Russia’s space agency announced Wednesday that the International Space Station — a space base the world’s scientists and billions of U.S. tax dollars helped build and maintain some 200 miles above the surface of the Earth — will be de-orbited and allowed to sink into the Pacific Ocean in 2020, just like its Russian predecessor, Mir.
“We will be forced to sink the ISS. We cannot leave it in orbit as it is a very complicated and a heavy object,” Roscosmos’ deputy head Vitaly Davydov said in an interview posted on the agency’s website.
“We have agreed with our partners that the ISS would function roughly until 2020,” he noted.
After sinking hundreds of millions into construction of the space station — billions if you include the cost of the space shuttle flights that carried the ISS modules into orbit — knowledgeable government sources and NASA spokesmen were aghast at Davydov’s plans to sink the station in the ocean.
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Sort of sounds stupid to me but if the U.S.A. hasn’t developed a new way to get their own astronauts up there by themselves it would be hard to argue for the continuation of the space station if the Russians are in control of the only way to get up there.
As to junking it I wonder why do it unless it becomes decrepit and it also becomes impossible to upgrade it at some time in the future.
If it had to be ” mothballed ” maybe raising it to a much higher and stable orbit or even have it orbiting the moon in a parking orbit ? I wonder if it would be technically practical to have a moon lander go up to the station and use the station in a slow moving translation to moon orbit ? If yes, the station could do repeat trips to the moon and be used to build a moonbase ? Hmmmmm …. maybe an elliptical orbit passing close to Earth and then close to the moon might work to do this efficiently ?
Wonder why this was never considered with some sort of Earth moon shuttle craft if not the space station itself ? Could the station endure the needed acceleration without breaking apart would be a question to ask !
The moon landings, space shuttles and space station are/were the equivalent to the medieval cathedral. They served as temples of worship of the modernist’s god Science&Technology. I came to realize just how silly the whole moon landing premise was when I saw some of the dirt they brought back in a carnival side show. Come and see a piece of the moon, a three headed dog, a five legged calf and a bearded lady! Despite what the high priests of Science&Technology would tell you there is no useful purpose in building and maintaining the space station. Having gathered all the data they need about the effects of long term weightlessness on the human body there isn’t much more they can accomplish. I mean how many more times can you look at the growth patterns of yeast grown in microgravity at a cost of a million dollars a spore before you run out of money? As for Jean’s suggestion of using it as a transportation vehicle; no. It is not built for the massive accelerations such a vehicle would require and even if it were there is no need or burning desire to return to the moon. Better a controlled crash than scattering radioactive material across otherwise pristine wilderness as was done not that many years ago with another bit of space junk.
I can believe that it’s not designed for any meaningful acceleration but I guess I still buy into the dream ( Star Trek …. LOL ) of Humans eventually expanding to colonizing the Galaxy if we don’t do something stupid and return to stone age or Medieval technology or become extinct.
As to a Moon base I think the Moon could be looked like being the ultimate space station and in cosmic scales inches away, a dedicated Earth/Moon shuttle that would itself never land on Earth or the Moon would make more sense than launching Moon shots from the Earth: Once in place with a space plane to take people and supplies to the ” Earth/Moon Shuttle ” and one or more landers supplying and expanding a Moon base become much more economical.
Eventually an advanced Moonbase becomes the launch point for Mars missions etc … This all could have been set up 20 or 30 years ago, but you are correct that the Moon missions where done more for political reasons and not followed through logically.
Sure on a day to day ” practical ” basis it might seem like an enormous waste of resources but I’m thinking in terms of human survival over millennia in the future ! In the big picture: What are we here for ? There is a whole universe out there and curiosity and knowledge are values in themselves to give meaning to our existence as a species. Anyway, just my belief that without more than day to day survival the only direction is down to stagnation or extinction.