HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why to ground Space Shuttles on Earth if they could 'retire' in space?

2 points by alx ↗ HN
Nasa Space Shuttle are planned to be ground soon, apart from the maintenance part, has someone thought about sending them retire in space?<p>It'd be a large additional space for the ISS, and some instruments could be loaded to make it more useful.<p>PS: there's probably a lot of background for not doing so, it's just a morning "why?" moment :)

2 comments

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alt219
Cost. Well, besides the need to maintain something that was never designed to be in space for a long duration, I would guess it would be because launching a Space Shuttle mission costs roughly 1.5 billion dollars (according to Wikipedia). And while there would be costs associated with decommissioning a shuttle, it seems likely that it would be significantly less than 1.5 billion dollars.
tumult
Docking them on the ISS uses the dock. Launching the shuttles for a goodbye costs millions of dollars for sentimental purposes.

Most important: Retiring them on earth lets us put them in museums for people to see.