The other arrangements represent a short-module and three pallets, and five pallets plus an igloo. Many other groupings are possible FLIGHT International, IS May 1982 usability. Before Shuttle, fatigue and maintainability played a small part in the creation of manned spacecraft. A launcher or capsule performed just one mission before being abandoned. Spacelab and Shuttle are more like an airliner, experiencing take-off, pres- surisation, and landing loads each time they fly. Good aviators and seamen appre ciate just how dependent they are on the craft which carries them. They know how disastrous a fire in the air or at sea can be. In airliners, the en vironment is also vital. Witness the emergency descents for which pilots are trained, and drop-out oxygen masks for passengers. Imagine, then, the consequences of a fire in space, or a puncture of the cabin by, say, a small meteor. In an aircraft one may have a few minutes to cope with the emergency. In space, reaction time is measured in seconds, and there can be no fast return to Earth. Spacelab and Shuttle crews are sur rounded by a close approximation to the air we breathe on Earth. This is inherently safer than the oxygen-rich atmosphere of Apollo craft, which was partly to blame for the loss of three astronauts during ground-based train ing. The only exception are Shuttle spacesuits, which continue to supply oxygen to the wearer. Guarding against fire and environ mental hazard in space is largely a 1211
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