Interesting proposal, but can this really be done?
> The ISS be stripped of whatever of the billions of dollars of still-useful hardware and tech it has aboard. This can be auctioned to one of the several new commercial space station facilities, or even, if appropriate, transferred to NASA’s planned lunar orbiting “Gateway” facility.
Are there any such reusable systems aboard the ISS? Can they be removed?
> The station be moved to a medium-high orbit, sealed, and declared a Universal Heritage Site.
What system would be used to bring people and supplies to that orbit? How much would it cost per launch?
And the elephant in the room: How can this project guarantee the safety of the station long term? We already know about cracks appearing and Mir also decayed over time.
> What system would be used to bring people and supplies to that orbit? How much would it cost per launch?
What people? What supplies? It would be parked there, noone would be visiting any time soon.
> And the elephant in the room: How can this project guarantee the safety of the station long term? We already know about cracks appearing and Mir also decayed over time.
Nothing is guaranteed, but a lump of unpressurized metal in a high orbit wouldn't face many issues.
> Mir also decayed over time.
Orbital decay can be ignored for objects high enough.
The station was built in pieces out of modules. Just as modules were added, they can be removed, I would assume.
Moving it to a higher orbit and just leaving it there is a way to ensure there's a long lived source of space debris. The sealing it up part kind of implies there wouldn't be any crew or supplies needed, but the thing will suffer collisions and decay (fall apart) on its own.
I don’t think that’s a safe assumption. These modules have been modified many times and might have used destructive techniques during installation. Dangerous space walks might also have been involved that would need repeating in order to disconnect them. Also, it’s unlikely they’re designed to withstand the vacuum of space once removed, so new assemblies would be needed to protect things while removing them.
Either way, the residual value of these systems is far less than the cost to produce them initially.
Declaring it a heritage site sounds not smart, not like a long term solution to anything.
I do think the rest of this makes a lot of sense. Recycle the thing, scrap it, over many decades. Get the humans out, boost it, make sure it'll hold together. And then let whomever wants to come off pull parts or material.
This should be a lesson in space manufacturing/assembly/recycling. We could learn so much about how to work on space from this. And ideally there'd be no rush. Boost it, and wait 10 years for space industry to be more caught up, more interested & able to start work.
The author seems completely unaware of the effects of
- sixteen thermal cycles a day
- constant vibration (sometimes severely when it was boosted) which means fatigue
- numerous effects of radiation on every material in the station, including the metal that makes up its structure (hardening/embrittlement), but also every seal keeping people alive
Preserving the ISS is a lofty goal, but the costs of doing anything in space are enormous. Anyone got some ballpark estimations for the proposed solutions?
NASA's analysis doesn't estimate costs, but you can conclude from the delta v required and the need to develop a whole new spacecraft, the costs would be considerably higher than just giving gravity a hand.
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/iss-deorbit-...
This is silly. It's a moldy, smelly group of bolted together tin cans. Let it burn and replace it with something 10X better for the cost of "saving" it.
The cost of “saving” it via a docked modified Dragon is an order of magnitude less than the $1B cost to discard it ($850M contract granted to develop vehicle + launch and operations)
Have you done the math on the amount of fuel that needs to be transported up given the specific impulse of Dragon thrusters its total usable delta-v? Or the risk of transporting to the new orbit while protecting it from the various microimpacts? The article is primarily and argument from emotion rather than one based on numbers.
My unqualified proposal as an NGE fan and an experienced KSP player: ion thruster pack installed inside of orbital module of a Progress, facing its own descent vehicle.
A modified Progress cargo vehicle is docked to the tail end of the Russian segment. The docking part of Progress is then permanently installed by a closeout crew, and additional power to the pack routed. Progress descent/service module stack is then jettisoned, exposing the thruster pack to the space, allowing the ISS to be boosted by the pack just like how it's normally done. No way ISS needs more than a Progress full of Xenon to get to a centuries lasting orbit, but additional tanks can even be installed as expendable Progress spacecrafts to other ports if needed.
I think similar device can be delivered by a Dragon, but it'll have to replace PMA-2 in Node 2 V-bar side, so logistics would be more complicated(dock second to last crew to PMA-2, dock the last crew to PMA-3, get second to last crew off, move PMA-2 somewhere else, dock Dragon to relocated PMA-2, install pack to CBM, everyone leaves and pack activates).
Have there been any efforts to document the space station using modern technologies? I think a fully rendered VR experience augmented by real footage would be cool.
Is it even going to deorbit as planned? In other space news we are finding that a lot of de orbiting debris we assumed would “burn away in the atmosphere” quite conveniently for us in fact didn’t, and would rip holes through people’s homes. Maybe they have more control over the iss before its laid down but once its started to break apart, you better hope the splash down zone is uninhabited.
I guess it justifies a steady stream of funding in the way that a program like Apollo did not. It seems there is little science of value happening there, and most of that is the science of keeping primates alive in space.
I think some claims are either that building it causes some useful basic research and that it is good practice for some future crude space mission. For the first claim, I don’t really see why the ISS is better than the regular aviation research done by nasa combined with the kind of space missions that don’t involve primates (telescopes and rovers and probes and suchlike), especially when you consider the number that might be attempted without so much of the budget going to the ISS. For the second claim I would observe first that there have not been many missions for all this practice and I will secondly say that I don’t really understand the point of these proposed future missions anyway.
Mostly I see the ISS as an enormous opportunity cost preventing nasa budgets from being spent on more scientifically interesting missions. But maybe there’s some advantage I don’t see, or removing the ISS wouldn’t make that much more money for the kind of missions I do think are worthwhile.
> If NASA dumps ISS on the Earth, it will be the worst public relations disaster in its history. At the very moment, new generations of eco-conscious young people are taking the reins of control, as the agency that has stood for a hopeful vision of the future will be trashing the planet. Ridiculous. Worse, one of the world’s most exciting companies will be spattered by the debris along the way. It is an awful decision, a terrible plan and a signal that America isn’t serious about staying in space. For if it were, it would protect such a treasured symbol of what went into making it happen.
Deorbiting an unused spacecraft is absolutely the responsible thing to do. If you care about our future in space, filling up our space environment with abandoned objects is a terrible policy.
I like the "idea" of saving the ISS; but as a whole that seems like wishful thinking. Perhaps a subset of modules could be salvaged/boosted into a higher orbit, or if I let my heart really dream - we could get started on our next ISS, and try to re-use a few pieces from the OG so they could live on and be the museum pieces we all know they should be.
If money were no object, I think we would have a duty to future generations to save the entire ISS - the value being able to "touch" history is immeasurable.
Isn't the biggest problem the breakdown of relations between Russia and the West, and the fact that Russia's modules essential steer the thing at the moment?
How do we claim that as an American Heritage site?
We have to remove ISS before it becomes a hazard to orbital operations in general. It will degenerate into quite a bit of debris, even if we attempt to make it a historical site.
> Next, in 1995, having accepted this loss, and as part of an effort to leverage the taxpayer’s investment in the station, I called in my Alpha Town testimony in front of Congress for all transportation to and from the station to be commercially provided
Man with an agenda.
Why not build one yourself and sell staff out of it ?
35 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 81.0 ms ] thread> One style of headline and title capitalization which doesn't follow the rules is Sentence Case style.
https://headlinecapitalization.com/
2.a Save - the start of the sentence.
2.b "Freedom", FTA, is the name of the US module of the ISS, a proper noun.
2.c "International Space Station", also a proper noun.
> The ISS be stripped of whatever of the billions of dollars of still-useful hardware and tech it has aboard. This can be auctioned to one of the several new commercial space station facilities, or even, if appropriate, transferred to NASA’s planned lunar orbiting “Gateway” facility.
Are there any such reusable systems aboard the ISS? Can they be removed?
> The station be moved to a medium-high orbit, sealed, and declared a Universal Heritage Site.
What system would be used to bring people and supplies to that orbit? How much would it cost per launch?
And the elephant in the room: How can this project guarantee the safety of the station long term? We already know about cracks appearing and Mir also decayed over time.
What people? What supplies? It would be parked there, noone would be visiting any time soon.
> And the elephant in the room: How can this project guarantee the safety of the station long term? We already know about cracks appearing and Mir also decayed over time.
Nothing is guaranteed, but a lump of unpressurized metal in a high orbit wouldn't face many issues.
> Mir also decayed over time.
Orbital decay can be ignored for objects high enough.
Moving it to a higher orbit and just leaving it there is a way to ensure there's a long lived source of space debris. The sealing it up part kind of implies there wouldn't be any crew or supplies needed, but the thing will suffer collisions and decay (fall apart) on its own.
Either way, the residual value of these systems is far less than the cost to produce them initially.
Source: Worked in aerospace for a number of years
I do think the rest of this makes a lot of sense. Recycle the thing, scrap it, over many decades. Get the humans out, boost it, make sure it'll hold together. And then let whomever wants to come off pull parts or material.
This should be a lesson in space manufacturing/assembly/recycling. We could learn so much about how to work on space from this. And ideally there'd be no rush. Boost it, and wait 10 years for space industry to be more caught up, more interested & able to start work.
- sixteen thermal cycles a day
- constant vibration (sometimes severely when it was boosted) which means fatigue
- numerous effects of radiation on every material in the station, including the metal that makes up its structure (hardening/embrittlement), but also every seal keeping people alive
Have you done the math on the amount of fuel that needs to be transported up given the specific impulse of Dragon thrusters its total usable delta-v? Or the risk of transporting to the new orbit while protecting it from the various microimpacts? The article is primarily and argument from emotion rather than one based on numbers.
A modified Progress cargo vehicle is docked to the tail end of the Russian segment. The docking part of Progress is then permanently installed by a closeout crew, and additional power to the pack routed. Progress descent/service module stack is then jettisoned, exposing the thruster pack to the space, allowing the ISS to be boosted by the pack just like how it's normally done. No way ISS needs more than a Progress full of Xenon to get to a centuries lasting orbit, but additional tanks can even be installed as expendable Progress spacecrafts to other ports if needed.
I think similar device can be delivered by a Dragon, but it'll have to replace PMA-2 in Node 2 V-bar side, so logistics would be more complicated(dock second to last crew to PMA-2, dock the last crew to PMA-3, get second to last crew off, move PMA-2 somewhere else, dock Dragon to relocated PMA-2, install pack to CBM, everyone leaves and pack activates).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Vehicle_Mockup_Facility
It's only okay
E.G. Punt the decision a few more years. Maybe Starship works and other options get cheeper or we can even bring the ISS back to earth?
Other options:
Land it somewhere on the moon (maybe safely distant but conveniently near by other historic sites for a future Moon Museum?)
Boost it out of the Sol system perpendicular to the plane, just a little above escape velocity. If we ever get better space ships it'll be waiting.
That would be one hell of a museum
Its a fragile complex structure, that would have to be disassembled into pieces loaded into cargo bay and than landed.
I guess it justifies a steady stream of funding in the way that a program like Apollo did not. It seems there is little science of value happening there, and most of that is the science of keeping primates alive in space.
I think some claims are either that building it causes some useful basic research and that it is good practice for some future crude space mission. For the first claim, I don’t really see why the ISS is better than the regular aviation research done by nasa combined with the kind of space missions that don’t involve primates (telescopes and rovers and probes and suchlike), especially when you consider the number that might be attempted without so much of the budget going to the ISS. For the second claim I would observe first that there have not been many missions for all this practice and I will secondly say that I don’t really understand the point of these proposed future missions anyway.
Mostly I see the ISS as an enormous opportunity cost preventing nasa budgets from being spent on more scientifically interesting missions. But maybe there’s some advantage I don’t see, or removing the ISS wouldn’t make that much more money for the kind of missions I do think are worthwhile.
> If NASA dumps ISS on the Earth, it will be the worst public relations disaster in its history. At the very moment, new generations of eco-conscious young people are taking the reins of control, as the agency that has stood for a hopeful vision of the future will be trashing the planet. Ridiculous. Worse, one of the world’s most exciting companies will be spattered by the debris along the way. It is an awful decision, a terrible plan and a signal that America isn’t serious about staying in space. For if it were, it would protect such a treasured symbol of what went into making it happen.
Deorbiting an unused spacecraft is absolutely the responsible thing to do. If you care about our future in space, filling up our space environment with abandoned objects is a terrible policy.
They have so much content, and they suck at showing it off well
If money were no object, I think we would have a duty to future generations to save the entire ISS - the value being able to "touch" history is immeasurable.
How do we claim that as an American Heritage site?
We have to remove ISS before it becomes a hazard to orbital operations in general. It will degenerate into quite a bit of debris, even if we attempt to make it a historical site.
Man with an agenda. Why not build one yourself and sell staff out of it ?