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NASA will retire the ISS soon
- yellowapple 3y agoSeems like a waste to throw away the ISS. I also disagree with the idea of corporations having to independently duplicate efforts instead of collaborating on a shared station. Taking NASA's rationale at face value (namely, that the bones of the ISS are too old and that adding new modules to replace the old ones is out of the question): what design decisions will the ISS' successor(s) take to avoid this same exact situation 30 years from now?
- edgyquant 3y agoThink it was initially planned for destruction in 2021 (maybe 2019?) so it’s already going a decade past its initial date.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>Seems like a waste to throw away the ISS. Aerospace vehicles and structures have a limited shelf life. Patching ageing stuff up in space is expensive. So building a new one from scratch might be cheaper long run.
- genocidicbunny 3y agoWith that said, I wonder if there's any value in taking some chunks of the existing modules and bringing them back down the well to examine what several decades in a space environment did to them. There's gotta be something valuable to learn from seeing how materials exposed to a high-rad environment with frequent temperature cycling behave after several decades.
- justsomehnguy 3y ago> something valuable Something? Yes. Valuable enough to bring even one down? Doubtful. Anyway, the last vehicle which could do this was decommed in 2011.
- genocidicbunny 3y agoDon't they have resupply missions to the ISS? I'm talking about cutting out chunks of the modules, stuffing them in the returning capsule and letting that go back down to earth. Not whole modules.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoIt would be cool to bring a module back to hang in the Smithsonian.
- deprecative 3y agoIt would but we have no means of doing this at the moment.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoDoes Starship have sufficient return volume?
- deprecative 3y agoI am not sure. It's not a present reality, though.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoAgreed, and a fair observation. Consider if it will be available prior to deorbiting. That's the question. Snatch them orbital goods before the gravity well consumes.
- NortySpock 3y agoAs far as I understand it, the front-runner to build a commercial space station is Axiom Space. Their CEO is Michael T. Suffredini, who was the ISS program manager for 10 years. Given that the stated mission is to own and operate a space station -- and rent out the space inside it -- I assume they're paying particular attention to how to reduce the cost of operations. In particular, on the current ISS, it strikes me that a lot of things require spacewalks to replace parts that seem like they could have lived inside, rather than outside. Things like batteries, coolant pumps, and power regulators seem to constantly require a spacewalk to repair or replace. Even though it probably requires some extra improvements to improve safety in order to be able to put the machinery in "a utility closet" rather than outside, I assume Axiom Space Stations will be designed to be maintained from the inside, rather than the outside. I doubt that the new station will last much longer than 30 years -- but I also doubt it will cost a billion dollars a year (I mean literally) to run. https://www.axiomspace.com/team/michael-suffredini https://www.axiomspace.com/team/michael-suffredini
- jqpabc123 3y agoI also disagree with the idea of corporations having to independently duplicate efforts instead of collaborating on a shared station. I disagree with the idea of corporations having any interest in duplicating the ISS. ISS was first and foremost a cash sink --- which most corporate shareholders are perfectly content to leave to government.
- johnklos 3y agoI've always wondered why other companies / projects wouldn't claim parts of the ISS for use elsewhere in orbit. Is the amount of delta-v needed to changes orbit and inclination really so high that it's easier and cheaper to send stuff from Earth rather than make use of what's there? Perhaps we should ask Scott Manley.
- John23832 3y ago> Is the amount of delta-v needed to changes orbit and inclination really so high that it's easier and cheaper to send stuff from Earth rather than make use of what's there? Yes. The ISS has a less the optimal orbital inclination (51.6 degrees) purely due to Russian involvement. To meaningfully change that would take a lot of delta v. From Texas, Florida, or French Guiana, the US and EU would really have benefited from a more flat inclination. It also orbits at 400 km. In the grand scheme of things, that's pretty low. The amount of delta v to change this is much less (but significant because the total mass of the iss is 400,000kg), but who wants to do this for a 30 year old space station that you're also going to to pay to maintain? You'd also have to have something you'd want to do with the the thing, which nobody really has show that they have. It also apparently smells lol. It will end up in the middle of the Pacific.
- euroderf 3y agoWhat's the chance they can install cameras and black boxes that will document the re-entry and breakup in a way that can be recovered for video playback ?
- bookofjoe 3y agoThey got the movie out just in time: https://youtu.be/i48f4AvS-Pk?si=SSS8BtxutLFrySxZ https://youtu.be/i48f4AvS-Pk?si=SSS8BtxutLFrySxZ
- creatonez 3y agoWhat's perhaps much more sad are possible cancellation of the New Horizons Kuiper Belt objects mission and the Mars sample return mission. These cuts were not supposed to be as inevitable like the eventual end of the ISS was, and yet here we are.
- theflyingpigeon 3y agoOne good thing is that we will finally stop cooperating with the russians. Unbelievable that we ever shared any technology with them.
- Vecr 3y agoIt was probably worth it, it's not very likely it would have been continuously crewed for as long as it was without them. Also, put less wear on the US space suits, since they were made in the 1970s.
- MathMonkeyMan 3y agoWasn't Soyuz the only way to get up there for a while? Also, what better way to say "let's not nuke the shit out of each other" than to cooperate on civilian space programs?
- doubloon 3y agoSoyuz yes in modern times. But also back in the 70s. Apollo-Soyuz seems like such a distant memory, like something you see on "Today I Learned" on reddit followed by 5,000 upvotes from amazed gen-zers. The height of the cold war when we had thousands of nukes pointed at each others cities, multiple proxy wars including Vietnam, a conservative Republican president and conservative Communist premier, yet somehow a civilian international space program was still considered worth it. The whole "for profit" thing just seems like such a sham. It's only "for profit" because the government is paying the bills, while avoiding liability and scrutiny if something goes wrong. Every space accident will now be like the Virgin Galactic fatalities, a bunch of secretive corporate NDAs instead of an open inquiry like Challenger.
- The_Colonel 3y ago> somehow a civilian international space program was still considered worth it. I think a major reason was that, for all its failings, USSR was a superpower, powerful, influential, with an internationally attractive ideology. Russia today is a sunsetting power kicking around itself.
- chasingthewind 3y agoBy 2030… “Soon” seems like a bit stretch.
- fortyseven 3y ago2010 to 2020 went by in a flash. And 2020 to 2024 was almost instant. OH GOD IT'S 2035 ALREADY.
- dotBen 3y agoWhile the choice to pursue a commercialization partnership is inevitable, I do feel that the Venn diagram of "what do we need to research and pioneer in space" and "what is commercially exploitable" is not completely overlapping". In other words, I fear that the commercial industry may not want to pursue certain directions and strategies that are important to the US government. I assume the smart bet here for the government is to spend opex just on the things that are important to them and assume that some of the overhead costs of running a space station are covered by whatever independent commercialization opportunities the private company can realize. Thereby lowering the cost to the government as it doesn't have to pay the total cost of ownership. My worry is that important strategic aspects that have no commercial opportunity end up being completely borne by the US government (and therefore the taxpayer) with a profit margin included and what looks clever on paper to move from a capex to an opex model simply becomes a more expensive overall. With added risk that there will only be a handful of companies who can execute any of these strategies and they may not wish to pursue the government's mandate in preference for their own commercial program. Sometimes renting isn't better than buying.
- jqpabc123 3y agoCan anyone name a significant, practical scientific breakthrough that was achieved on the ISS that could not have been done by some other means for a fraction of the cost? For the most part, ISS was a self serving example of circular logic. It put people in space so we could study people in space and try to justify the outrageous expense of putting people in space. As if there was some immediate, practical need or demand for this information. It was a large make work project to justify the expense of another large make work project --- the space shuttle. And just like the space shuttle, the only people who will really miss it are science fiction fans and NASA employees who will have to find more productive work.
- stormfather 3y agoMeasuring the effects of prolonged time in space on humans seems valuable. It determines if we can explore space at all, or if we need artificial gravity, etc. It also played a significant part in keeping the global rocket industry alive in between cold wars.
- jqpabc123 3y ago...keeping the global rocket industry alive in between cold wars. Over 1000 new satellites are now being launched every year. There are currently over 10,000 in orbit. The most significant attribute of launches to ISS every year is the expense of supporting human cargo.
- stormfather 3y agoYeah I don't think the ISS is necessary anymore
- 1letterunixname 3y agoIt costs a great deal in fuel due to atmospheric drag and supplies to keep ISS aloft for marginal return on investment. When commercial space travel comes online, it will find more optimal locations for bases perhaps the moon and L1.
- justinclift 3y ago> NASA will retire the ISS soon Where "soon" is about 7 years away, in January 2031: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#End_of_mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#En... It's a pretty dishonest use of the word, trying to be clickbait.