The International Space Issue

[Horus Lupercal]

Way back in 1973, the US punted what at the time was the heaviest single payload into space. This payload was Skylab.
But it was launched too soon. Broken almost beyond functionality during the launch by Saturn V (on its final flight) and hastily repaired in orbit, this became just the first of a series of errors that would leave it abandoned after only 24 weeks of manned occupation. Reliant on the not yet completed STS program to keep boosting it into a higher orbit, Skylab was left to its fate to de-orbit and break up on re-entry. Again, things didn't go to plan and large sections dropped into the Indian Ocean (and onto parts of Australia) in 1979.
The year is 2018. NASA awards billion dollar contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to maintain NASAs interest and ability to utilise the International Space Station. This contract runs out in 2024.
The question I put to you ladies and gentlemen, users of this great forum of ours is thus:

• Should NASA continue supporting the ISS contract?
  • If yes, why?
  • if no, why not? And also in light of some facts I shall bring out shortly, what should be done with the ISS?

Before I go into my own opinions, I'm going to make some rules here. Realistic options and opinions are welcome. Pie in the sky ideas and intra-US politics are not.

Should NASA continue supporting the ISS?
Now, I'm gonna play double devil here and advocate both sides of the discussion, cos i can.

Yes
Firstly, yes, NASA should continue spending at least 225 million dollars a year on ISS services (that's not including flights either).
Why?
Simple. The ISS is currently the only place humanity has right now of its kind. There maybe other stations about, but they're owned by nations that dislike sharing the sandpit (yes China, I am looking at you) and the ISS is unique in that it is humankind doing humankind things for the betterment of humankind. Experiments being done there on the effects of zero gravity have changed the way space exploration is being conceived, from dietary requirements, exercise, recreation, psychological implications and resource management amongst many other things with a level of international backscratching that just isn't possible on the ground.


No
Absolutely not.

Why not?
In quick terms, NASAs concentration of resources onto the ISS program in future is going to harm on-going projects like the Moon and Mars manned missions. There is already beginning a shift in policy making for reversing the progress made in the past few years, and with the global economy getting more and more unstable thanks to Chinese Bat Flu, it may likely come down to a choice between ISS and Starship.
ISS is expensive, but the cost has already been out-laid. The station is built, it works and all it requires is crew change overs and resupply missions, which can be done extremely cheaply using the newly certified F9 rockets. This means NASA can stay in the 'space game', but doesn't do much else beyond the first few SLS/Artemis missions which are already costed and paid for already. This may lead to Congress choosing to sack further endeavours and staying with the status quo that has existed since 1973 with the cancellation of Apollo and the later cancellations of Ares and Constellation etc.
Cancelling the contracts to Boeing and SpaceX for ISS administration would free up around half a billion a year. Chuck that in the pot for the other projects, that could get pumped into finally going beyond LEO long term. ISS has played a huge part in the development of long term spaceflight and there are always more experiments to run, but at some point the experiments need to become practical applications. Bending that cash into the new lunar lander and the Gateway station, funding SpaceX development into Starship etc should see a more tangible outlay than spending it on an installation that is only technically a few hundred miles away.

What should be done with the ISS?
So you wanna get rid of the International Space Station? Easier said than done. It is the largest orbital installation ever created, 450t of aluminium moving at nearly 8 thousand metres per second, 250 miles above the Earth. Anyone thinks it's just gonna be a case of attaching a booster to the back (or firing its manoeuvring engines, if they have the DV) and pressing go like they do in SFS is deluding themselves.

Remember Skylab? That only weighed 70t when they eventually let it fall from the sky and it was probably no bigger than 2-3 of the modules on ISS in size. Some sections, especially the load bearing areas, aren't going to burn up on the way down. They're gonna strike the ground quite hard and with the same physical and political impact as the bits of Skylab raining down on Western Australia did in the late 70s.

So, just take it apart and de-orbit it in sections then. Easier said than done. It took over 1000 EVA hours to assemble using several robotic manipulators and an external self sustainable spacecraft (the Space Shuttle) to achieve it. I'm pretty sure Crew Dragon doesn't have facility for EVA, nor does it have its own manipulator arm. The Russians don't own anything capable of self sufficient long term orbital habitation with EVA facilities either.
So, conduct the EVA from the ISS. You mean, the ISS that they're taking apart? What sections are they going to cut off, that aren't going to be required by the crew living on the ISS to take apart the ISS? Only the Russian modules are self sufficient / automated enough so once you cut off the arrays or the modules or the radiators or the reaction control systems, then things are going to get very interesting on board the station very quickly.

The only spacecraft in the world right now capable of completing that mission is currently sat in museums across the US, cos NASA is forward thinking like that.

Another option or additional consideration comes if you throw Starship into the mix. Starship would be the only self sustainable, EVA capable spaceship available to the world in 2024 with the lift space to carry enough personnel and equipment you'd require to orbitally break up the ISS.
If there were any spare.

But not so fast there hombre. I'm gonna a few more spanners into your orbit.
Firstly, the ISS has been in space for 20 years. I'm gonna put it out there right now that some sections aren't gonna want to come apart and will need cutting. Cutting things in LEO is a huge problem with regards to debris. A fleck of paint, a small chunk of saw blade, a tiny piece of module, even a bloody rivet that spalls off the station is now another piece of orbital debris going around the Earth at 17,100mph.

Secondly, the ISS is not only one of the most complex machines ever devised, but also one of the most complex political arenas ever conceived. It's partially owned by no less than 18 different nations that fall into 5 distinct factions (Roscosmos, NASA, ESA, JAXA and CSA). Each module, laboratory and component onboard class as the sovereign territory of individual member nations (example, the Kibo Lab is technically part of Japan. This is so that any important discoveries and findings have a 'place' when it comes to international law and patent rights. If a Russian scientist using the European Laboratories discovered the cure for cancer on the ISS, technically the cure was discovered in Europe but that patent would be filed in Russia) and as such each Nation is ultimately responsible for its 'territory'.
If the US decided to sack ISS funding, it couldn't just do it's best Cartman impression, shout 'screw you guys, I'm going home' and leave the ISS to the rest of the world to sort out, because if the other nations disconnect the US modules (which is the vast proportion of the station) and let it fall onto Earth, the US is legally liable for whatever damage it causes on the way down and where it lands. Conversely, the Russians could just disconnect their own sections tomorrow and leave the ISS completely high and dry.
This means any orbital dismantling of the ISS is not just going to be an engineering challenge the likes of which has never been seen before, but also rival the division of Berlin at the end of WWII in terms of geo-political clusterfuck.

It gets even better if you want to bring some sections back for museum pieces. Remember, these are incredibly fragile aluminium cylinders that were transported up inside the belly of a much larger protective spacecraft. Even if you installed a protective heat shield and de-orbited it with some parachutes (a la Kerbal Space Program) and if it managed to not burn up on re-entry, landing the thing is going to break it.
SRBs were only dropped from a few thousand metres onto water using enormous parachutes, and despite being designed for such abuse, still regularly broke on landing.
ISS modules were never designed for that and would just crumple on hitting the ocean. They would need to be brought back down inside the belly of a much larger protective spacecraft. Pity, the only ones capable of doing so are sat in museums around the US. Cos NASA is forward thinking like that. Even better, they don't have the engines, cos the bastarding SLS project has stolen them.
What about Starship? Well, here is where shit gets fun. NASA support for ISS runs out in 2024. The ISS orbit degrades by 2km every single month. You have a very short window of a few years from the ISS being abandoned before it starts scraping the atmosphere. Inside that window from this second right now to say 2027 where it is too low to safely work on, you need to plan, fund, rehearse, and conduct whatever idea the international community come up with, before the ISS becomes a really large skidmark.
Will Starship be ready and readily available by then? Will anything be ready and available by then?

Anyway, here's the part where you add your 10p worth to the discussion.

Sources:
International Space Station legal framework

Who Owns the International Space Station (ISS)?

 

[Blazer Ayanami]

Horus and I were having this exact conversation somewhere else not on the forum, and he thought it would be nice to have it here to see everyone’s opinions on the matter. Anyway, looking forward to see the community’s ideas.

 

[Pink]

My 10 euro cents:

As far as I know, NASA is quite likely to receive continued ISS operations funding in 2024. It's maybe 2028 or 203-something where the doubts are. The problem here is the ISS is the subject of some treaties I believe, and as such you have to get everyone to agree on "yes, decommission it I guess" before you can do that.

As for my opinion... YES.
I'd be sad to see ISS go (and how to make it go is a matter of debate, yeah), but it's based on 40 year old technology and was the first (or second, if you count MIR?) large space station of its kind. It's old with lots of 'funnies', and requires a small city of constant monitoring. It should definitely be possible to make a replacement that doesn't require such a big running cost.

It may be more cost-effective for NASA to pull together another COTS (commercial off the shelf) program like they did with ISS cargo and then ISS manned vehicles. As the next space station wouldn't be the first of its kind, I imagine that it's possible for private companies to design and make it with a big carrot's worth of money being held out by NASA. Especially if they relax mass constraints due to the forthcoming reusable heavy-lift launch vehicles.

Heck, you could keep the ISS around for slightly longer and use it as a place to start connecting together parts of the new space station, if that makes it easier.

And you wouldn't even need Starship to relax mass constraints to allow cheap design of the new station. Falcon Heavy is now a proven rocket that costs less than 100 million per launch, and carries far more than STS could.
And SpaceX is now designing a larger fairing for it, so even better.

 

[Soyuzturtle]

yes China, I am looking at you

Am I right in saying that the US was the one that didn't want China at the ISS? From my understanding China built their stations as a response to being declined contributions to the ISS.

 

[Pink]

Am I right in saying that the US was the one that didn't want China at the ISS? .

Might be true, but odd if it is true. Afterall, the USSR was like China is now (human rights abuses, etc), but not as wealthy. And the USA was happy to collaborate with them.

 

[Mars Pathfinder]

Might be true, but odd if it is true. Afterall, the USSR was like China is now (human rights abuses, etc), but not as wealthy. And the USA was happy to collaborate with them.

Until somethin goes bad.

 

[Horus Lupercal]

the ISS is the subject of some treaties I believe

Many treaties. Most of which are in the links I posted.

you have to get everyone to agree on "yes, decommission it I guess" before you can do that.

Yes and no. So the US can't walk away from the project and leave its toys in orbit. However, there is absolutely nothing stopping the US from taking its toys and leaving except that it'll look bad. No treaty can force the US to spend a billion dollars on the ISS.

It's old with lots of 'funnies', and requires a small city of constant monitoring. It should definitely be possible to make a replacement that doesn't require such a big running cost

Yeah. Like most 20 year old vehicles, most of the time on board is spent making sure it doesn't break.

As the next space station wouldn't be the first of its kind

Why would you need a new space station...? Especially one of that size. Except for 'cos it looks cool', what reason is there for one to exist if you're already doing lunar and Mars expeditions?

Heck, you could keep the ISS around for slightly longer and use it as a place to start connecting together parts of the new space station, if that makes it easier.

Except that would only be a thing if your new station was going to end up in roughly the same orbit and inclination as the old one.

And you wouldn't even need Starship to relax mass constraints to allow cheap design of the new station. Falcon Heavy is now a proven rocket that costs less than 100 million per launch, and carries far more than STS could.
And SpaceX is now designing a larger fairing for it, so even better.

There's a difference between lifting a lot of weight and building a space station. Falcon Heavy could lift the first module on the cheap, but then how are you going to dock the next module to the first? The second stage of FH is intelligent enough to move to different orbits, but it isn't precise enough to run an automated docking procedure. It also has no method of manipulation nor is it human rated (and Musk has no intention of ever making it human rated). So unless your modules are now not just labs but also stand alone spacecraft that can dock themselves (how you're achieve that with the solar arrays, I'd love to know), you're still gonna need a crew, an arm, the ability to self sustain both for a week and a method of getting all that back to the ground.
Factor all that in, and STS is the superior station building vehicle to Falcon Heavy. Unpopular fact, the STS could actually place more weight in LEO than Falcon Heavy.
FH payload is less than 64 tons. The orbiter alone is 78tons. And then a 24 ton payload on top. That is an STS (remember, STS is the complete system, not the orbiter) to orbit mass of over 100tons.

Am I right in saying that the US was the one that didn't want China at the ISS? From my understanding China built their stations as a response to being declined contributions to the ISS

Yeah. And the simple reason why not has little to do with human rights, being public enemies or any other stuff. Quite simply, the US could not trust China to not do China things and copy / paste the technology it sees up there. China is infamous for being intellectual property magpies in everything from aerospace down to cars and (again, if you read the sources supplied), there are various treaties and agreements between the countries to not copy each others homework without permission.
Treaties and agreements that China will wipe their ass with and do it anyway.

 

[Pink]

Why would you need a new space station...? Especially one of that size. Except for 'cos it looks cool', what reason is there for one to exist if you're already doing lunar and Mars expeditions?

Mainly just to provide a focal place for 0-G research of all kinds, like the ISS currently does (at a huge cost).
If you limit the scope of the new station to that? Maybe could be fairly cheap.

There's a difference between lifting a lot of weight and building a space station. Falcon Heavy could lift the first module on the cheap, but then how are you going to dock the next module to the first? The second stage of FH is intelligent enough to move to different orbits, but it isn't precise enough to run an automated docking procedure. It also has no method of manipulation nor is it human rated (and Musk has no intention of ever making it human rated). So unless your modules are now not just labs but also stand alone spacecraft that can dock themselves (how you're achieve that with the solar arrays, I'd love to know), you're still gonna need a crew, an arm, the ability to self sustain both for a week and a method of getting all that back to the ground.
Factor all that in, and STS is the superior station building vehicle to Falcon Heavy. Unpopular fact, the STS could actually place more weight in LEO than Falcon Heavy.
FH payload is less than 64 tons. The orbiter alone is 78tons. And then a 24 ton payload on top. That is an STS (remember, STS is the complete system, not the orbiter) to orbit mass of over 100tons.

Okay, so STS could carry 24t station modules.
Same for fully reusable Falcon Heavy (rises to 57t if you dispose of the centre booster, which costs an estimated 30 million to make).

That still gives you wiggle room with less launch budget than STS.
The marginal price of one STS launch was what, 500 million?
You could launch a Falcon Heavy with expanded centre booster for around 120 million, probably less, while making a profit. 57t of lift per 120 million USD.

That allows you to make modules the same interior size as the ones on the ISS but with less strict mass budgets, which I imagine would make design and manufacture cheaper by allowing bigger design margins, redundancy and all that stuff.

True, you don't have the shuttle arm to put the modules in place, but why couldn't you solve that problem by making the first module a power and propulsion module with a Canadarm3 and RCS?

Second stage drops each module in the right orbit, the first module navigates to it and hooks up.


Alternatively, If each module is twice as heavy as its STS-era counterpart would have been, that still gives you 8-10t or so worth of mass budget to include a temporary kickstage-tug to dock it up with the other modules.
So that's two construction options there, that could be combined if necessary.

I don't see why you need a shuttle with RCS and a robot arm to do the job.
Falcon Heavy allows you to make the modules and attach them together autonomously the Russian way, without having to make each module a spaceship, either via temporary kickstage-tugs, or by making the first module do the construction work.

And again, we aren't trying to make a new ISS.
Just a new long-term space laboratory that could well be smaller.

And hell, as long as the first module has a docking port and airlock (make it a beefy 55t module or whatever), I imagine that using crew dragon on Falcon 9 to bring up construction crew astronauts is entirely feasible.

 

[4KidsOneCamera]

See, it’ll be sad to see it go, but I would like to have some sort of replacement in place before we get rid of it. We all saw what happened with commercial crew and I don’t think any of us want a repeat of the delay in capability.

 

[JSP]

I heard that the space company Axiom is making a commercial space station to dock with the ISS before they deorbit the ISS and then we will have a space station

 

[JSP]

Axiom Space wins NASA approval for construction of commercial space station on ISS

 

[Mars Pathfinder]

I heard that the space company Axiom is making a commercial space station to dock with the ISS before they deorbit the ISS and then we will have a space station

oh yes with huge cupola and a sexy design module but its not (ish or what?) really for ISS, for Axiom will just put there, assemble, detach before the firely death of football size station and have another station after it. (the Axiom)

 

[Mars Pathfinder]

See, it’ll be sad to see it go, but I would like to have some sort of replacement in place before we get rid of it. We all saw what happened with commercial crew and I don’t think any of us want a repeat of the delay in capability.

here is the axiom station:

Axiom Space wins NASA approval for construction of commercial space station on ISS

 

[TtTOtW]

I don't see why you need a shuttle with RCS and a robot arm to do the job

Blasphemy.
Also, dropping the ISS out of orbit is irresponsible. Look, this is more of a dodecahedron than a coin with three sides. Number one, there will be massive loss of jobs down here. What SpaceX is doing right now in job creation will be countered very ungraciously by NASA's retrenchments. Also, the machine is running right now. If may be an old engine, but as long as you keep topping up the fuel, no problem. Shut it down on the increasingly steep hill we're climbing (damn these modern complications brought about by more knowledge on everything), and the only place we're going is backwards. Need I remind us what a blow the retirement of STS dealt us.

So I say keep the ISS up there. It needs to be upgraded over the course of 20 years or so, gradually. And then all the countries will pitch in and carry their weight. Which is nothing because they're weightless so just ignore that ... Anyway, spreading it out over a long time will make sense, and reduce pressure on everyone, as ISS was built over the course of 15 years and that was the only way it would ever work. In short, think long term. Then nobody will be throwing their toys out of the cot. Send up a module to keep it fuelled before it runs empty. Note the Lada example earlier (this one's for you, Blazer).

Taking it down will also bring about a notable degree of incentive for international consideration for one another. ISS forces us to abandon political extremes, it really did actually bring us together. Seriously, without a project as unique and massive as ISS the doors for war are once again opened. Screw the U.N. and their so-called power. They can't stop a war anywhere. But with ISS on their mutual agenda, these various nations remain focused on good rather than stupidity.

The ISS is not set up as a fuel station. But, it CAN become whatever is needed over the course of a gradual 2 decade upgrade. And for further human and remote/autonomous space exploration, we need that... tourism is nothing but an excuse to keep the station going, and it may or may not work out.but in the end, that is at best a distraction. At worst, a complete loss. ISS needs to WORK. Just imagine what need there would be as a stick to beat NASA with to get Crew Dragon authorised if there was no ISS? All our dreams of space colonisation would die before taking its first breath. We NEED the ISS.

 

[4KidsOneCamera]

Blasphemy.
Also, dropping the ISS out of orbit is irresponsible. Look, this is more of a dodecahedron than a coin with three sides. Number one, there will be massive loss of jobs down here. What SpaceX is doing right now in job creation will be countered very ungraciously by NASA's retrenchments. Also, the machine is running right now. If may be an old engine, but as long as you keep topping up the fuel, no problem. Shut it down on the increasingly steep hill we're climbing (damn these modern complications brought about by more knowledge on everything), and the only place we're going is backwards. Need I remind us what a blow the retirement of STS dealt us.

So I say keep the ISS up there. It needs to be upgraded over the course of 20 years or so, gradually. And then all the countries will pitch in and carry their weight. Which is nothing because they're weightless so just ignore that ... Anyway, spreading it out over a long time will make sense, and reduce pressure on everyone, as ISS was built over the course of 15 years and that was the only way it would ever work. In short, think long term. Then nobody will be throwing their toys out of the cot. Send up a module to keep it fuelled before it runs empty. Note the Lada example earlier (this one's for you, Blazer).

Taking it down will also bring about a notable degree of incentive for international consideration for one another. ISS forces us to abandon political extremes, it really did actually bring us together. Seriously, without a project as unique and massive as ISS the doors for war are once again opened. Screw the U.N. and their so-called power. They can't stop a war anywhere. But with ISS on their mutual agenda, these various nations remain focused on good rather than stupidity.

The ISS is not set up as a fuel station. But, it CAN become whatever is needed over the course of a gradual 2 decade upgrade. And for further human and remote/autonomous space exploration, we need that... tourism is nothing but an excuse to keep the station going, and it may or may not work out.but in the end, that is at best a distraction. At worst, a complete loss. ISS needs to WORK. Just imagine what need there would be as a stick to beat NASA with to get Crew Dragon authorised if there was no ISS? All our dreams of space colonisation would die before taking its first breath. We NEED the ISS.

^ This needs to happen.

 

[Horus Lupercal]

Mainly just to provide a focal place for 0-G research of all kinds, like the ISS currently does (at a huge cost).
If you limit the scope of the new station to that? Maybe could be fairly cheap

If you want to do just this ^^

Then all this is a waste of money...

Okay, so STS could carry 24t station modules.
Same for fully reusable Falcon Heavy (rises to 57t if you dispose of the centre booster, which costs an estimated 30 million to make).

That still gives you wiggle room with less launch budget than STS.
The marginal price of one STS launch was what, 500 million?
You could launch a Falcon Heavy with expanded centre booster for around 120 million, probably less, while making a profit. 57t of lift per 120 million USD.

That allows you to make modules the same interior size as the ones on the ISS but with less strict mass budgets, which I imagine would make design and manufacture cheaper by allowing bigger design margins, redundancy and all that stuff.

True, you don't have the shuttle arm to put the modules in place, but why couldn't you solve that problem by making the first module a power and propulsion module with a Canadarm3 and RCS?

Second stage drops each module in the right orbit, the first module navigates to it and hooks up.


Alternatively, If each module is twice as heavy as its STS-era counterpart would have been, that still gives you 8-10t or so worth of mass budget to include a temporary kickstage-tug to dock it up with the other modules.
So that's two construction options there, that could be combined if necessary.

I don't see why you need a shuttle with RCS and a robot arm to do the job.
Falcon Heavy allows you to make the modules and attach them together autonomously the Russian way, without having to make each module a spaceship, either via temporary kickstage-tugs, or by making the first module do the construction work.

And again, we aren't trying to make a new ISS.
Just a new long-term space laboratory that could well be smaller.

And hell, as long as the first module has a docking port and airlock (make it a beefy 55t module or whatever), I imagine that using crew dragon on Falcon 9 to bring up construction crew astronauts is entirely feasible.

...when you could just put money into the guys looking to convert spent stages sat in orbit into orbital storage / laboratory facilities.

They're mostly good points, although that first module will need to be a space station unto itself if it has an airlock, power, living facilities, a canadarm and the ability to move itself in orbit.

I don't see why you need a shuttle with RCS and a robot arm to do the job.

Simple. Not everything you attach is going to be a module. Like those enormous solar panels aren't gonna fly and attach themselves.

Number one, there will be massive loss of jobs down here

Agreed. Unless they (as suggested) turn off the ISS to redirect time and resources to going further than 400km above the surface.

Also, the machine is running right now. If may be an old engine, but as long as you keep topping up the fuel, no problem.

Not sure that is how the International Space Station works. I certainly wouldn't want to be in a Lada moving at 8km a second and having the engine cut out.

Need I remind us what a blow the retirement of STS dealt us.

The blow was because the US lost its ability to get to the ISS / Hubble. There's no capability the ISS delivers that we need right now that couldn't be done with much less hassle if funds were slightly re-directed

So I say keep the ISS up there

Why?

And then all the countries will pitch in and carry their weight

Ha! You don't pay attention to world politics. Trust me on this, without the US, the ISS wouldn't have got off the ground. Even one of the russian modules was paid for by the Americans. There are only a handful of nations (off hand, the US, UK, NZ Canada, maybe the french and germans. In fact, I don't even think it's that many) that pay their contribution to NATO. You think that suddenly they'll start paying their way on the ISS?

ISS forces us to abandon political extremes, it really did actually bring us together. Seriously, without a project as unique and massive as ISS the doors for war are once again opened

Granted, it is the only display of global co-operation you can point at and go see, we can work together!, to say that it is stopping global conflicts? Nah. Remember, most of the ISS member states are also NATO members, and thus aren't going to kick off with each other.
And Russia is probably thinking more about the enormous nuclear response to war than losing its place on the international space station.

ISS needs to WORK

It does work. And has done for 20 years. But wouldn't it be better for it to end, so we can move further?

Just imagine what need there would be as a stick to beat NASA with to get Crew Dragon authorised if there was no ISS?

Just imagine instead of crew dragon, the money from the ISS was bent towards Ares / Constellation and getting us to the moon again over a decade ago? Or instead of crew dragon, the money was bent to spaceX for the big shiny bullet?

We NEED the ISS.

Just like NASA needs the SLS. Thats not a good thing.

All our dreams of space colonisation would die before taking its first breath

Or would it move quicker once it's more focused?

You must remember, regardless of the ISS, Musk is going to Mars. You're talking of space colonisation like its the exclusive goal of NASA to achieve. If NASA gave 500 million dollars a year to SpaceX back in 2016 rather than spending it on ISS / SLS, we wouldn't be looking at the death of space exploration. We'd not have crew dragon, we'd have Starship.

 

[Pink]

If you want to do just this ^^

Then all this is a waste of money...



...when you could just put money into the guys looking to convert spent stages sat in orbit into orbital storage / laboratory facilities.

Yeah, true.
Though if you're willing to go for a wet workshop, then the "use a starship as a space station that can return to Earth" option is probably on the table too.
Both wet workshops and all-in-one starship space stations probably need a bit of R&D before they can be implemented. I'd like to see them though.

 

[Mars Pathfinder]

Yeah, true.
Though if you're willing to go for a wet workshop, then the "use a starship as a space station that can return to Earth" option is probably on the table too.
Both wet workshops and all-in-one starship space stations probably need a bit of R&D before they can be implemented. I'd like to see them though.

Welp yeah need some R&D since we don't wanna kill the crew by Radiations under the hull of stainless steel...

 

[Pink]

Welp yeah need some R&D since we don't wanna kill the crew by Radiations under the hull of stainless steel...

I think plonking on some micrometeorite protection (whipple shields) is a higher priority.
The ISS has had a lot of micrometeorite impacts, the whipple shields there clearly work.

 

[Mars Pathfinder]

I think plonking on some micrometeorite protection (whipple shields) is a higher priority.
The ISS has had a lot of micrometeorite impacts, the whipple shields there clearly work.

Oh yes add that too

 

[Horus Lupercal]

Both wet workshops and all-in-one starship space stations probably need a bit of R&D

All in one starship would be pretty easy. It'll be similar to the lab module that STS carried pre - ISS so there's precedent for it.

Wet workshops is a lot harder. I posted an article about it a few days ago, but orbital conversion of old stages is a lot harder than it initially sounds.

I think plonking on some micrometeorite protection (whipple shields) is a higher priority.
The ISS has had a lot of micrometeorite impacts, the whipple shields there clearly work.

Oh yes. Have you seen the hypersonic impact protection videos on youtube?

 

[MadAstronomer]

I think NASA should continue supporting the ISS. For me, this station is something special; it's a great achievement for engineers. The single fact that we have done the spacecraft letting people be in space is amazing. I also know that ISS is a platform for numerous scientific research. Please, don't stone me, but I would like scientists to support the ISS and develop robotic missions. It's too expensive, I know, perhaps I'm just too much love space...

 

[Pink]

If the Russians detach and deorbit their half of the station after 2025... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At what point does it make more sense to use the cartload of heavy lifters in development now to make a new station rather than keeping the ISS on life support?

 

[Blazer Ayanami]

If the Russians detach and deorbit their half of the station after 2025... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Half of the station? The Russians only own two modules and the whole station is massive compared to them.

 

[Blazer Ayanami]

At what point does it make more sense to use the cartload of heavy lifters in development now to make a new station rather than keeping the ISS on life support?

Oh, I didn’t read this part. At what point? Right from the beginning, all the way to the end.

It always makes more sense to use an already researched, developed, constructed and proved system than to invest billions of dollars, on a whole new system, just to give your new rockets something to launch?