Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Friday January 12 2018, @05:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the backups-in-space dept.

Although Russia has plans to detach some of its modules from the International Space Station (ISS) in order to form the basis of a new space station, the majority of the ISS may be deorbited as soon as 2024 or 2028:

Over the course of six missions, the British-born Nasa astronaut has spent more than a year in space. Foale has flown in the Space Shuttle and the Russian Soyuz, lived on the Mir space station and commanded the International Space Station (ISS). He’s carried out four space walks, totalling almost 23 hours outside in both Russian and American spacesuits. These included an epic eight-hour spacewalk to upgrade the computer on the Hubble Space Telescope.

[...] A joint enterprise between the US, Russia, the European Space Agency (Esa), Japan and Canada, the ISS has now been continuously occupied since 2000. And, over that time, has increasingly come to justify its $100bn (£75bn) cost. [...] But the station's days are numbered. Funding by the various space agencies involved is only agreed until 2024. This means in just six years' time, the most expensive structure ever built will be pushed out of orbit by a Progress spacecraft to disintegrate over the Pacific. And the countdown clock is ticking. "Year by year, Russia is launching the fuel to fill up the tanks of the ISS service module to enable the space station to be deorbited," says Foale. "That's the current plan – I think it's a bad plan, a massive waste of a fantastic resource."

[...] Since leaving Nasa, Foale has been working in the private sector on new aviation technologies and believes commercial operators could step-in to secure the future of the ISS. "I'm hoping that commercial space can come up with a business plan that allows part of the ISS to be maintained in space, without sinking it into the Pacific Ocean," he says. "You have to come up with innovative ways of keeping it in space." The ISS already supports some commercial operations. A private company, NanoRacks, operates experiments in equipment racks on the station for private clients. The station is increasingly also being used to launch small satellites into orbit, carried up in commercial spacecraft such as SpaceX's Dragon robotic supply ship. The Russian space agency takes tourists to the station and has even suggested it might build a hotel module.

[...] In the meantime, Foale is formulating his campaign to save the ISS and says he plans to launch websites to gather support to help save the space station. He says he intends to keep pressure on the space agencies to continue to fund the programme. "Every engineer, manager, astronaut or cosmonaut who's worked on the ISS, we all think the space station is such an achievement on behalf of humanity that it should continue," he says. "I'm still giving Nasa a chance to tell me how they're going to do it."

But, unless the private sector steps in, Foale fears that in 2024 the space agencies – and the politicians that fund them – will end up destroying one of the world's greatest engineering accomplishments, not to mention a massive economic investment by millions of taxpayers around the world.

Save it, send it to the Moon, or burn it?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @08:47AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @08:47AM (#621309)

    Wouldn't it be better to put it in a Lagrangian point? That way it would be easier salvageable in the future.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 12 2018, @08:56AM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday January 12 2018, @08:56AM (#621310) Journal

    If we want humans in it, it should probably be sent to the Moon which is closer than any of the Lagrangian points. Humans could evacuate the station back to Earth or to a habitat/shelter on the lunar surface. We are already planning to put a space station in lunar orbit. Even if the entire thing can't be reused in the Deep Space Gateway, newer modules like BEAM could be easily reused.

    The Moon has "frozen orbits" [wikipedia.org] that could allow objects to orbit "indefinitely".

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 4, Touché) by maxwell demon on Friday January 12 2018, @06:03PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday January 12 2018, @06:03PM (#621466) Journal

      If we want humans in it, it should probably be sent to the Moon which is closer than any of the Lagrangian points.

      There is a Lagrangian point between Earth and Moon. Granted, it is unstable, but it is certainly closer to Earth than the Moon.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday January 12 2018, @08:57AM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 12 2018, @08:57AM (#621311) Journal

    Not enough power to put it on a higher (low drag) orbit and you want it on a lagrangean.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday January 12 2018, @07:51PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday January 12 2018, @07:51PM (#621514)

      Doesn't Superman owe the US a few billions after flattening half of the city?

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday January 12 2018, @09:01AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday January 12 2018, @09:01AM (#621313) Journal

    Ok, there is this proposal:

    The Exploration Gateway Platform [wikipedia.org], a discussion by NASA and Boeing at the end of 2011, suggested using leftover USOS hardware and 'Zvezda 2' [sic] as a refuelling depot and service station located at one of the Earth-Moon Lagrange points, L1 or L2.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]