Space Stations Space stations have been talked about many years before the first one ever was launched. Some believe the first space station successfully in orbit was created when two Soviet Soyuz vehicles linked together in orbit in 1969, on January 16th. The Apollo 8 had become the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon in December, 1968. It seems like the Soviets might have been trying to move their stalled space program forward to get back into competition with us. The last effort to compete with us in manned flight seemed to end when they stole the plans for the space shuttle and tried to build their own not knowing we had found out ahead of that and altered the plans causing their shuttle to get severely damaged on its first flight and then the program was cancelled. There had been a lot of talk about space stations, but it seems none was taken seriously until the 1940s when the Germans went to war and drew up plans for one which would also have been used as a weapon with a huge mirror which would have magnified the sun’s rays so they could use it to burn down targets. The Germans also envisioned their station to have gravity, which we still do not have. They wanted to accomplish this by building it in the shape of a huge wheel which would continuously rotate. Thank goodness they never succeeded in building it, because we would never have been able to defend against it at the time. There have been many different designs for space stations put forward over the years. The German station would not have had equal gravity since it would have mattered how far from the hub of the wheel you were, but there would have been some gravity everywhere. When I think about space stations, I have to wonder if the ancients ever thought about the possibility of a platform in the sky or what we now call a space station. The ancient Greeks have surprised us with some of the things they created and the information which they seemed to know far ahead of their time. While I couldn’t find anything about this, I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually knew the concept of orbiting. The first American space station was Skylab. It was launched in 1973 and had three, three man crews on it before it crashed to earth in 1979 over Australia. The first practical space station to be launched by the Soviets was Salyut 1 in 1971, and was in orbit for 15 years. One of the proposals for a space station had to do with using an empty booster shell. The idea was to equip it with what would be needed for the mission. This idea was actually employed. One new idea which looks cool is for a space station which has several layers of saucer like compartments separated by a center tube walkway. Each saucer would be above the one before it. The idea is to create a space station which has many different ways of hooking up different shaped modules. It might even allow for more central modules allowing for more different modules to be connected and grow into a much larger structure. If the central area rotates if would give off some gravity. Science fiction writers have imagined space stations ever since the science fiction genre took hold. There have also been all sorts of space stations depicted in movies, and they are still being depicted. Another space station idea, uses a long series of tubes connected as a central core. There are 4 arms equal length in the shape of a plus sign. One smaller set at the bottom tip and top tip, and four larger arms with motors at the end. Surrounding the space station in a huge square are solar panels. It seems the living areas are at the top and bottom. The sheer number of solar panels should be sufficient for electrical generation for any task. The rush to write about space stations in science fiction took off in 1949 with the story The Conquest of Space by Willy Ley. From that point on we began to read about all different ideas for space stations. In those days people took the idea with a grain of salt. Many never believed we would be able to accomplish the task of building one. Today 3 nations have built space stations and many more have built modules to the International Space Station. One of the more amazing things is the fact expandable and blowup modules are being manufactured by Robert Bigelow a famous believer in UFOs who is not afraid to admit it and was once owner of the company which owned the Skinwalker Ranch. Another idea had to do with how to power a space station. Someone had the bright idea to build a space station in the shape of a cube and cover the outside surface with solar panels. As you can see solar panels seems to be one of the most popular ways to supply energy to space stations. It we ever develop fusion reactors they will probably replace all other sources of energy if we can make them small enough. We keep hearing we have yet to succeed, but the announcement made several years ago by one of the aerospace companies which stated they had built a fusion reactor small enough to fit in a fighter plane has all but been forgotten. The company was Lockheed Martin and the announcement was made in 2019. They own the patents on it. They had said they had a working prototype. What happened after that? Did the project get moved to a secret project? Another space station design which was proposed was also for one which produced artificial gravity. The idea didn’t seem that important to scientists at the time as evidenced by the way the International Space Station was built. This proposed space station was built in a straight line in the shape of a long tube with modules along it and an upside down top like object in the middle. The tube would rotate creating the gravity. The idea didn’t seem to leave any room for attaching more modules. Some day our ideas for space stations are going to seem laughable to future humans. These space stations are killing their occupants or at least shortening their lives. The astronauts suffer not only from the lack of gravity, but the bombardment of cosmic rays and possibly other rays we are yet to learn about. We need to provide better shielding which will stop these rays along with gravity if we ever want to allow long duration events where people would be able to return home in the same shape as when they boarded the space stations.
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