General Bolden says that no single partner can do it.
Eric Berger says that Charlie doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
[Update a while later]
Second link was wrong, but fixed now. Sorry.
I should add that Zvezda is a much bigger problem than Soyuz (we could solve the latter simply by ending the irrational “safety is the highest priority” mantra). But that’s probably solvable too. If it were important.
Second link is a dup of the first.
The mindboggling part is that Roscosmos and Energiya have had a coherent post-ISS plan for their modules for more than a decade, they plan to use parts of current Russian segment and yet to be launched modules as part of future orbital assembly facility.
They have formally stated these plans through the years on several occasions, and refined them ever further. Funding and actual development work is another matter of course, with all the other issues their space industry is battling. But at least they have a plan.
General Bolden is correct in his wording. No single partner may terminate the ISS, that is a decision that requires agreement by all the partners. But any partner may withdraw from the ISS with one year’s notice. The other partners would then need to meet to decide what to do about the ISS. If the partner is non-critical, like Brazil, its not a big deal. If its Russian, then the partners will need to make a number of decisions on its future.
The Russians could end the ISS any time they want, regardless of agreements. How naive of you.
Rand,
No how naive of you. Or rather you are once again showing your ignorance of space law which is what General Bolden was referring to. The ISS is governed by a series of treaties among the partners with the foundational agreement called the International Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) which is supported by four bilateral agreements (MOUs).
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/partners_agreement.html
and
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/International_Space_Station/International_Space_Station_legal_framework
And you think that the Russians will care about that, when push comes to shove?
And you call me naive?
Rand,
You are when it comes to international politics. You forget, even the Furher felt the need to create a legal justification for attacking Poland.
I won’t dignify that libel with a comment.
“International law” isn’t law. It’s simply a set of agreement that nations choose to abide by when it’s in their interests to do so.
Extending the life of the station from 2020 to 2024 (for example) didn’t require unanimous agreement. NASA simply announced the decision without consulting a single partner — regardless of what agreements said. There’s no reason to expect Russia to be any more respectful of international partners than NASA is.
Edward,
Once again you get your “facts” wrong. Here is the exact press release.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/01/08/obama-administration-extends-international-space-station-until-least-2024
Obama Administration Extends International Space Station until at Least 2024
Posted by John P. Holdren and Charles Bolden on January 08, 2014 at 05:18 PM EDT
[[[we are pleased to announce that the Obama Administration has approved an extension of the International Space Station (ISS) until at least 2024. We are hopeful and optimistic that our ISS partners will join this extension effort and thus enable continuation of the groundbreaking research being conducted in this unique orbiting laboratory for at least another decade. ]]]
I.E. – they are stating extending it is U.S. policy, not a final decision. They are hoping the other ISS partners will agree to it, or if they don’t, allow the U.S. to do so… In short it was a negotiating position…
If Russia were to state today that they were no longer supporting the ISS and were returning the present crew immediately, what could anyone do about it? Seriously, what could we do? Stamp our feet? Hold our breath? Write a sternly-worded letter? Complain at the UN?
Start flying people on Dragon. Jury rig a system to replace Progress flights for reboost.
The question is timing. If it happened “today” and gospadin Artmeyev started unscrewing bolts and cutting cables on Zvezda to undock, everyone would be SOL. The station would lose attitude control promptly and reenter.
If Russia would honor the 1-year notice, there is a slim chance of “jury rigging” some kind of attitude control and reboost system between the remaining partners – but it IS a very slim chance, and would require a better “Tiger team” than Gene Kranz commanded.
The remaining 5 and a half years until 2020 in a sane world would give enough time to properly develop and launch a Zvezda alternative, but considering the politics and bureaucracy involved, and the lack of leadership at multiple levels in hierarchy, i would still say its a slim chance.
Yes, that’s something we could do and interestingly enough, it has nothing to do with international or space law. That was the point I was making – international law only works if all sides want it to work. When one side decides they no longer want to obey the international law, there isn’t much anyone can really do about it, especially if they have nukes and the means to deliver them.
Celebrate the end of the great money pit in the sky, the great white elephant, and just hope the U.S. Navy would be able to shoot it down so it crashes in a safe location 🙂
Oh yes, and don’t forget all the fun Congress will have holding hearings to find someone to blame, other than Congress of course, for creating this mess by premature retirement of the Space Shuttle.
Sorry, Thomas, but your premise is predicated on the assumption that all sides follow the existing agreements.
The fact of the matter is that the Russians, or any partner, can simply ignore the agreements and withdraw whenever they feel like it. For just one recent example, how would doing that be any different from ignoring the Budapest Memorandum (which Russia is clearly doing) or breaking a treaty (which countries have done many times in history).
And to refute my own above thoughts on Zarya; I wonder if NASA ever got the access codes and command software for it? It’s built and operated by Russia, though paid for by NASA (hence the ownership). I don’t think the Russians would try to take it, but they very well might refuse to give NASA the means to operate it if NASA never bothered to do so when it was built.
And they could probably kick the none Russian astronauts out the airlock if they are able to overcome them. But that doesn’t change what General Bolden was referring to.
Also they don’t have to ignore the agreements to withdraw. The option of withdrawing is included in the agreements.
Even Zvezda isn’t too big a problem. They could revive the ICM and ship that too the station. Lot’s of other interim options as well, none of them great, but still workable. If we’re serious about keeping the ISS we should be working on developing solutions now. That means a propulsion module and native US ability to refuel it.
Zarya might be able to help replace Zvezda. (NASA owns Zarya). It has propulsive ability (it served that rile before Zvezdya took over) .
The ICM is another option, though it might be too small for the current station. If so, Zarya might fill any capacity gap.
However, one big problem; how would we dock ICM, or anything else, to ISS? ICM was built to be launched by, and emplaced by, Shuttle. NASA doesn’t have the ability to do precision autonomous docking, so that’s a major problem.
I’m wondering if Cignus or Dragon could be modified to act as a space tug for the final few hundred yards of docking a new module? And could one or both be modified to transfer fuel to the ICM or provide reboost?
Arizona CJ,
Those are all good points/questions. You should put them in a letter to Gen. Bolden, Mr. Gerstenmaier, and Mr. Suffredini, asking them to respond to each. I’d love to read the responses! (I believe NASA has a policy of responding semi-rapidly, in writing, to all questions and suggestions submitted by the public via snail-mail letter.)
Here’s another question you could ask those gentlemen: How long would it take NASA to develop, build, deliver, and install the systems necessary to refuel the US-owned Zarya?
BlueMoon
Zarya has had some apparently irreversible modifications done to it over time, apparently it will not function as attitude control and propulsion unit anymore.
NASA doesn’t have the ability to do precision autonomous docking,
Neither does it have demonstrated ability to refuel anything on orbit.
That’s not true. They did demos of hyperbolic fuel transfer in the Shuttle bay in the ’80s.
“hyperbolic fuel ”
I think that’s the stuff Rand drinks before he writes about Climate Change.
You think lots of stupid things.
Uh, if you are referring to SFMD/FARE, TPCE and VTRE flight experiments, these are far from operational capability. Neither is STS-41G flown ORS test.
More recent experience like Darpa Orbital Express would be far more applicable – but again, not an operational deployable capability.
AIAA-2000-5107 gave a pretty good snapshot of where things were as of 2000.
Yes, once again we see how useful it would have been to keep the Shuttle. But instead every one panicked after Columbia’s accident and voted to retire it ASAP. What a huge mistake. It probably had another 100 flights in it before the odds caught up and you had another accident.
Really? You think that accidents were the only consideration?
Oh I am sure the years long campaign against it by New Spacers gave NASA a laundry list of excuses. There always multiple excuses available when you are trying to explain away a mistake. But it won’t stop folks realizing that it was a short sighted and foolish decision that is now coming back to haunt NASA.
Probably not.
The hardware was getting old. The vendors were getting old.
The fleet was low on spares and the operating cost was bankrupting NASA.
At that time, the best option would have been to revive a Apollo CSM with modern
electronics and stick it on a Atlas 5.
No, that would have been stupid.
Dn-guy said,
At that time, the best option would have been to revive a Apollo CSM with modern electronics and stick it on a Atlas 5.
Umm, the Apollo CSM weighed north of 30 tons. The Atlas 5 can put 18 tons in LEO, and that’s without the performance hits of man-rating it.
Yes, they couldn’t afford the Shuttle yet the NASA budget is still at the same basic level it was with the Shuttle…
There is no relationship between what Congress wants NASA to do and how much money is provided for it.
Were you previously unaware of this reality?
I’m more with dn-guy than Matula on this one though neither alternate history is workable, to be sure. If Shuttle had continued, COTS and CCDev would either never have happened or happened too late to be helpful in the current mess. Then there’s the decidedly non-trivial likelihood of another catastrophic orbiter loss having occurred should Shuttle have been operated for an additional, say, five years. I appreciate that dn-guy is at least thinking along the lines of some alternative based on stuff we actually had at one time. Problem is, I don’t believe the Apollo tooling still exists. Certainly the production line does not. Refitting museum pieces is not really an option either. The quantities are sharply limited and the museums would have conniptions at the very suggestion. Even apart from mass issues, resurrecting Apollo wasn’t, and isn’t, in the cards. There are a lot of decisions NASA and the Congress should have made differently over the past decade. Closing out the Shuttle program is not one of them.
The best option would have been to continue OSP instead of dumping it for Constellation after the Columbia accident. The first flights on EELVs would have been around 2008.
https://www.google.com/#q=NASA+OSP+eelv
And without COTS/CCP the SpaceX Dragon would have probably been ferrying passengers to a BA habitat for 1-2 years. Recall the America prize Mr. Bigelow was offering? That is he was offering before NASA pulled the rug out from under him by offering 5 times as much for cargo only with most of the money being paid even before the craft flew.
Nope retiring the Shuttle before alternative flight options to the ISS were available, or the ISS was deorbited, was a mistake.
The Shuttle program was always a ~$5 billion a year albatross around NASA’s neck. We would never have been able to do anything other than continue to operate Shuttles (and fewer of them as they were lost) without cancelling the program. The fact that Congresss hasn’t used that budget intelligently since then (dumping most of it into Orion and SLS) is an entirely different story. Fortunately some of it was used for COTS, CRS, and CCDev.
Additionally, there is no magic that the Shuttle could provide that would make the current problems with the future of the ISS go away. We’d still need a control module, we’d still need refueling, we’d still need assured crew return (which, hey, guess what, the Shuttle couldn’t be used for and yet we’ll have in a few months/years partially with funding that was freed up from not operating Shuttle).
There are plenty of options on the table, and many of them are quite reasonable, we just have to actually commit to them. Worst case scenario we put the ICM in orbit on a Falcon Heavy with a cargo Dragon attached and figure out how to berth it to the station. Or even worse worst case scenario we send up modified Dragon/Cygnus modules with beefed up RCS thrusters and larger fuel tanks and they work as temporary propulsive modules.
Orbital refueling you say ? But haven’t you heard, its a technology with very low TRL , its very risky and it would be utterly reckless to trust a hundred billion dollar space facility to something so inelegant and dangerous ! It’s what all smart NASA planners will tell you.
Careful, next thing you know, you’ll be suggesting that HLVs have no real purpose
Bringing the station down from orbit safely is no small task. In fact, they don’t really know how to do it. The current thinking is to to leave two Russians on board who will bring it down to 100 km (!), then get away in a Soyuz before Progress module engines fire to bring it in on a very shallow entry. The debris field will be ~2,000 km long, so hitting the entry point accurately is crucial. And it is not yet a solved problem.
100km?!?!!? Are you sure that’s the plan? I’m thinking that perhaps whatever you read has a typo, and they mean 100 miles. At 62 miles (100km), you’re already well below entry interface (which is at about 75 miles).
My personal guess as to how they’ll handle the deorbit of ISS: They’ll spend several years discussing and planning and debating, only to find that (Skylab, anyone?) it’s too late to do anything, and the station will simply decay to uncontrolled, untargeted reentry.
Pity there is no Shuttle available to dissemble it…
You can disassemble anything without the shuttle. I liked watching the shuttle land, but that wasn’t justification for it existing in the first place. Sierra Nevada will prove it wasn’t needed for crew. For cargo it had so much parasitic mass to be ridiculous.
Pretty sure that any of the even vaguely space-capable countries could terminate the ISS, even if all the other countries involved desperately didn’t want that to happen.
It would go down as ‘first space combat’ though.
Al,
Yes, and probably result in them losing that capability quickly. The Russians especially won’t show any mercy to that regime.
I think any partner can take over/terminate ISS any time they want. It merely takes the will to do so.
Gregg,
Yes, the gangster approach always works if you don’t care about the consequences, and the results.
You don’t think the Russians are gangsters? Then you don’t understand the daily lives of their citizens. My ex-wife was expert at getting things done in that society. Including being friends with Police commanders who are the biggest gangsters of all. I was constantly explaining to my stepson that things not locked are not free to take.
Next week the Russians could retreat to their portion of the station and lock the door and there is nothing we could do. Well we could send them a terse letter.
Arizona CJ: the Apollo CSM was heavy when fully loaded for a Lunar mission, but Apollo 7 was under 17,000 kg.
I didn’t know they’d ever flown one that much shy of full tanks, but you’re right. I stand corrected. Thanks Will!
I wonder how much push they could get from a dragon with nothing but extra fuel for cargo?
Terminating the IRS is a wonderful idea! Just a straight flat sales tax would save everyone in compliance costs and reduced size of government.
Oh… the ISS… well, of course the ISS can be terminated. Mir could have kept operating for decades, even if it ended up like an old boat that had been repaired so many times that no original wood remained. The Russians would have sold or leased that station to MirCorp, and indeed there was financing already in the works to make it happen and a private flight to the station for repairs when the decision was made to splash it. That decision was heavily influenced by the lack of funds available to do both ISS and Mir.
And now Zvezda is 15 years old, as old as the core module of Mir was when that station was deorbited. If Robert Bigelow puts up a couple of stations and Excalibur Almaz puts up one, with at least two companies competing for flights, the pressure will be on all of the ISS partners to end their involvement in the ISS.
Actually, I think that ExAl has thrown in the towel. They just auctioned off a piece of hardware.