| Popis: |
Humankind today has experience in all spheres of space with crews’ activities involving human-scientific research in microgravity, exploration of the Moon and planets, the assembly of large structures with the help of robotic means, space maintenance and repair, and space tourism. When planning activities for the post-ISS period, it is necessary to take into account this experience and to avoid problems such as uncertainty of the aims, negative effects that various functions have on one another, and considerable crew time needed to perform maintenance and repair. One way to solve these problems can be a combination of purpose-oriented programs of space exploration with temporarily human-visited space bases in low Earth orbit, and then on the Moon, etc. A near-Earth station of a new generation can be the first step in this direction. Such a station will be visited periodically by crews to carry out research or undertake special tasks, such as preparation for and monitoring of a long-duration space expedition. The station will not suffer from the problems of crew impact on the microgravity conditions. The necessary orientation can be controlled by gyrodynes and small thrusters to ensure the required power from the solar arrays and minimum fuel consumption of the propulsion system. A mathematical model which has been constructed to optimize the design and operation of space bases is described. |
