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Expanding, And Eventually Replacing, The International Space Station

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday March 04 2020, @02:10PM   
from the what-goes-up-must-go-down dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

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.

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Original Submission

• Re:DeltaV to increase orbit Re:DeltaV to increase orbit (Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday March 04 2020, @03:46PM (1 child)

  by DannyB (5839) on Wednesday March 04 2020, @03:46PM (#966498) Journal

  What about on board bacteria that grow?

  MIR [wikipedia.org] was de-orbited, in the very same month, March 2001, that Douglas Crockford first specified and popularized the JSON [wikipedia.org] format. Coincidence? There must be a cause and effect at work here!

  From the Mir wikipedia article (linked earlier), "On a 1998 visit to Mir, bacteria and larger organisms were found to have proliferated in water globules formed from moisture that had condensed behind service panels".

  If Vodka wouldn't kill it, then why would the ISS [wikipedia.org] be immune to the same thing?

  From wikipedia ISS article:

  Hazardous moulds which can foul air and water filters may develop aboard space stations. They can produce acids which degrade metal, glass, and rubber. They can also be harmful for the crew's health. Microbiological hazards have led to a development of the LOCAD-PTS [wikipedia.org] that can identify common bacteria and moulds faster than standard methods of culturing [wikipedia.org], which may require a sample to be sent back to Earth.^{[329] [wikipedia.org]} As of 2012, 76 types of unregulated micro-organisms have been detected on the ISS.^{[330] [wikipedia.org]} Researchers in 2018 reported, after detecting the presence of five Enterobacter bugandensis [wikipedia.org] bacterial strains on the ISS, none pathogenic [wikipedia.org] to humans, that microorganisms [wikipedia.org] on ISS should be carefully monitored to continue assuring a medically healthy environment for astronauts [wikipedia.org].^{[331] [wikipedia.org][332] [wikipedia.org]}

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  Parent

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• Re:DeltaV to increase orbit (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @07:15AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @07:15AM (#966881)

  If the station is infested, maybe we should nuke it from orbit.

  It's the only way to be... oh wait...

  Parent