I really appreciate receiving news releases relating to the activities of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). I have a few comments and constructive suggestions.
In a 0-G weightless environment, it would be more accurate to say "The mass of the International Space Station (ISS) will be 450 tons" than to say "The International Space Station will weigh 450 tons".
I find that CSA news releases contain only good news, and omit some events that could have been reported. As an engineer myself, I would like to hear more about engineering challenges in space, instead of a series of sugar-coated excessively rosy stories.
The latest Space Shuttle mission was in no doubt a success, but I would like to hear a little bit of reality check. Specifically, I could have read how and why the first photovoltaic solar cell array did not properly unfold as planned during its installation because of a software glitch. Even after the software was updated, the problem of loose connection had to be corrected in another space walk.
The first 3 occupants of the ISS had a serious shortage of electrical power before the photovoltaic solar cell array came on line, resulting in the closing of a section of the ISS. They are now threatened by a series of failures of the carbon dioxide scrubbing system.
According to an IEEE Spectrum article, a build-up of static electricity could have been very dangerous to the astronauts during a space walk on the ISS. I would like to know how this real danger was avoided in the actual space walk.
Considering that the original Canadarm project started with an unsolicited proposal to the Government of Canada by Spar Aerospace, I would like to make a few proposals myself for possible future activities of the CSA, which may benefit Canadian Science and Technology.
The communication link between the ground command centre and the Space Shuttle/Space Station provides reasonable video quality, but the audio quality is extremely poor, unchanged since the 1960's. I would like to see a better voice communication system be developed using a digital data compression technology (wavelet) without increasing the bandwidth requirement.
I continue to notice headlines like "Hubble Plagued by Old, Broken Gyroscopes" and "NASA plans to de-orbit the massive Compton Gamma-ray Observatory before a second gyroscope fails". I would like to see ring laser gyroscopes be used in space instead of mechanical gyroscopes with a spinning disk.
Given the retirement of Dr. Marc Garneau, I wonder if the CSA would start a recruitment campaign for additional astronauts.
