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Let's Throw Away Yet Another Space Station

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
September 18, 2013
Filed under , , , , ,

The skies. The limits: The international space station is one of humanity’s great engineering triumphs. But what is it for?, Washington Post
“So even if the station’s life is extended beyond 2020, it is coming down, eventually. NASA could try to salvage a piece here and there, but there are no plans to deconstruct it, so the controlled de-orbit will be a spectacular, fiery event. Too big to burn up completely, the station will crash somewhere in the open water of the South Pacific. It will be perhaps the most expensive man-made object that human beings have ever intentionally destroyed. This vision of the future will sink to the bottom of the sea, ending another chapter in the history of what people used to call the Space Age.”
Keith’s: Joel Achenbach at the Washington Post does not seem to think that the ISS does much, is dangerous, and will just be dumped in the ocean. He clearly went looking for ISS problems – not the promise and potential of the ISS when he wrote this article. This is how the detractors of the ISS (and perhaps human spaceflight) will start their slow motion campaign – whether they mean to or not. Bit by bit they will portray the ISS as having no value or purpose and that it is not worth keeping aloft – despite the marvels and capabilities it has yet to fully tap. Soon, no one will want to expend the energy to keep it operational. And when it is gone we will moan and wave our arms about its demise – just like the capability we threw away with Apollo, Mir, and Skylab. “What were we thinking?” we’ll once again ask ourselves.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

82 responses to “Let's Throw Away Yet Another Space Station”

  1. BenjaminBrown says:
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    ISS should stay up until its no longer viable to maintain it. Certainly cheaper than building a new station, and there is still research we could/should do with the station to better understand how humans can live in space or can’t as the case may be.

  2. TheBrett says:
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    I think it’s done good, but you don’t want to leave a space station in orbit too long enough unless you’re serious about overhauling it in space. Mir spent 15 years in orbit, but by the end it was pretty gross inside of it.

    • kcowing says:
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      Skylab and Salyut 7 were bad off until they were repaired – in space. Mir had a lot of life left in it. No one really tried to fix it other than one mission to reboost it and tinker with a few things. Mir was dumped for mostly political reasons. ISS may suffer the same fate as well.

    • hikingmike says:
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      Well ISS is getting close to 15 years already and I think it’s in better shape. I agree though you need to have maintenance and improvement built in though.

  3. Robert Karma says:
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    The ISS was a jobs program that turned into a political program to help employee Russian engineers after the Fall in the 90’s to keep them from more nefarious pursuits. That was a smart move at the time and worth the effort but it didn’t really give a scientific and engineering research focus for the station. The partisan budget battle in Congress doesn’t bode well for funding the actual utilization and exploitation of the capabilities of ISS. Until we have a Congress and White House on the same page our space program will continue to founder in the backwash of this new ocean.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Actually, I think you have to go back to the early 1980’s and Ronald Reagan. He pushed Space Station Freedom, both inside the US and internationally. Although there were other capabilities implied at the time, at least in the news, as I remember it, it was presented basically as a science and technology platform for benefiting life on Earth and learning about life and industry in space. Even those who were non-participants in space at the time looked into it and were pitched to (like Margaret Thatcher from England). A lot of good stuff and a lot of nonsense has gone on since then, and we’ve perhaps forgotten why the station was originally proposed. It still has considerable value with respect to its original purpose and can be maintained for years for a reasonable cost — both less than what has been paid yearly to date and a lot less than any alternatives, given that there are no alternatives short of building another space station (which isn’t going to happen, since it all comes down to money).

      I would consider it insane to scrap what can still be our gateway to the future.

      Joel Achenbach says the US has a tough call to make. That’s his opinion. I say there is no tough call involved, just a lot of ignorance and short-sightedness. Only complete fools burn their bridges before they’re half-way finished crossing them.

      • Robert Karma says:
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        Space Station Freedom: 1984: Go ahead

        NASA’s dreams of developing the space station, stalled for years by the difficult birth of the Space Shuttle, finally came true in January 1984. During his State of the Union address, President Reagan gave official green light to the ambitious project, which envisioned permanently manned space station by 1991. Reagan also invited US allies to take part in the program. At the beginning of March, NASA Administrator James Beggs left for Europe and Japan to discuss possible cooperation on the space station with the respective agencies. In April NASA opened Space Station Program Office and in September invited the aerospace industry to submit proposals for the station design.

        1985: Power tower

        By 1985, NASA envisioned the station as a 121.9-meter “power tower-like” truss with pressurized modules clustered at the bottom of the boom and solar arrays and astronomy payloads attached at the secondary truss at the top. Seven Shuttle flights would be required for the initial assembly. In May 1985, NASA held the space station international user workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark. By that time, European Space Agency preliminary agreed to contribute a pressurized lab and a polar orbiting free-flying platform into the project.

        1986: Dual keel

        By March 1986, NASA approved new configuration for its future outpost in space. The expanded design now included a grandiose 94.5 by 45.7-meter rectangular truss assembled in orbit out of cubical sections 5 by 5 meters. Astronomy payloads would be attached to the upper boom of the truss, while Earth-watching remote-sensing instruments would rest on the lower boom. Pressurized modules and solar arrays would be attached to yet another truss splitting the main rectangle at the middle. By midyear, US allies agreed on their roles in the project: Japan and ESA would contribute pressurized labs, Canada would build a robotic arm.

        1987: One keel

        Space Shuttle put a brake on the station project again, when in the wake of the Challenger disaster, NASA had to scale down its future plans. As a result of lower expectations about post-Challenger flight rate, NASA reduced the design of the station to a single truss holding all elements of the station. Still, the original “dual-keel” configuration could be reached in the future. The launch of the station was pushed back to 1995.

        1988: Freedom

        In the course of 1988, NASA and contractors went through so-called Program Requirement Reviews, PRR. The program costs, contractor work, schedules and responsibilities were all readjusted to the latest funding levels. During second half of 1988, the negotiations between NASA and its foreign partners on cooperation in the development of the station finally concluded. On Sept. 29, in Washington, as US Space Shuttle resumed flights after the Challenger accident, 12 nations signed a formal agreement on their participation in the space station program.

        1989

        On July 20, the twentieth anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, President Bush called for return to the Moon and manned mission to Mars within so-called Space Exploration Initiative, SEI. The space station was perceived as “launch pad” for such plans. Different earlier studies looked at possible roles, the station could play in manned planetary missions. The SEI plan has never been implemented, while the space station program faced severe budget cuts.

        1990

        In October, the US Congress cuts the space station budget for 1991 by $551 million. Total $6 billion had to be cut during 1991-1996. As a result, in November, NASA started another redesign of the project.

        1991

        After a five-month review, NASA scaled down the station. The pressurized lab and hab modules, as well as the main truss were shortened. The pressurized modules were reduced from 13.4 meters to 8.2 meters in length. The main truss shortened from 150 to 108 meters. The launch of the first element was pushed back by eight months to November 1995. In the meantime, during the summit in Moscow on July 30-31, Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev signed an agreement to send a US astronaut to Mir and fly a Russian cosmonaut on the US Shuttle.

        1992: Russians are coming

        Russia entered the scene, when NASA concluded that it would be able to address the issue of the emergency return from the station quickly and economically by incorporating the veteran Soyuz spacecraft into the design of the outpost. On June 18, after three months of negotiations, NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin and Director General of the Russian Space Agency Yuri Koptev “ratified” a contract between NASA and NPO Energia to study possible use of Soyuz and Russian docking port in the Freedom project. In October NASA and Russian Space Agency also signed an agreement about Shuttle mission to Mir in 1995. According to the agreement, the Shuttle would pick up a US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts after a three-month mission and return them to the US for the post-flight evaluation.

        And the rest is history…

        • Denniswingo says:
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          The expanded design now included a grandiose 94.5 by 45.7-meter rectangular truss assembled in orbit out of cubical sections 5 by 5 meters.

          Grandiose? Who the hell made the decision to use that word? I worked with the people at Langley that built that truss and the ACCESS truss payload on STS-61-G was ten meters long and took about 33 minutes to assemble.

          I am continuously amazed at what other people think are not possible.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            Speaking for myself, I think that, after 40 years of patience and frustration, we could use something grand up there, and out there. As unlikely as it sounds, there are people in DARPA who think longingly of Orion, the original Orion. I rather sympathize.

  4. Rich_Palermo says:
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    “He clearly went looking for ISS problems – not the promise and potential of the ISS when he wrote this article.”

    He didn’t have far to look. This project has been guzzling scarce resources for over 20 years. The science community didn’t want it then and they don’t want it now. Industry was supposed to have lined up to do Awesome Materials and Cure Diseases and they’ve stayed away. How much more money are we going to toss into promise and potential when science missions go a-begging to fund this and the SLS?

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      The science community didn’t want it then and they don’t want it now

      I don’t think that’s quite accurate. Rather than the station itself, it’s been the interface between potential users and “the system” that has been the objectionable issue, and specifically the people in the loop rather than any hardware or software. I would say the fact that this situation has persisted for so many years without being fixed is unforgivable and has been a major cost factor. Heads should have rolled long ago in my opinion. But it’s still not too late to make it right, to expedite ISS access and use, and to get from the station much more of its incredible potential. There are certainly people who on Earth know how to make this happen; bring them in and get rid of the empire builders and the foot draggers.

      • Rich_Palermo says:
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        Disagree. We discussed this some months ago in other threads.

        http://nasawatch.com/archiv

        http://nasawatch.com/archiv

        The links to Congressional testimony and independent scientific review show that there was strong, consistent opposition based on costs, schedules, and the lack of any scientifcally driven objectives apart from studying the effects of astronauts on themselves.

        • Steve Whitfield says:
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          To me, all you’ve illustrated, then and now, is that not everybody sees this issue in the same way. I put more emphasis on what it was originally proposed to do, rather than how other groups reacted to it afterward. There were obviously enough of the right people who saw the need and considered it important enough to proceed, or the ISS simply never would have been built. Trying to redefine the purpose of a program, or a station, after the fact provides nothing except confusion.

          • Rich_Palermo says:
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            ” I put more emphasis on what it was originally proposed to do, rather than how other groups reacted to it afterward.”

            It was proposed, as fellow commenters have noted, as a public works program. I am sure the prime contractor and others with a financial stake will continue to push for it much as with the SLS. The scientific community was not opposed after the fact but was vocal from the outset and continues to be so.

            I think this is a fundamental point of disagreement between us and can’t be bridged. I would, however, like to acknowledge the way in which you’ve replied. I look forward to further discussions on other topics.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Likewise.

          • Denniswingo says:
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            The scientific community also opposed Apollo. So much for what they think.

        • Denniswingo says:
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          Use the damn thing as it was intended, as a base for exploration beyond LEO. Microgravity research was used later as a justification, not originally.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Agreed, but you can’t separate “exploration” from “science” because much science was and still is necessary to move forward with the exploration, and in most respects must happen first.

            I may have a faulty memory, but I clearly recall the word science being used repeatedly when Space Station Freedom was being promoted, around 1984 if I recall correctly. It stuck in my mind because it was a real about-face for Reagan the War Monger to be pushing science and advocating peaceful international cooperation in the development and use of technology. And I clearly recall feeling some skepticism at the time because the word science was being used without ever specifying exactly which areas of science the station was to be used for.

            Perhaps if there was a lack of specifics at the time, as I recall, then that’s why there’s a lack of consensus now on intended station use, since we were all left to make our own assumptions. Or perhaps when the two station name changes happened the intended purposes where revised as well, publicly or not, to accomodate new potential international partners.

            Whatever the history was, I think that if we, today, don’t see the ISS as a facility for developing the science and technology for exploration — and exploitation — past LEO, and subsequently performing HSF and robotic BEO activities using ISS where logical, then we are foolishly wasting both a huge investment and one of the most important opportunities we’ve ever had. Between economics and politics, if we blow this opportunity it may be a very long time before we get another chance, if ever.

  5. Mark_Flagler says:
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    The ISS is not the end of anything, it is a base-camp, a foothold, and it must be maintained.

    There are no excuses for not finding valid applications for the ISS. If ISS lacks them it is because of ground-based lack of vision, not the station itself.
    Second, since it is modular, old modules can be de-orbited and new modules added–using newer technology, perhaps application specific, and upgraded using lessons learned during the history of ISS.
    If no other use can be found for ISS (and that’s NOT likely) it can serve as headquarters for on-orbit assembly of truly large spacecraft and probes. The orbit may not be ideal, but everything from fuel depots to very large human-rated spacecraft can be assembled at locations leading or trailing the ISS, with crew commuting on a simple tug.
    Using ion or VASIMR thrusters we can even gradually change the orbital plane to something more convenient.
    ISS need never come down, and won’t if we use the ancient principle of “This is my grandfather’s ax. My father replaced the handle; I replaced the head.”

    • Paul451 says:
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      upgraded using lessons learned during the history of ISS.

      Unfortunately not. While everything about the ISS itself was intended to be upgradeable, the program itself wasn’t. So that hard earned knowledge is now drifting away, year by year. Any program to upgrade the ISS would essentially be starting from scratch.

      (Unless you use alternative funding models. Which someone is clearly trying to do with the BEAM project, but I expect them to be deeply opposed if they get any real traction.)

      • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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        One side effect of BEAM is that Bigelow technology is interface compatible with the ISS. New expandable modules can be added to one end of the ISS instead of the side.

      • Mark_Flagler says:
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        Or alternative managerial models. I suspect the issue described by Littrow is real, at least to some degree. I suspect the trick is to institute mechanisms whereby the knowledge is stored regardless of turnover.
        NASA has already shown it can do this. I remember the panic rumors that “the blueprints for the F-1 engine were thrown away.” Turns out that was not the case; almost everything was filed away properly, and working engines were placed in storage. Now, many years later young NASA engineers, unborn when the last F-1 flew, are poring over the plans and working with the hardware to re-engineer the F-1 into a simpler, less-costly engine, using modern design tools and 3D printing. And they are doing it on a starvation budget.
        So, knowledge doesn’t necessarily have to evaporate; if we structure things properly, very little has to be lost.

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        While everything about the ISS itself was intended to be upgradeable

        There is an issue I was told about third-hand that I can’t verify as fact, but would be significant if true. Some of the important integrated equipment in ISS is older technology than the rest that would have to be replaced wholesale in order to actually have an upgradable situation.

        There is also the upgraded docking hatch to consider. Will this require all of the module hatches on the station to be upgraded or replaced? That would be a major expense and I can see closed door arguments about who should pay for it.

        I’m very much for keeping and upgrading ISS, but I think it won’t be as quick, easy or cheap as what words like modular and upgradeable suggest. Remember the Shuttle when we learned the difference between reusable and refurbished.

        • Mark_Flagler says:
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          Even so, Steve, it would cost less to upgrade than to build anew. These should be viewed as maintainance costs of something permanent, IMHO. As is, we have a horrifying history of building costly space infrastructure (e.g., Apollo, Shuttle, Skylab, etc) and then throwing it away. If nothing else, that’s unforgivably wasteful.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Agreed 5000%! Storage space not withstanding, I think NASA would be better off with a pack rat mentality, supported by a proper library of what’s what and where. Hopefully such a mind set would encourage modularity and common interfaces even further. I’ve been arguing for designing with reuse in mind all along (reuse as much as possible, not simply refurbishment).

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        I haven’t really been following the BEAM, or Bigelow, very closely. Are there currently any inflatables in space that are connected to anything non-Bigelow and in use? If so, how is it working out? Do we know?

        Talking about doing anything like construction and assembly at the ISS is pointless without a large work area exterior to the current ISS. If a BEAM, or similar item (even larger), for any reason turns out not to be feasible, then we’re looking at actually building / assembling something as a work shop in LEO, given that we no longer have a Shuttle cargo bay to launch large items in. (and before anyone suggests it, SLS is not a solution to this problem; it’s the volume, not the mass that is the problem.)

        • Mark_Flagler says:
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          The only two inflatables I know of are the prototypes Bigelow launched several years ago. So far as I know both are still holding atmosphere and functioning as designed. Neither is attached to another structure.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Thanks. Then I’d say that it’s another important piece of work yet to be done, both in space and on the Moon and/or Mars. Our tools are of less value if we don’t know their strengths. weaknesses and limitations.

    • Littrow says:
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      There is an unfortunate political tendency within NASA and that is to trash what others are doing. Trash talk them and their activities. Trash their designs and accomplishments. Trash their people. It happenned in the Gemini Apollo transition. It happenned in the Freedom/ISS transition and it happenned in the Mir/ISS transition. It happenned with Constellation.

      It is so much more easy if you can start with a fresh design,promote your own people and not have to worry about all those experienced people with the higher grades.

      Its especially true if you have based everything on separately funded programs and centers instead of on commonality across system. It makes for serious workforce issues. It also means, as NASA has done it especially during ISS for the last 20 years that you throw away what came before. Constellation did the same thing. They saw Shuttle and ISS as foreign entities to be trashed in order to move funds to their own programs. This was a mistake. They succeeded in throwing away people’s expertise,
      jobs, design and manufacturing capabilities and already operatings systems. It is wat put NASA in the current bad situation. This behavior escalated costs tremendously.

      • Mark_Flagler says:
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        The obvious question is this: “How can you build anything long lasting, or that steadily improves, if you’re always starting from scratch?”
        I can understand how what you describe can happen in bureaucracies, usually accompanied by fanfares that the new generation will be better than the old in every way, but what they are really doing is throwing away institutional knowledge.
        I hope this isn’t as much of a problem within NASA as you describe, but if it is, it might be a partial explanation for why we’ve spent the last half century in LEO.

        • Littrow says:
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          Now you understand!

          If NASA keeps doing this then it will make no progress, just as it has not been making progress.

          The job of good leadership, competent, brilliant management is to make sure that progress is made and that what was previously developed is used to full advantage.

          Ineffective leadership had the wherewithall to make sure there was continuity but chooses to disregard people, organizations, and continuity in growth. That, and not technical cognizance, is the role of the senior NASA leader. The current NASA leadership prefers not to be involved in personnel or organizational decisions and leaves it up to others at a lower management level who have as their goals mainly their own personal growth and their own organization’s feudal growth.

          This is the failure of NASA top level leaders today. They have chosen to support throwing each prior program away in the expectation of starting over with something new and different.

          The Achenbach Washington Post article is a great illustration of this. All of these NASA managers talking about how scientific utilization is the most critical measure of ISS success. Yes, it is one measure, but the idea that the sole purpose of ISS was use as a scientific lab is not accurate. Lack of continuity means that many of the current management is not even aware of the multiple and various purposes of ISS and particularly its role as a test bed and way station for future exploration.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            OK, so let me ask the obvious question. Since we have seen certain unmistakable examples of what you describe in the past (Goldin and Griffin immediately come to mind); and you can’t be the only one on the planet to see the implications of this; and we who read your post had no trouble understanding it; how come, do you think, this continues to happen?

            I can’t see it being as simple as senior management not wanting to get involved, since NASA gets oversight on everything imaginable, and more, from many different groups. The fact that this persists almost suggests that there are those forces higher up who want it to. Where do you think this damaging and inefficient situation is getting its license to continuing existing and are they in any way vulnerable?

          • Littrow says:
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            I wish I knew the answer.

            We have some top level managers who will only appoint people into positions if they know3 the individual personally. Never mind that others have far better resumes, experience, proven success, etc. These managers do not even know what they do not know and they are not interested in learning.

            We have top level managers-people at the very top of human space flight, who simply want nothing to do with personnel or organizational decisions.

            We have some top level NASA managers-astronauts for example, who will appoint any astronaut to virtually any position, no matter the qualifications. Similarly we have flight directors who will appoint any flight director to virtually any position, no matter the qualifications.

            The term is chauvinism; you think you and others like you are so much better than anyone else.

            I would say that it used to not be this way. Top level people were selected based on applicable
            qualifications and proven performance.

            It is hard to say why the management now and for the last many years has been so poor in their choices. They are closed minded, shallow, arrogant, they bypass civil service regulations
            which are there specifically to preclude corrupt practices.

            And everyone sees the program that we have today; it is not invisible. Poorly defined requirements, poor implementation, exorbitant amounts of money spent, little progress. The program we have today is the direct result and its
            not doing very well. And then you have people like the AA for human space, Gersten, who BTW is one of the more highly regarded: telling every one don’t worry, be happy; dance for the next ten years while we figure out where we are going.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Thanks for that. It sounds to me like an issue into which OSTP, OMB, NAC, and OIG should be concentrating, instead of the often trivial, by comparison, things they spend their time on when they get around to looking at NASA, It seems to me that either the WH or Congress could easily get that happening if they wanted to. The fact that they haven’t, so far, begs the question: why not? It seem like there’s something more, non-obvious, going on.

  6. GHK1 says:
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    As one of the original ISS designers I can tell you that when we designed the modules, the nodes and the racks we did it with the idea in mind that it was completely modular, completely maintainable, completely upgradeable, I personally wrote those words into every spec and contract. We also envisioned that the same building blocks would be used for planetary missions and for lunar bases. After spending five years establishing the modules and configuration of ISS my next job was on SEI looking at how to apply the same hardware and design philosophy on the moon and planetary missions.

    A lot of what we ought to be doing today for exploration should be looking at how to make use of those building blocks, including many of the systems of ISS for future space vehicles and facilities. This is what the exploration focus should be-maintaining continuity of the elements, systems and the expertise that is ISS today.

    • DTARS says:
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      How do these modules and configurations tie in with what Bigelow is doing? Does Bigelow follow the same modules and configuration standards or does the fact that its expandable make their work completely incompatible with your standards?

      I recall reading years back that solid cans were picked over inflatables for ISS largely for political reasons/jobs in California. Any light you can shad on this history and how politics pre effected your work or not??

      • GHK1 says:
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        The 15 foot diameter aluminum module was the basis of the Space Station beginning in the late 1960s when Shuttle was being designed. Shuttle was designed around a fifteen foot station module.

        Studies based on Skylab and MOL showed that a fifteen foot cylinder was the minimum required. That established the size of Spacelab and the size of future space station modules. We looked at Spacelab as the basis of ISS. There were exensive design studies. We decided it was not maintainable and adaptable in orbit. You also could not access the pressure wall if you had an impact. We moved away from Spacelab and towards the modular approach.

        The configuration of modules, nodes, racks, and cupola were all defined between 1986 and 1988. Inflatables were never seriously considered in that time period. It was not that no one had ever thought about them-people were looking at inflatables in the 1950s. But it wasnt part of any of the NASA, contractor or university studies for the Station in the early to mid 80s.

        During SEI (starting around 1988-89) we started thinking about how we could erect a large inflatable sphere in a crater on the moon to serve as a habitat, It would be assembled using a cylindrical module like from ISS as the initial outpost. The cylindrical module hab on the moon was called the First Lunar Outpost and the larger spherical inflatable was the “moonbase”.

        Perhaps by around the late 80s, after the contracts were already signed with McDac and Boeing for ISS, a group started working on the idea of an inflatable cylindrical module that might have permitted the Shuttle to launch larger diameter cylindrical modules. This was called Transhab. NASA developed the concept. Bigelow bought the Transhab concept from NASA. I was not involved and do not recall the exact year but I’d guess it was around 1995 when Bigelow came on the scene. Bigelow was never on the scene in the 80s when the ISS modules were being definitized. He came along perhaps ten years later. Inflatables were never a consideration in the 1980s at the time that the ISS modules were being definitized.

        It had nothing to do with politics. It was simply the design mindset people had been in since the origins of Shuttle.

        • muomega0 says:
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          This reaffirms that all of the metal and inflatable habitats have had decades of focus on ISS and the lunar surface for short duration stays where half the GCR is blocked by the moon or earth.

          The larger volume would be great for supplies, and likely significantly less g/cm2 (1-5) is needed in the hybrid active/passive GCR mitigation strategy as described above.

          The goal today is to evolve the DEEP SPACE habitat for long duration stays, not to evolve the ISS and lunar surface habitat where the protection strategies currently completely different (metal, plastic, regolith) and when adopted to long duration deep space, have resulted in concepts that weight 400 tons.

          http://www.thayer.dartmouth
          The lesson is quite clear: one must abandon the concept of passive shielding for long duration deep space travel. Passive shielding is effective for solar particle events (originate within the solar system) but is severely limited for GCR.

      • kcowing says:
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        I was there too and GHK1 is right. We started with a modular series of elements that could allow adaptable growth of the space station over time for a variety of things- even things not envisioned at the onset. But then we tried to save weight by eliminated functions at docking ports, leaving out cooling capability, and other things such that much of what was once modular became a point design. ISS is still a vert flexible creature – just not as flexible as we had originally hope. It has potential yet to be tapped.

    • Mark_Flagler says:
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      Continuity is vital, I agree. Sadly, with Congress directing funding, and operating on a two-year electoral cycle, continuity is not what we get. Politics, per se, also intrudes and business is sent to districts and contractors with pull rather than those that should actually be selected.
      I sometimes think we’ll have bases beyond LEO only when we have Congressional districts out there.
      I remember reading about work like yours back in the 80s and thinking that lots of this technology, and maybe whole modules could be adopted for use as part of large spacecraft, Lagrange point stations, fuel depots, etc.
      I think they still could be, at least to a degree, despite the compromises Keith refers to below. And, yeah, why is there no visible program to use this tech for that purpose? Or is there, and have I just missed seeing it?

    • Rocky J says:
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      I’ll keep this much shorter than my previous message. First, the Washington Post has had some well done articles on NASA lately. Great use of multimedia. Congrats to them. I will read more W.Post besides the great NY Times. I disagree with Keith’s note. I do not think the writer was biased in the negative. The bottom line is that “Station” is still trying to prove its worth. The article is a fair assessment. ISS has not proven itself in terms of ROI. Has there been a Grand Challenge for Station? An RFI? We should! We need to maybe to spin it off of NASA in a way that will permit making some revenue to offset costs. Also, expand the participating entities and visitors. Add the Bigelow modules as there is already some plan, right? It needs to stay up indefinitely but surely the $3B annual cost to US taxpayers needs to be reduced. Robotic exploration of space will always give greater return of data and later materials (samples, raw/processed materials) than humans can do. But we are the sentient ones that ask all the questions and wonder of the World. That is what the Post article includes – that Hadfield emphasizes the existential value of the Station. This is important and there is more to be experienced and shared in that sense. And the Station does need more time to return on investment. Keep it up there, expand it, and expand participation, find ways to reduce cost.

    • muomega0 says:
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      “After spending five years establishing the modules and configuration of
      ISS my next job was on SEI looking at how to apply the same hardware and
      design philosophy on the moon and planetary missions.”

      This sentence speaks volumes. Rather than looking at the Mars and Asteroid missions and architectures, five years was first spent on the module design of ISS before the ‘next job’ was started. No GCR mitigation in the ISS nor module design, for example, nor inflatables.

      NASA has neglected the law built into its original charter: The act specifically charged the new Agency with eight objectives, including “the establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes.”

      Maintaining old technology has continued at the expense of technology for decades. We are not talking about ‘directionless honey pots of research’. There are many others that simply need dollars to raise the TRL in the flexible path forward.

      • Littrow says:
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        There had been studies for 25 years prior to the definition of the ISS module design that looked at size and design of station modules. It culminated in the Phase A/B and later C/D design work of station in the late 80s. Throughout the changing requirements and design from the original Station then Freedom, then redesign studies of the early 90s and then the ISS phase in the later 1990s the work of the people who designed the modules in the late 80s survived.Their work stood the test of time. They ought to get one of those top echelon awards for excellence and engineering achievement.

        Other elements, like the truss did not survive those redesigns; the entire design philosophy had to be significantly modified because of cost, operations and other issues. The truss went from sticks and balls with a manually laid out systems infrastructure that would be assembled like a tinker toy; that was the originally adopted station design of the 1980s; to the preintegrated truss that is in orbit, redesigned at considerable expense in the early 90s. The people who did not get that design right the first time cost NASA a lot of time and money.

        As far as adding additional GCR or other type of radiation protection-the modular design of ISS allows for that to be done inside and outside of the ISS modules, and in fact has been done in some areas.

        As far as inflatables, if all you want is additional pressurized volume, then an inflatable might be the answer. However if you want utilities, utility runs, stored and mounted equipment, places for experiments, places for exercise hardware, then an inflatable might not be wanted or ideal. Some have complained that the additional secondary structure of the modular rack-based design of the ISS interior added some unnecessary overhead in mass. But I have never seen an engineering study. But in an inflatable you have to build an entire additional structural backbone unconnected to the inflatable envelope and it can add a lot of mass and complexity. It might not be worthwhile at all. In the case of Skylab, it was a huge pressurized tank, not much different than a balloon, that was first going to be used as a rocket stage carrying propellant or oxygen, and subsequently logistics missions would carry up the equipment that went inside. It proved inefficient and the idea was dropped. It was cheaper in time and money to launch everything in place on a larger booster, a Saturn V which was one reason why there was not another Apollo moon mission.

        On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Russian Salyut and Mir were not at all modular in design in the interior, and many areas inside could not be reached for cleaning or maintenance. So while some on this thread are complaining about the maintenance issues of ISS, a Russian design alternative might have left no ability to perform maintenance and the modules might have to be thrown away in case of contamination or disrepair (as happened on Mir-by the end the older modules were not being used at all because of damage and contamination). The later missions of Shuttle to Mir documented the contamination problems because of the inability to access and clean areas in the interior

        So I am not quite sure what you, muomega0, are whining about.

        Apparently you wanted a planetary mission capable ISS in 1986 without the lessons learned of an ISS? Perhaps the lessons are being learned so that exactly this could now be done with the ISS components with minimal additional effort or expense?

        • muomega0 says:
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          The MARS DRM 5 architecture included inflatables to reduce the mass to enable an all chemical architecture because the 25 years of previous studies were too heavy and both considered SPE, not GCR mitigation strategies.

          A NASA health study with many uncertainties due to lack of data show that even with 20 g/cm2 of passive shielding (about 1 mT per g/cm2), the crew can only be in deep space about 300 days, less than the round trip time. Orion has 2-4 g/cm2 and most other designs have 5 g/cm2.

          One NASA study showed that it would take over 400 to passively shield a modest compartment.
          http://www.thayer.dartmouth….
          Unfortunately, this same link suggests incorrectly that the magnetic field would need to be 20T and that the crew would be subjected to this field. Further that only 9t would be needed to land on Mars, when the GCR mitigation does not have to active for this portion of the mission sequence. Ironically, even back then the passive system weighted 391 tons more than the active system.

          Active mitigation for GCR is based on the earth’s magnetic field: very large radius and very low field, so it will want to deployed at the largest radius possible, and will likely have to assembled on orbit, with a secondary structure.

          Hybrid active/passive systems are trading way better in terms of mass than passive or active. For a L2 Gateway, including cooler weight, the mass estimate is ~20 mT to significantly reduce, but not eliminate GCR dose, but this optimization trade of secondary structure, field and cooler, and passive shielding has only just been formally begun.

          As you point out, one will need some type of secondary structure to span from either the inflatable or metal habitat. Clearly, the passive shielding requires that it only be thick enough for SPE, not GCR, and deployed at the *smallest* radius possible.

          To add this scare to ISS when it was NOT destined BLEO would add unneeded mass. Hence the requirements were scrubbed to NOT include long duration stays in deep space where GCR is at least double the dose of ISS. If you head to the moon, then it blocks half the GCR, so it seems unlikely the solution for ISS or the moon would require “an evolvable” DSH.

          All the emphasis will be to once again postpone a DSH design which will protect the crew in deep space for long duration stays.

          So i concur with *your* assessment: “But I have never seen an engineering study.”

          So it appears the “next job …looking at how to apply the same hardware and design philosophy on the moon and planetary missions” is complete, and will likely avoid the long duration deep space portion of the mission. One could hope, on the other hand, that NASA is allowed to step up to its challenges.

          So you have two paths forward: Cancel SLS/Orion or cancel ISS to free cash for lunar or deep space mission.

          If you support SLS, you will cancel ISS since it is serviced by commercial smaller LVs, and will focus on the moon and 28 day excursions to L2 gateway to avoid all technology development and pretend that the moon is preparing NASA for Mars and deep space missions. its quite the joke, sad, pathetic also come to mind. Oops perhaps its just its just ‘whining’ 😉

          We all get it: short term missions that weigh 120 mT (6 day lunar sorties) is the only path forward for SLS. Unfortunately, 10 launches/yr is over 1000 mT, when one mars mission is 450 mT every other year and 2 lunar missions is 240 mT–SLS is too big, assuming it was the only launcher available.

          ISS can be used to extend crew stays to a year and to test new closed ECLSS designs. L2 Gateway can be used to demonstrate the crew and equipment can survive the year long microgravity trip to Mars at at least double the GCR dose rate of ISS and the lunar surface–the evolvable DSH without entering the gravity well and spending cash on a lander.

          The great news is that flight rate to L2 coupled to a LEO zero boiloff LH2 depot provides payload and hence flight rate to help grow the commercial LV industry. Further, the cryocoolers are need for the LH2 boiloff *AND* to cool the active magnets for GCR mitigation, and to cool the ISRU propellants, it that ever comes to be.

          Quite the exciting future: tech development, many missions, with guaranteed spinoffs back to space, and ISS retained for a very worthwhile purpose: research!

          What is not to like?

          • Denniswingo says:
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            Except that the GCR load is about to double due to the pending demise of Solar cycle 24 and the predicted almost non existent cycle 25. Thus all your numbers go out the window. You simply can’t launch what is required from the Earth in anything resembling a cost effective manner for Mars. However, using lunar resources….

            I do agree that it is a choice between ISS and the SLS, but that the choice should go the other way. Operational experience is what we need more than anything and that is exactly what we won’t get with an SLS architecture.

          • muomega0 says:
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            To be clear, at solar min, the number of days is approximately half, as Dennis points out, but this assumes passive shielding/aborbers only at 20 g/cm2, so the range is in the 150 to 300 day range depending on cycle for an older male, given all the uncertainties and NO active shielding.

            So but cutting the passive shielding to 25% of 20 g/cm2, one gains 15 mT in the architecture. Adding 15mT of active shielding reduces the GCR dose. Hence the statement: active systems are trading way better in terms of mass. Now huge gains can be made from reducing the uncertainties in the quality factors and increasing risk as well, but requires an extensive trade and data.

            If the Mars DRM 5 architecture is modified to depart and return to L2, then the earth return capsule does not have to travel to Mars, extending the trip by 10 days or so to and from L2, which saves 7-8 mT. If one chooses a hybrid chemical “kick start” /EP architecture, the trip times can be reduced by at least 25%, even with the burden of the hybrid passive/active GCR system.

            Before you have confidence in mass estimate for this journey, just like Apollo the technology needs to be demonstrated for the appropriate amount of
            time.

            Depending on your viewpoint on GCR, one could send a DSH to L2 for a year and complete the demonstration or it could take many years to
            conduct research to mitigate the effects.

            So the L2 Gateway becomes crew tended, gradually extending the duration of crew and hardware in space in the proper environment of microgravity and GCR, and can serve as staging point for missions/destinations forward.

            This simple ‘evolvable’ DSH or L2 Gateway must evolve from a deep space focus to its other destinations, not the other way around (not a moon first focus covered in regolith, for example). The deep space evolvable DSH provides focus to NASA Space Challenges, while at the same time providing flight rate at a lower cost of entering the gravity wells as a first step, part of the flexible path forward.

            This architecture trade must be based on numbers from demonstrated hardware, or ‘operational’ experience as you call it. This is a
            TREMENDOUS amount of challenging work forward, especially in the challenge of shrinking the launch vehicle size even further as it moves to reusable and lowers costs again by increasing flight rate.

            The ISS provided many lessons learned and will now see crew times extended for up to year in a lower GCR environment. Why active GCR mitigation has been ignored for so long is a question I cannot answer. The engineers have been constrained from examining the full set of technology for decades by the the stuck in the mud politicians is the only answer that makes sense, but perhaps Lori Garver is also correct: (part? of) NASA does not like change.

            The great news is that the current and future engineers can do better as they step up to the significant Space Challenges, and will provide immediate spinoffs back on earth, with the hope of obtaining resources BLEO in the future. Lets get this party started, a new frontier. After all, warp drive is available in 2063.

    • Denniswingo says:
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      GHK1

      Thanks for the incredible work you guys did. I was around in the SEI era and the graphics for what you talk about are still floating around out there. This is one person that appreciates the work that was done there and the smooth assembly process and operational readiness today is a testament to that work.

      • GHK1 says:
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        Thanks Denniswingo!

        I still have my SEI renderings of the lunar outpost, moonbase, rover and Mars vehicles. They hang on my office walls and I look at them everyday. My vision for what the future can be is still very much the same as it was 20+ years ago.

        I had the good luck to be involved in Spacehab at its origins, during the contract definition, and then during its first flights; I was involved in the origins of the NASA-Mir program, wrote a lot of the contracts, redesigned the last Russian module and built the hardware for it, and then stayed throughout the integration and operations of the Mir missions. For ISS I was involved in the early design, the contracts, and then different stages of development and assembly.

        We can do these things if we want.

        ISS has now enabled the future. Now we simply need to line people up in support.

        • Denniswingo says:
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          Laf, I designed the system that measured the accelerations and disturbances on STS 57 in the Spacehab module. I was at the airport in Huntsville when the bare module arrived from Alenia. That was a good project.

  7. Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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    Houses and officers need rewiring and replumbing after 25 to 30 years. This is likely to apply to the ISS. Due to the problems with working in a spacesuit it may be cheaper to upgrade the ISS by adding new modules and deorbiting old ones.

  8. DTARS says:
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    Andrew reply isn’t working

    It maybe cheaper to add new modules and deorbit the old ones.

    Wrong!!!!

    It is cheaper to add new modules after selling the old ones to me!

    Satellite salvage and construction lnc.

    • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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      That leaves you with having to find a customer for the scrap. The parts are old so they cannot be used for long – the air tight seals are ceasing to be air tight . Also we have no blast furnaces in space to recycle the scrap.

  9. Sherye Johnson says:
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    If the writer wants to pick on something that is useless, look no further than Robonaut out of JSC. What a expensive load of junk. Nothing more than a useless publicity stunt.

  10. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    Let’s not throw a space station away!

    tinker

  11. DTARS says:
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    GHK1
    What I recall reading just before Bigelow bought the rights to transhab was that the transhab group was considered radicals with in nasa. I think the source of the articles were on Mars news the mars society web site. The martians were very upset that the transhab work was not going to be used for ISS since it was proving to be stronger and safer. I even think a spot was run on 60 minutes where they shot guns at the stuff. I also recall that about this time that a congressmen made it against the law for NASA to use ISS for MARS research/tranhab module.

  12. Stanley Richard Clark says:
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    First Congress does not want to hear about ‘maintaining
    existing infrastructure’ it wants to build NEW stuff, it looks more like progress. It’s much easier to get funding for NEW stuff as opposed to maintaining the old stuff. Also if you read ‘Aerospace America’ this month you will see that the ISS is being used to study long term effects of space travel on humans. But all the ‘mundane’ research is ignored because it’s not ‘spectacular’… Sad, as for the modular ISS you know you could use the same modules placed in a lattice with engines to make a ‘real’ space craft.

  13. Roger562 says:
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    ISS is a waste of time and effort. It does nothing of importance and has never explored anything. The only reason it continues to fly is because so few people give a damn about it that it effectively flies under the radar. It also needlessly jams NASA in low Earth orbit for next to zero return in any meaningful metric.

    NASA should look at either flying it somewhere that is actually interesting, or shedding themselves of this pointless drain of resources and splash it down.

    • Anonymous says:
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      You must be naive to believe that if ISS is deorbited NASA will suddenly have the funding to go places beyond LEO. What will in all likelihood happen is that the budget will be reduced even further. ISS may have to prove its “importance” (which I think it has just by being up there since 1998 and crewed contiunuously since 2000) but at least it shows that America and Russia are way more united off this planet. Which, in my humble opinion, is an embarrassment to the apparent movers-and-shakers running things down here for us 7 billion inhabitants. Just to go a tad off-topic, I cannot understand the harm in having China as a partner if Soyuz was ever grounded. At NASA they always like to tell the world they have a back-up plan… unfortunately it’s still many years away to “give a damn” about ISS!

    • dogstar29 says:
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      If we abandon the ISS we will not be stuck in low earth orbit. We will be stuck on the ground.

    • hikingmike says:
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      Use it as a platform to assemble pieces of a space-only Nautilus-X type craft – good usage of ISS (plus additional garage or whatever as originally planned), good use of money for beyond Earth orbit exploration, even good PR value for ISS and NASA.

  14. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    The Russians are planning ahead with a new module and a 6 port docking node. They could easily build up that part of the station so they could bail by detaching from ISS at the Zvezda/Zarya docking port (Zarya has too many connections to the unity node to make a quick getaway). Maybe they can even modify the docking adapter on the Cupola’s node and make off with the ‘room with a view’ too!

    tinker

  15. Littrow says:
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    Steve Whitfield said:
    “Only complete fools burn their bridges before they’re half-way finished crossing them.”

    What NASA did with Shuttle.
    What Constellation tried to do to ISS.

  16. LPHartswick says:
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    It was a compromised and political project from very shortly after its inception. Its too low, at the wrong inclination and is a maintenance hog. It took over a decade and dozens of shuttle flights to complete. A space station is a desirable thing in an overarching strategy of space exploration, but only if you’ve got realistic budgets. Which we don’t. When and if we have a functional HLV in the Saturn Class; and a Congress disposed to do more than one thing at a time; then we can do it again and correctly. Trying to repair, upgrade and make it more functional now will suck up 90% of the political oxygen and 100% of the money. Which is easier to do, constructing a new road, or expanding and upgrading an old one?

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      That’s easy. Expanding an old road is much easier, unless there’s traffic on it…

    • Denniswingo says:
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      Horsepucky. Take a look at the latest payload planners guides from the Delta IV and Atlas and even SpaceX. Even in the old days the penalty for the inclination was 6.3%. How long are people going to hold to obsolete notions?

      ISS is in a superior inclination if Solar Electric Propulsion is used as the station goes full sun beta multiple times per year. Even if we had a functional HLV today and we dropped ISS in the water tomorrow and diverted every penny of that money to SLS utilization we could not do a Mars mission. The last DRM was 6-8 SLS launches and we only have the capability of launching two per year with the same overhead as the Shuttle.

      • LPHartswick says:
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        You seem to have all the data at your fingertips. So, tell me, how much money would it cost to maintain the current station for an additional 20 years; what would it do; how much refit would be required and how much would that cost?

    • hikingmike says:
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      expanding and upgrading

  17. MfK says:
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    One good reason to keep it up is the difficulty in getting it down. ISS End of Life work is going on right now, and it isn’t straightforward. No matter what one does, a shallow entry is the only one possible. With a mass roughly 6 times that of Skylab, ISS will produce a total mass of surviving debris more than twice the launch mass of Skylab. With a shallow entry, that debris will be scattered over a thousand or more miles. And no one now knows how to predict with certainty where the breakup will begin. We currently do not know how to bring the thing down safely.
    On the other hand, boosting it into a storage orbit and abandoning it isn’t a great idea either. It’s a huge target for MMOD, and would eventually produce a Kessler Syndrome all by itself — especially if hit by a whole satellite.
    I get the feeling they didn’t think this thing all the way through back in the beginning…

  18. dogstar29 says:
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    Part of the problem is the fascination the program has had with biological and microgravity sciences. This entire area has been driven by wistful thinking since the days of CFES, perfect semiconductors, and perfect ball bearings.

    The mission proposed by Clark Covington in the 70’s was not science at all, at least not directly, but rather servicing, fueling, checkout and repair of probes to be sent BEO and satellites in earth orbit. The “space tug’ was the third element of the STS that was never built, and some elements of this proposal have resurfaced as fuel depots. The station was to have pressurized and unpressurized ‘hangars” to protect, for example, space telescopes from contamination. Even in high inclination orbit the ISS could do many of these tasks. But the most productive task for the ISS is earth observation; the high inclination orbit passes over almost the entire populated earth and new sensors could be carried up on logistics missions and added to the truss for a fraction of the cost of satellites. The truss should already be festooned with sensors and the (not necessarily continuous) downlink capacity should be vastly increased. Earth observation payloads would produce an extraordinary data rate with minimal crew time. Some excellent proposals in this arena have remained unfunded for years, as has the proposal to assemble medium-sized astronomical telescopes aboard ISS and check them out before moving to new orbits. Finally, the station can continue to serve as a geopolitical catalyst for diffusing tensions between the superpowers by inviting China to join the program. This is currently prevented by the peculiar and almost absolute control over NASA policy held by just one member of Congress, extreme sinophobe Frank Wolf.

    • Mark_Flagler says:
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      Good information. We could still recapture some of that, especially the Earth sensing aspects. The truss is there, after all, and we are steadily regaining the ability to send respectable cargoes to the station.
      Personally, I would very much like to see tug and depot concepts move beyond the study phase and fly. Their cost would be reasonable compared with SLS or JWST, and such an orbital infrastructure would lend itself to BEO missions.

    • Brian_M2525 says:
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      I agree that if you trace the history of ISS (really the 1984 Space Station) scientific research was just one aspect of its mission and by no means not necessarily the most important or significant. In 1984 the breadth of Shuttle experimentation was still off in the distance a few years away.

      At the time of Station’s approval Shuttle was the first leg in a space transportation system and ISS was another element of that system. Beggs proposed and Reagan agreed to go ahead with an orbital base because of the potential for commerce and industry-not really even specifically for scientific research.

      In 1984 many of the Joint Endeavor Agreements for microgravity payloads even on Shuttle had not yet been signed and the payloads would not fly for years.

      Station was also supposed to be an assembly node for future vehicles, a repair depot, an international laboratory for understanding the value of a LEO base and for better understanding the value of people in space, an international base, the central location for housing maintenance personnel who would go off to perform maintenance on satellites and other vehicles, a node for departing and returning lunar or planetary crew and vehicles.

      Station was supposed to be an all-purpose outpost, not much different than a NASA research center or an Oak Ridge National Lab. No doubt microgravity sciences is a significant role but it was never intended at the outset as the sole or even the primary role. This idea that it is supposed to be showing net positive cash flow is nonsense. Its a multi-governmental facility for some basic and some applied research.

      Folks like Ashenbach and apparently many of the NASA people who spoke to him need an education about the Station, its origins, its conceived purposes, etc. They also do a lousy job of explaining what it is being used for. After thirty years they do not have a straight story. NASA and ISS need a communications management team.

      Maybe in 2014, for the anniversary they will come up with something that does a better job telling the story.

  19. Gene DiGennaro says:
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    Re: Keith’s note
    Achenbach’s article reminds me of editorials written in the 1968-1972 Apollo operational era. The same “Was it all worth it?” head scratching, the same “It serves no purpose, let’s divert our attention elsewhere.” mentality, these editorials were slowly changing the narrative and the public’s opinion. In the end we threw away a pretty good infrastructure of Apollo/Saturn because our citizens demanded it. Here we go again.

  20. ed2291 says:
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    Keith said, ” Joel Achenbach at the Washington Post does not seem to think that the ISS does much, is dangerous, and will just be dumped in the ocean.”

    I agree with Keith this is not a great article, but Joel has 3 points.

    -“The ISS does not do that much.” This penny wise and pound foolish approach has been documented by Keith for years. It could do a lot more, but it has not been planned or funded to.

    -“is dangerous” True, but so what. Nothing is absolutely safe. The danger is commensurate with the risk and advancement of science.

    -“will just be dumped in the ocean.” I hope not, but Keith has pointed out the dangers of NASA with no institutional memory. The real tragedy is if we do this before using the ISS in a meaningful way.

  21. Chuck_Divine says:
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    I’ve waited a few days before posting a comment. I wanted to see if anyone else would bring up something interesting regarding The Washington Post. Recently the Grahams — owners of The Post for decades — sold the newspaper. To whom? Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame. How many people here know much about Bezos? He’s 49 years old. His stepfather was an engineer. Bezos has been interested in space since he was a child back in the 1960s. He was brought up partly on Star Trek. When he graduated from high school he gave a valedictory speech on space colonies. He went to Princeton University — home of Gerard K. O’Neill. While he started out as a physics major, he switched into engineering. Besides Amazon, Bezos also has started Blue Origin — a New Space company.

    It is too easy to find problems with NASA — think about the Columbia investigation, for example. I’ve said for some time that NASA needs a cultural shift from an authoritarian one to one that is more open and democratic.

    Given all this, I am wondering if we are now seeing these articles in The Post as a way of helping Bezos progress toward goals that he has had for some time. I’ve run into Achenbach a few times. If I encounter him again soon in the future I am likely to ask him about this.

    Why, yes, I am a polymath with interests in hard science, social science and even art. Some people think I have talents in those areas as well.

  22. Brian_M2525 says:
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    “In the end we threw away a pretty good infrastructure of Apollo/Saturn because our citizens demanded it.”

    I’ve spoken with many of the engineers and top level managers responsible for developing Shuttle, and they will tell you precisely the same thing-there was a design and an infrastructure in place. It may have had problems but that is what engineers are supposed to be there for-to resolve and correct problems, make the system more able to deal with them.

    Apollo Saturn was thrown out because it was far too expensive to operate, for lunar or planetary missions it was single string from a safety standpoint, and flying at the rate of a couple missions a year was not helping either expenses or safety.

    Orion-SLS has all of the problems of Apollo Saturn X 3 or 5 times. More expensive to operate, fewer flights, no redundancy during major mission phases especially without a lander or other auxiliary module. Talk about loss of institutional memory…

    This mistake of Shuttle was that they put a bunch of ops people in charge of program management who made no attempt to significantly modify or upgrade anything in 30 years. And they artificially kept ops costs high in order to favor their ops organizations and contractors.

    As some others have commented in this thread, Shuttle and ISS were designed together and should have been maintained together. They now have one element of a system without its complementary launch element.

    As far as expense to operate, there is absolutely no reason why ISS should be requiring the same numbers of dollars to operate and maintain ISS now in the post DDT&E and post assembly phase of its life. Ops cost should have come down significantly. If you were to divide support up by systems and engineering function or specialization instead of by vehicle and program, then you could have gotten cross training across platforms and consolidated the workforce, and freed up money for new development. But these ops types only know one way to do things, and since they are in complete control, they have no interest in saving on costs.

    • Gene DiGennaro says:
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      I get your point about Apollo/Saturn being too expensive and not flown enough. However, think about building Apollo/Saturn from 1968 to the present day. There would be 45 years of increasing manufacturing efficiency, gradually evolving like Soyuz.
      It is my opinion that a space station the size of the ISS could have been built quicker and cheaper using the Saturn V. The mass of the ISS could have been lofted in 4-5 Saturn launches. Even at one flight per year, the ISS would have been built in 4-5 years as opposed to 13 years using Shuttle/Proton. Clearly that alone would have saved the taxpayers quite a bit of money.