Cooling Pump Malfunction On ISS

eldavojohn writes "On Saturday at 8pm GMT, the crew of the International Space Station awoke to alarm bells as one of two ammonia pumps shut down due to a spike in power. Their backup cooling (Loop B) is functioning as designed and NASA released an official statement: 'The crew is in no danger, but will need to work additional troubleshooting on Sunday to keep the station in a stable configuration, including the installation of a jumper cable to maintain proper cooling to the Zarya module in the Russian segment.'"

Re:Sounds like Russian thing: JUMPER CABLES IN SPA

[human-cyborg]

What's weird about jumper cables in space? A set of heavy gauge wires that can take lots of current, with universal connectors on either end? Sounds incredibly versatile. I'd never leave Earth with out them, packed right next to my towel.

You much be one of those people who take your car to the dealer to get an oil change.

Re:Why human presence still matters

[yodleboy]

wait a sec, if there were no humans on the ISS, much of its complexity would be unnecessary, eliminating the need to have humans in the loop. Specifically, i'm thinking of all the components that make it able to support human life, which seem to have a higher incidence of failure/issue. It's always a toilet or a/c unit freaking out up there.

Re:Why human presence still matters

[Jeremi]

Sounds like the right mentality to go to Mars/ Asteroids/ or anywhere else off this planet.

If you want a preview of what living off planet would be like, build yourself a water-tight metal cocoon, lock yourself inside, have it dropped to the bottom of the ocoean, and live inside it for the rest of your life -- no, you can't ever come back. Oh yeah, and for complete realism, you're not allowed to examine any fish or other lifeforms or collect any to eat, because off-planet, there won't be any.

Sorry to be a luddite flat-lander, and a bubble-burster on top of that, but after the first few weeks/months, living off-planet would be a hellish claustrophobic monotony punctuated only by the occasional crisis. By the time the first critical life-support system gave out and killed everyone, it's likely that most of the population wouldn't mind dying.

Perhaps someday terraforming or (less likely) discovery of human-friendly habitats will change that, but for now just there's no "there" there, and the costs for keeping humans alive indefinitely outside of Earth are incredibly high. We'd be much better off sending robots to explore until we develop the heavy-lift systems and/or automated-manufacturing technology to properly support an off-world colony.