Bolden Urges ESA To Extend ISS to 2024

1. I just always figured that ISS was going to at least last until 2024.

2. If station becomes a stowage and logistics depot for LEO storage of fuel, vehicle assembly and refurbishment, even for the return of vehicles and crews from lunar or planetary missions, which was one of its original purposes, then, technically, there is no reason why ISS can’t or shouldn’t be used indefinitely. It will require the outfitting of some new components, maybe also return and refurbishment of existing components. Everything on ISS is modular specifically for this purpose.

   Unfortunately, all of this is made much more difficult and expensive with the loss of the Shuttle.

   The thing that is hard to understand is that ISS costs have been pretty stable and yet nothing new, no new components, are being designed or built. And the current management keeps talking about dumping ISS in order to go do something new and completely different. This is NASA’s non-sequitor-makes as much sense as terminating Saturn and Apollo production in 1970, or terminating Shuttle DDT&E in 1985 and Shuttle operations in 2010.

   NASA is its own worst enemy on this.instead of trying to improve systems and instead of trying to make things more efficient, they are far too ready to terminate development on their existing programs and shift to entirely new programs that do not fit with what they have. And they love to point fingers at their predecessors: you people made a mistake by doing this-now we will do the right thing. That is a lot of nonsense.

   This is a management problem.based largely on their focus on operations and programs (and destinations) rather than on systems, capabilities, expertise.and continuity.

   1. The ISS isn’t very useful as an orbital depot for trips to the moon or anywhere else due to its wonky orbital inclination (51.6 degrees). The Delta-V required to get to the station from any lunar or Mars injection orbit is ridiculously large, hence too expensive in terms of fuel. Why was the ISS put into this weird orbit? Because we needed the Russians to be able to get to it with the underpowered Soyuz. This, in essence, rendered the ISS worthless as a stepping-stone for BEO exploration. We continue to bear the burdens of including the Russians in the ISS project.

      1. Getting to 51.6° from Luna or Mars is no more difficult than an equatorial orbit if I understand comments made here by actual scientists.

         1. I’m not sure I’d go that far. The delta v and propulsive requirements from ISS to the Moon or Mars aren’t worse because of the inclination. But the inclination does impose some annoying constraints on launch windows, if you want to use one of those low delta V trajectories.

            1. I agree. However the ISS inclination is a compromise to allow access by all partners and also allows remote sensing over most of the Earth’s surface. The inclination adds somewhat to the cost of access but as we have seen with SpaceX the cost of access must be greatly reduced in any case. Inviting China to participate could provide addirtional logistics and financial backing.

            2. But the original point was the difficulty posed to an approaching spaceship attempting to enter a given orbital inclination. Coming from Mars, and aside from the obvious launch windows, wouldn’t entering nearly any Earth inclination require the same amount of fuel?

            3. For a spacecraft entering Earth orbit? No, the final inclination didn’t affect the delta v at all. But the orbital phase and plane are a different matter. Those also have to match if you want to dock with ISS after entering a low Earth orbit. You can do that with timing, since a transfer orbits from Mars have a few weeks of flexibility. But that adds the extra constraints on windows. From the Moon, it’s harder, since the spacecraft is already on Earth orbit and already has a well-defined inclination.

3. Space station: been there, done that…

   1. Today, my life consists of airports and train stations. Boston Logan, Newark and Paris/CDG, Paris Gare du Nord, Rotterdam, Leiden. Been there, done that. But I really couldn’t get to a conference at ESA’s ESTC center without them. Sometimes, I _want_ travel to be boring. Having a Shackleton-like adventure every time I wanted to go somewhere would be bad for my health.

      1. I was thinking that the attitude towards replacing ISS would be similar to the attitude of some towards going back to the moon.

         1. I think that’s the point. It shouldn’t be about going to the Moon. It needs to be about upgrading the front-end electronics on my decametric, far-side radio telescope at Korolev. Or whatever other job you prefer to mention. That is, about the reason for the trip, not the destination.

4. I think fcrary has the right idea and it illustrates a good part of the error of the Station management.

   NeilVerea said NASA ought to develop a business case and bring in new partners. That is called CASIS and has been sorely disappointing. There are certainly a lot of capabilities to do science on ISS, and one day something valuable might even come out of the science that is done there, But no one in industry does cost benefit analysis on basic research. The case would never close and no one would ever do research if they were pinning their hopes on showing benefits within a relatively short timeframe, like 10 years.

   Yet, all you hear from the ISS Program is how wonderful and valuable the research is that is being done there and if you were in the program you’d be hearing about the world class scientific results everyone is enjoying. All of this is because they are trying to tell the world that the benefit of this world class science facility is proving more valuable than its cost. Fact is, this is all nonsense so far.

   But if there were a different model, like the ISS were seen more like a train station or an airport,then its real value and use is still in the future. But so far NASA has not even come up with an architecture that makes use of its capabilities. The NASA managers are all too ready to dispose of this project and go onto the next one. This is engineer/astronaut syndrome. The engineers want to start with a clean sheet of paper. The astronauts want to fly off to new places on new kinds of missions. This is a lot of bullcrap and as long as they keep it up no one is going anywhere and NASA will be out of business soon enough.

5. One thing that distinguishes 3rd world countries from 1st and 2nd world countries is: “Maintenance”. Everyone likes to build the shiny new ‘thing’, but the upkeep is difficult for 3rd worlders.

   Look around the U.S. Howz it going with maintaining those (what were) shiny new toys/roads/buildings/bridges/etc we have. Not bad. Some not so good.

   ISS is in maintenance mode. Can US and the partners afford it? Or, not?

   1. Our great country is in the midst of an anti-government sentiment so sweeping that caring for our roads is nearly impossible; building new ones is exactly so.

      The governor of Florida is calling for another $Billion round of tax cuts while revenue-essential beaches on the east and west coast of Florida are polluted by run-off from Lake Okeechobee, all driven by failing infrastructure.

      As long as we are in the hands of the ‘starve the beast’ crowd pounding the message that our leaders are ‘incompetent’ and ‘stupid’ there will be very few nice new things. Meanwhile, I see that our Chinese friends have set another record for supercomputer processing speed; American college graduates set new records for indebtedness.

6. The ISS will stay in orbit and operational until a malfunction occurs that will force it to be abandoned and deorbited. It may be next week or 20 years from now. It just depends on when a failure occurs in a critical system that is not able to be fixed.

   But too much was spent on building it for any politician to agree to ending it while it is still working. So expect NASA Administrators to keep making the rounds to extend it every few years. And plan on its $3 billion or so annual cost to be part of the NASA budget until it does fail. Its that simple.

7. The problem is its annual cost, about $3 billion a year. No one but NASA is able to afford that. And bringing new partners will be more difficult as it ages. Remember it is just one failure on a critical system that is not repairable away from being abandoned and deorbited. The older it gets the more likely that such a failure will occur.

   That is why I am just hoping it will last through the crew flights for CCP. If it lasts until Bigelow Aerospace has a B330 operating all the better.

   1. Yes, along with is age and outdated engineering. At some point it will become like a old automobile, not worth the cost of fixing. I expect that will be sooner than later.

      1. The problem using skyscrapers as an analogy is they are far less complex than the ISS. And the infrastructure that was used to build them is still in place to fix them. And even so some buildings are so outdated its cheaper to wreck them then fix them. A demolition firm is a good business to own in urban ares.

         http://www.zdnet.com/articl…

         In terms of the ISS, remember you are looking at what was a 1980’s idea, built based on 1990’s technology and subjected to nearly 20 years of stress in a very harsh environment. It is only a matter of time before some critical system breaks, hopefully without killing any astronauts. Then the only option will be to dump it into the Pacific so it doesn’t threaten the world with an uncontrolled re-entry of a million pounds of space debris. It’s not a matter of policy or wishful thinking, just being realistic about its future.

8. I wonder exactly how many are assigned to the ISS program running? How many sit at consoles? train astronauts? The budgets are easily seen but not the number of jobs.

   1. A fully burdened aerospace engineer (I.e. adding in benefits, institutional overhead, etc.) costs between $250,000 and $500,000 per year.

      1. Stunning numbers; what accounts for the swing?

         1. The range depends on the employer and the how much the engineer is paid. Pay varies, but I’ve been told starting salaries in an area with a high cost of living can be over $200,000. It would be lower in different places and at different institutions, but not by a factor of two. Then adding benefits and institutional overhead generally increase that by a factor of two (typical of universities) to over three.

      2. I’d be interested to know where you get your numbers from. For NASA projects, NASA engineers’ salaries generally set the pace for other engineers including contractors. Top NASA pay for engineers is $145K. Managers and ex-managers make more, up to about $175 K if you include their annual $10K to $20K cash awards…With benefits, that means top annual pay numbers are around $200K, perhaps a bit more. $500K is very unlikely for the rank and file. A few top contractor managers might make that if you include their non-cash stock options. Those are all top numbers. Averages for all employees are much lower. As far as how this equates to people working on the program, its pretty easy: divide the program budget by the average pay number; for ISS $3billion/$200K=~15000 people.

         1. First of all, I’m not talking about the engineer’s salary. I’m talking about what they cost. That is, what would be charged to a government contract for their time. That includes salary, benefits, overhead, indirect costs and (for private companies) profit. Overhead and indirect costs include things like providing the engineer with an office, a computer, IT support, etc. The total (fully burdened) cost typically ends up being two to three times the engineer’s salary.

            For the bottom line, I’m basing this on what I’ve seen billed to NASA contracts. Since I’ve seen that for subcontracts to private companies, universities, JPL and NASA centers, I’m fairly confident about the $250,000 to $500,000 range.

            For the base salary, I generally don’t see those numbers. People working at JPL have mentioned _starting_ salaries of $200,000. That is in a very high cost of living area, so that may not be typical. For benefits, the amount you suggest (about a third, to take a $150k salary up to $200k) is very low. Including everything (expecially medical coverage) the total I’ve seen in budgets is more like 60% of salary.

            Indirect costs vary, but I’d say 30-50% is on the low end. Call the total at least 130% of 160% of the base salary, or 208% of salary. That $145k salary you mentioned just turned into a $301.6k total cost.

            1. I think you are basing your numbers one one extreme and I don’t believe even at that extreme they are as high as you say. Show us some actual job listings with salaries identified. KSC, MSFC, and JSC are not high cost of living areas and the pay is not that high on average. Max salaries for engineers are around $150K. In many cases they only get partial health coverage and have to pay a lot out of pocket. In a lot of cases the smaller contractors have no pension plans. JPL is an oddball because there are few NASA or regular contractor-they are mainly in the academic arena, and I’d guess their salaries are not that high either. NASA Headquarters is a high cost of living area but the people there are paid no more than other NASA locations, in fact pay differential has been lower than for some other locations. I don’t believe your salary numbers or your added numbers for benefits. I’m willing to be convinced otherwise, but you haven’t shown any data. Average engineer salaries are a lot lower.

9. That’s what we thought about Apollo.

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