Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Comercial Airlock 'Bishop' Now On ISS
'Bishop' - the quirky name for the bell-shaped commercial airlock now attached to the International Space Station (ISS) is the first of its kind.
#BishopAirlock: Now mated to @Space_Station pic.twitter.com/3wx65BlI31
Nanoracks (@Nanoracks) December 21, 2020
The 2,000-lb. (907 kilograms) hunk of metal called Bishop is named after the pointy, diagonally-moving chess piece. The moniker represents the module's agility when attached to the station's robotic arm, but also represents Nanoracks' plans for the future. (The company isn't stopping at one airlock and even hopes to eventually launch its own space station.)Bishop launched to the station on NASA's recent CRS-21 resupply mission, which blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Dec. 6. Tucked inside the unpressurized trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft, the airlock was attached to the exterior of the station on Monday (Dec. 21) and will be powered on sometime in early 2021.
Once active, astronauts will be able to store items in the airlock by opening a hatch inside the station. When it comes time for deployment, they will seal the hatch and then arm operators in NASA's mission control center in Houston will use the station's robotic arm to remove the airlock, deploy the payload, and then reattach the airlock to the same port.
(Via Space.com)
Probably the first use of the term airlock in science fiction appears in Skylark of Space, by E.E. 'Doc' Smith.
The idea, however, was probably expressed earliest in A Journey in Other Worlds, by John Jacob Astor IV, in 1894; see the entry for double-door vestibule.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/13/2020)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Space Tech ")
Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now
'...the spot was a lonely one in an uncharted region, far from the normal lanes of space traffic.' - Arthur William Bernal (1935)
Denmark Joins The 'Zero Debris Charter' To Clean Up Space
'Then their lasers vaporized the smaller satellites...' Arthur C. Clarke, 1978.
Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle
Love those special edition spaceships.
Capturing Asteroids With Nets
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.' V.E. Thiessen, 1947.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Tiny Flying Robot Weighs Just One Gram
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
Some Ringworld Configurations Are Stable
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
TRANSFORM Dynamic Furniture Concept Becomes What You Need
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
SnapBot Robots - You Choose Their Legs And They Choose Their Gaits
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
Dino From Magical Toys An AI Companion To Children
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
Humanoid Robots Building Humanoid Robots
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?''
Darpa 'Defiant' Unmanned Autonomous Ship
'There was no wheel, and no steersman!'
What's The Best Way To Ship And Unpack Humanoid Robots?
'I opened the oblong box, where lay the automatons side by side...'
DNA Printed Book By Isaac Asimov Now Available
'They tied the memory to the bloodline and that was their record!'
AI Computer Chip Designs Passeth Human Understanding
'It seems that at one time computers were designed directly by human beings.'
Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now
'...the spot was a lonely one in an uncharted region, far from the normal lanes of space traffic.'
Fine-Tune Your Infinite Book The Way You Want It
'I squatted down beside the roller and tried to make some sense out of the knobs. There were thirty-nine of them...'
SpiRobs Soft Spiral Robotic Arm
'Beware the long, flexible, glittering tentacles...'
Holland Factory 3D Printing 500 Tons Of Steak Per Month
'...I dont understand technical things tell me, does it ever feel anything?"
Stratospheric Solar Geoengineering From Harvard
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
