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Expanding, And Eventually Replacing, The International Space Station:
Aboard the International Space Station (ISS), humanity has managed to maintain an uninterrupted foothold in low Earth orbit for just shy of 20 years. There are people reading these words who have had the ISS orbiting overhead for their entire lives, the first generation born into a truly spacefaring civilization.
But as the saying goes, what goes up must eventually come down. The ISS is at too low of an altitude to remain in orbit indefinitely, and core modules of the structure are already operating years beyond their original design lifetimes. As difficult a decision as it might be for the countries involved, in the not too distant future the $150 billion orbiting outpost will have to be abandoned.
Naturally there's some debate as to how far off that day is. NASA officially plans to support the Station until at least 2024, and an extension to 2028 or 2030 is considered very likely. Political tensions have made it difficult to get a similar commitment out of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, but its expected they'll continue crewing and maintaining their segment as long as NASA does the same. Afterwards, it's possible Roscosmos will attempt to salvage some of their modules from the ISS so they can be used on a future station.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday March 04 2020, @03:08PM (10 children)
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets [imdb.com] provides one road map. It's easier to keep an existing space station in orbit than to send another up. So why not invite an international effort to keep it up and expand it?
If we want to settle the rest of the solar system and eventually go on to explore other star systems, we need to maintain our stepping stone in LEO. If we hope to find life on Europa, Enceladus, and Titan, we need to maintain our stepping stone in LEO. If we want to mine the asteroid belt or do anything else beyond Earth, we need to maintain our stepping stone in LEO. So, let's maintain it.
Some day I hope to view the beauty of a sunrise over the Valles Marineris. That can't happen without an international space station at which to assemble such a mission.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday March 04 2020, @03:47PM (3 children)
> It's easier to keep an existing space station in orbit than to send another up.
That is a bold statement. What is the cost of maintenance of such a thing, compared to the cost of building new?
E.g. dumb example - what happens if you need to replace the seals around a window (remember, it's in space)?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday March 04 2020, @04:00PM (2 children)
That is my stock in trade. But caulking around an existing window when bringing up new material from planetside costs $10,000/lb makes a compelling argument.
The Soviet Union maintained a continuous presence in orbit for a fraction of what it cost the Americans, because they went with what works instead of what consultants dictated. A similar approach to parsimony would seem to tell in a world in which efficiency rules.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday March 04 2020, @04:13PM
I can only speak from experience - once vacuum seals have been "caulked" a few times, one gets to a system that is more sealant than metal... at some point it is expedient to build new.
My experience comes from vacuum seals in particle accelerators, so different regime...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 04 2020, @05:34PM
Your last paragraph almost sounds like you might be thinking of SpaceX.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @04:00PM
"Stepping stones" are really "stumbling blocks." This is best illustrated by the Shuttle missions to the Hubble after the Columbia accident. NASA had to keep a rescue mission on standby because the Shuttle couldn't go to the ISS in case of emergency - even though the ISS is in a lower orbit than Hubble and is conceptually "on the way."
The thing that people constantly seem to misunderstand about space travel is that there is no such thing as "on the way" in space. Of course this does not stop people from pretending there is. Even if you are literally flying right past something, it is still not on the way for any purpose other than maybe taking a quick picture as you go by.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Wednesday March 04 2020, @04:18PM (3 children)
The ISS is from the previous era. Reusable rockets change everything. NASA will be able to launch a station with 10x the volume at 1/10th the cost. They can take into account decades of new technologies and lessons learned from operating the ISS. If the ISS's components are actually past their prime, there's no problem with launching another station. Possibly one with modules built to last longer and with enough redundancy so that they can be swapped out indefinitely when required.
It is not clear that the ISS is needed to do all of those cool things. The stepping stone is a rocket that can be refueled in-orbit. You don't need to stop at the ISS to go to Ceres, Enceladus, Titan, etc.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @09:24PM (2 children)
> NASA will be able to launch a station with 10x the volume at 1/10th the cost.
That is what they said for the shuttles too ;-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @10:56PM (1 child)
Only 5 astronauts traing for years and a complete rebuild of 1970s tech every launch. Sure costs sure were way down on that. Thanks Al Gore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @12:07AM
Al Gore? He was in college when the Shuttle was designed. If you want to pin responsibility for ending Apollo and the focus on the Shuttle on one person, Richard Nixon is the guy you are 6.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday March 04 2020, @06:20PM
Our little stepping stone in LEO is at an inconvenient orbital inclination for missions to Europa, Enceladus, and Titan so we certainly won't be launching missions from it. It's also at too low of an orbit for me to be comfortable using it as a biocontainment facility for looking at possible life samples from other worlds.
It should exist as long as the science it produces justifies its cost. Beyond that, IMHO, it's time for commercial stations to fill the gap.
If it's unclear why, keep in mind that it's been hanging there continuously occupied for 20 years, astronauts work out for more than an hour a day, and it doesn't have a shower.