The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, April 16, 2002, Image 7

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Railroads in space
SrilTech
7A
Tuesday, April 16, 2002
THE BATTALION g , T
The railroad’s final frontier — space
Ttie international space station’s new railcar made a test-run
Monday on the firsi-ever railroad in space. The car
will be used to ferry the robotic arm and other
cargo from one end of the station to ^s 5 *®®* 8 ** fi *>•
the other. The first section of
track was delivered last week
by the shuttle Atlantis.
r
The robotic arm is
nearly 60 feet long
when fully extended
and has seven
motorized joints.
It is used for ^
assembly
and main- T,,'
tenance of
the station’s
components
M I m
The two-pronged
robotic hand can
operate delicate
assembly tasks that
previously required
astronauts.
The mobile base
attaches to the railcar.
Mobile transporter
The railcar travels at a
top speed of one inch
per second. It is attached
by wheels above and
below the rails.
The rail
//
/s
The completed rail line
will stretch more than 100 yards
and have 10 stops along the way where
the car is immobilized.
Weight
Height
Length
Width
Material
1,950 pounds
3 feet
9 feet
8 feet
aluminum
Cargo capacity 23 tons
SOURCE: NASA
N, Rapp. P. Santilli/AP
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Astronauts
sent the international space station’s new railcar
down a short stretch of track Monday in the inau
gural run of the first permanent railroad in orbit.
But they soon encountered a snag, prompting
NASA to interrupt the test.
“The solution for this is probably going to
involve a lot of manual commanding from the
ground,” Mission Control informed the
astronauts.
Space station resident Carl Walz got the railcar
rolling Monday morning by sending computer
commands from inside.
The empty flatcar crept along at less than two-
tenths of an inch per second, then sped up to four-
tenths of an inch per second as it traveled 17 3/4
feet and then stopped, on cue, at a designated
work station. The car was automatically latching
into place when a software message indicated a
failure, just 10 minutes into the test.
Mission Control said there was nothing wrong
with the railcar. Rather, magnetic sensors on the
bottom of the car apparently lost contact with iron
strips embedded in the aluminum track at the
work-station locations, and the software halted the
latching process.
“It’s believed to be perfectly aligned, just a
nuance in the software and a learning process,”
Mission Control explained.
Despite the problem, NASA planned to move
the railcar back and forth over the course of a few
hours along a 26-foot section of the track that runs
the full length of the space station’s newly
attached 44-foot girder. Most of the work was to
be done by flight controllers.
Its top speed is one inch per second, but engi
neers did not intend to hit that.
The $190 million railcar eventually will be
used to transport the space station’s robot arm
from one end of the outpost to the other for con
struction work.
During a 6 1/2-hour spacewalk Sunday, shuttle
Atlantis astronauts Steven Smith and Rex
Walheim rewired part of the space station and set
the stage for Monday’s debut of the railcar.
See Space on page 8A
Ways to detect anthrax attack
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Monitoring sales of nonprescrip-
lion drugs might help provide
early detection of an anthrax
attack, according to researchers
at Carnegie Mellon University.
Early symptoms of deadly
inhaled anthrax are similar to the
flu, so a sudden increase in sales
of flu medications could tip off
authorities to check for anthrax
before victims become ill
enough to seek medical atten
tion, the researchers suggest.
Anthrax has been the focus of
much attention since last fall’s
anthrax-by-mail attacks that
killed five people and sickened
several others.
The Carnegie Mellon project
w as started long before those
We are talking about
exposures of thousands
of people in a concen
trated location...
— Stephen E. Feinberg
Carnegie Mellon University
attacks, said Stephen E.
Feinberg of the university's
department of statistics.
He said the focus is on larger
scale attacks in an urban area,
not the relatively limited hazard
posed by the mailed germs.
“We are talking about expo
sures of thousands of people in a
concentrated location, and then
you've got very large-scale
impact to assess and every sec
ond counts.” Feinberg said.
Their report is published in
Tuesday’s issue of Proceedings
of the National Academy of
Sciences.
Meanwhile, the Army this
week is launching a series of
experiments to see if clouds of
chemical or biological agents
like anthrax can be detected
on radar.
There will be test sprays a
few miles from Key West, Fla.,
using safe materials with proper
ties similar to potential threats to
see if the radars can tell them
from rain or clouds.
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Now Hiring
If you are interested in writing stories, taking pictures or designing
pages for Texas A&M's yearbook, simply fill out this form and
drop it off in room 004 (basement) of the Reed McDonald Bldg.
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Applications Are Due Thursday, April 18
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Please type your responses to the
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