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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!lipman
From: lipman@decwrl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Space tug
Message-ID: <5630@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Feb-84 09:47:28 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.5630
Posted: Mon Feb 13 09:47:28 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Feb-84 01:45:05 EST
Sender: lipman@decwrl.UUCP
Organization: DEC Western Research Lab, Los Altos, CA
Lines: 34

From: dvinci::fisher  (Burns Fisher, MRO3-1/E13, 231-4108)

> I wonder if a remotely controlled "space tug" could be built and launched
> for under $20 million...

I doubt that you could even get someone to give you a space-tug proposal
for under $20 million!

But seriously, the TRS (Teleoperator Retreival System) was designed to do
jobs like this.  It was mainly to be used for saving Skylab back in the late
70s before the first shuttle launch slipped past the projected crash date
for Skylab.  In any case, the TRS was cancelled, Skylab crashed, and now
we don't have any such capability.

Of course, TRS probably would not have helped the two comm sats for all the
reasons that have been mentioned here for the past several days.  In addition,
I believe that it had Apollo/LM/Skylab/ASTP-type docking hardware, as well,
rather than the multi-mission spacecraft bus hardware that retrievable
satellites will/do have.  This might be a problem in reincarnating it to help
with future satellite problems.  (What we REALLY should have had was a shuttle
that could get to geosynchronous orbit!)

Burns


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