Matt Fitzgibbons says it’s like the ancient Roman roads. I’m not sure the analogy works very well, but I do think that it would be wasteful to deorbit it. When he says it’s “only” three or four billion a year, I don’t think he appreciates how much more we’ll be able to do for much less in the near future, But I also think in the next decade we’ll have the ability to move it higher, and preserve it as a museum.
18 thoughts on “The Fate Of The ISS”
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As I understand it, the ISS was intended to be a way station for missions to the moon, Mars, and beyond. It is unable to perform that function because its orbit was determined in such a way that the Russians could reach it from their launch site in Kazakhstan. If we want a real orbital platform from which we can truly explore the solar system, we’ll need ISS 2.0 in a proper orbit. And given the competition between Elon, Jeff, Sir Richard, et al, I’m guessing we can build and operate one for a fraction of the cost.
That is the claim for LOP-G too and some people says its orbit isn’t well suited to doing those things either.
If we have the ability, lets move ISIS onto a higher, more stable and more useful orbit… If not, at least keep it around….cheaper than replacing it.
Won’t a higher orbit just push it into a worse radiation environment? I thought that was one of the reasons the current orbit was picked.
As long as it stays below the belts, the radiation isn’t a problem. It’s current low altitude was driven by transportation costs to get higher.
I think ISS should be put above the belts. And I think it should be mothballed. A parties can unmothball it if want to use it- and that would my idea regarding commercializing ISS. One have some international body which allows use or renting it- or it stays an international spacestation- until it has to be scrapped which might by the end of 21 century.
I think ISS should be mothballed before manned Mars exploration. Or doesn’t need to by mothballed during Lunar exploration but instead by end of lunar exploration.
Assuming we are starting lunar exploration- and no real evidence of this actually happening, yet. Lunar Exploration should finished by 2028, or ISS should mothballed by 2028.
Exploring Mars is going to be expensive, exploring the Moon can be much cheaper. But part of cost of lunar exploration is going involve having SLS.
And Lunar exploration should include depot development operation. Using depots will be necessary so as to not make Mars exploration as expensive as it would be without depots.
Depots would also needed to commercially mine lunar water.
And mothballing ISS would be effectively part of lunar program. And probably should get ISS program considering in what ways, the ISS program might be involved with the task of exploring the Moon. I don’t know in what ways it could, but in terms management it could be useful to start to head it in that direction. So, explore possible ideas.
The use of ISS would be more obvious if ISS was in the correct inclination or if it and much higher orbit. But one can get to Moon from ISS orbit and inclination. But maybe it’s nothing do with ISS being departure point to the Moon, maybe related to using mico gravity and vacuum environment of ISS for lunar related projects
Sunk cost fallacy. Alternately, never throw good money after bad.
A stupid policy used to justify scrapping things that would have been quite useful….like Saturn V or A-10 tooling, data tapes and paper records, and a million other things.
The cost of replacing a space station (even one as minimal as ISS) is far, far more than maintaining it.
Parts is parts. And mass is mass. You’ve paid the price. Keep it where it can be useful.
It begs the question that it can be useful. It was a useful test of concept for on orbit assembly. Its utility beyond that is really questionable at the current dollar cost required.
I call nonsense on the tooling. When the Shuttle program ended; vendors across the nation were finally able to shutdown manufacturing lines preserved solely for the sake of the Orbiter. For example Corning had greatly improved glass technology, but retained an outdated production line and technique to make cockpit windows, because those were certified for the Orbiter and the new stuff wasn’t. The new stuff was better, but in the interest of maintaining “tooling”, NASA had Corning retain the old line, which also meant retaining a couple of employees who knew how to work the outdated manufacturing equipment.
And what of the Saturn V? Would we want such an inefficient behemoth today?
I do like the A-10, but I don’t think what is needed is keeping the A-10. What we need is the philosophy of purpose built aircraft for close air support. As for tooling, we should keep the titanium bathtub and techniques for producing it. And we should keep the ability to make that massive gun. We also need to keep the mindset of building in manual reversion into the flight controls. Otherwise, everything else could be improved on the A-10 today.
I do think there is a point in which replacement is more expensive than maintenance. The Saturn-V was always too expensive. The A-10, especially with current procurement processes, is much cheaper to maintain. Here’s the problem with ISS; the tooling was used to make a certain number of spares to allow a ISS design life of 30 years. Once the spares were made and stored; preservation of tooling was no longer a requirement. Why do that? Because preserving the tooling would make the maintenance cost even higher than it is estimated today. However, we still have some years left on the ISS design.
This is true but then it really depends on what the alternatives are.
Would boosting the orbit of the ISS to a higher orbit be enough? Sure you wouldn’t need to keep reboosting ISS anymore, but what about debris avoidance? Wouldn’t that still be a constant and necessary expense to preserve the ISS?
Is having over 400t of mass potentially breaking up in LEO more of a practical risk than any benefit we would receive from preserving the ISS?
I don’t know. But I figure the questions are worth asking.
Yeah, who doesn’t love the ISS? Everyone loves the ISS. But it always boils down to someone else coughing up the money for it.
People who are so casually dismissive of ‘billions of dollars’ of yearly costs like many of those who promote a permanent ISS is why NASA is so firmly trapped in LEO. Just a few billion here and a few billion there, is how NASA ended up in the current mess that it finds itself in today.
If NASA ever hopes to achieve anything worthwhile with manned spaceflight beyond LEO, than cost efficiency and focus must be part of the plan. Unless of course those who promote things like a permanent ISS also somehow come up with an equally great permanent budget increase for NASA!
Even doing more with less, NASA will need a larger budget if it is to emulate the ISS but in other locations. This could be true if NASA just purchases services and rents from commercial operators. We wont know for sure until alternatives exist enough to give us some realistic numbers.
It would be far better to keep all of our options open for as long as possible and continue the science.
How’d y’all like the gap? Has it been an enriching experience relying on Russia to get to space? Perhaps it would be wise to keep the ISS until an alternative exists rather than cancel the ISS and go a couple decades without anything. Once commercial entities have put up their stations, cancelling ISS becomes much less odious.
Some good points in the op-ed but it was a bad analogy. Roman roads were important because of their destinations, not the roads themselves. The location of the ISS isn’t what is important but rather what is done on the ISS and those activities can be done in other places too.
I don’t see how ditching ISS into the ocean in 2024 or 2028 would at all be acceptable to the American taxpayers after spending $100+ billion dollars to build the bloody thing. It ought to stay serviceable for decades to come in some manner to justify some return on that type of investment. Otherwise, I don’t see taxpayers being willing to build an ISS 2.0 and, as big as a space enthusiast as I am, I would agree.
There’s been a NASA task force in Houston trying to figure out how to deorbit ISS safely for the years, now. Last I heard, the plan was to get everyone except two cosmonauts off, and have them use four Progress modules to gradually bring the orbit down to 100 km in the minimum drag orientation. Then they were to climb into a Soyuz and cast off. When the ISS reached the right point, the remaining progress propellant would be used to bring the perigee down to 70 km, and flip the station into a high-drag orientation. Even then, the debris field was estimated to be 12,000 km long.
The whole thing reminded me of Slim Pickens riding the H-bomb down at the end of Dr. Strangelove.