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Alexander Gerst and the crew of the ISS have enough food?
Yes. They have a lot of food. They will not starve. And that's good food.
Can they still go home?
Yes. There is a Soyuz spacecraft attached to the ISS that comes begging to bring them all back to Earth. And they can go whenever they want. Yes, yes, yes, it's the same spacecraft that used to have a two-millimeter hole.
But this hole was in a section that was no relevance whatsoever at the return of the crew. It would be like you find a hole in the airport near your door, then board your plane perfectly safe and leave this hole far behind.
So what's the problem then?
At the present time, there is no operational rocket on Earth that can bring people to the ISS. It's just … spooky, is not it? There is no way to get up there. It's just feels as if we had lost an important life line, even temporarily. That's how much we depend on the Soyuz rocket, which remains the most "humane, most robust, strongest and most solid rocket in the world," told DW the German astronaut who advises the general manager of ESA, after the launch failure. In the tweet below, the head of Roscosmos (center on the photo) vaguely identifies the "spring" as the time when the Russian space agency hopes to send the two crew members aboard the ship. 39, ISS. It's … a lot of time.
That said, the "goods trains" of space, called unmanned rockets, can still bring supplies there. SpaceX, Boeing and the Japanese space agency JAXA all have a rocket capable of doing it. So, we can send things up there. Just not people.
OK, so we just send them supplies and they can stay up there.
No, they can not. Remember this Soyuz capsule? The one with the hole in it? It has an autonomy of 210 days (plus a "buffer", according to Reiter). So, based on his arrival in August, he has to leave the ISS, with the crew inside, around January 2019.
This is well before the "spring".
All refreshed and ready to go – the Soyuz probe (left)
And also, even if they could stay up there longer, would you like them to do it? Long-term spaceflight is difficult for the human body: radiation, bone loss, elevated heart temperature and some strange morphs of the eyes and brain are just some of the known medical problems. Microgravity hurts astronauts – and we are not sure about certain things yet. It is better to take a teaspoon and not swallow a ladle.
So the question is simply whether the three crew members present – German commander Alexander Gerst, US Chancellor Serena Aunon and Russian Sergei Prokopiev – will be back on Earth before or shortly after the Three Kings Day on January 6th.
Awesome!
Not really. In the short term, imagine that you have to keep a cafeteria running, but instead of having five people to cook, clean and repair this glitzy oven, you only have three. Do you want to cook less food? Clean less dishes? Or work longer? Similar questions are now being asked of ISS planners. Of course, they have foreseen this possibility, but it will now be necessary to redefine the priorities of the repairs according to the reduced number of hands available. It goes without saying that some scientific data will be lost, and that is a pity. The ISS will be empty and for the worse.
Then, in January (approximately), the ISS could be TOTALLY empty. And nobody wants that.
To understand why, suppose you rent a big cottage in the forest. There would be a big difference between handing over the keys to the next set of smiling and friendly customers and closing it for the winter. The foreclosure scenario would involve draining the outside water pipes, closing the chimney chute, attaching the flaps, and so on.
And then, once you leave, you'll have to wait three months to get inside if you realize you've left a burner on.
There are probably a million other problems that could or could arise in microgravity, some predictable, some not. But none of the space agencies involved in the operations of the ISS wants to see it, 400 km above our heads, flying over us every 90 minutes in the manner of an abandoned ghost ship worth billions of dollars. dollars.
Is there a solution?
Not yet. According to Reiter, SpaceX will conduct an unmanned test flight this year. Boeing will do the same in early 2019. Then, a first human mission should take place.
"You have to assume that at the latest one of the two companies will be involved in the first quarter of next year … to take astronauts into the ISS," said Reiter. He then said that he was talking about SpaceX and that soon after, Boeing would probably follow with his Starliner.
This would allow astronauts to reach the ISS once again between January and late March of next year.
The question is: will it be empty when they get there?
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