Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!bob
From: bob@etive.ed.ac.uk (Bob Gray)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Recovery of Salyut 7
Message-ID: <1665@etive.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 31 Mar 89 14:16:20 GMT
References: <2168@wyse.wyse.com>
Reply-To: bob@etive.ed.ac.uk (Bob Gray)
Organization: Edinburgh Concurrent Supercomputer Project
Lines: 20

In article <2168@wyse.wyse.com> mikew@wyse.com (Mike Wexler) writes:
>mission was? I can think of several possibilities:

>	3. so they can analyze the effects of long term exposure to LEO.

This seems like the best reason for bringing Salyut 7 down
in one bit. Taking it apart in a laboratory back on Earth
will provide the Soviets with a lot of very valuable
information on how materials and machinery wear and
deteriorate during long term exposure to conditions in orbit.

Build for a short lifetime, analyse anything that goes
wrong, re-design, re-build. That seems to be the usual
Soviet space exploration technique.

Contrast with the NASA method of a designing the space
station to have a 30 year life expectancy, using new alloys
and plastics, none of which have had any long term exposure
to conditions in orbit.
	Bob.