Keith’s note: According to NASA Selects International Space Station US Deorbit Vehicle “NASA is fostering continued scientific, educational, and technological developments in low Earth orbit to benefit humanity, while also supporting deep space exploration at the Moon and Mars. As the agency transitions to commercially owned space destinations closer to home, it is crucial to prepare for the safe and responsible deorbit of the International Space Station in a controlled manner after the end of its operational life in 2030.” Simply throwing the ISS away when it has been shown to be upgradable and repairable is short sighted to say the least. Then again NASA simply does not have the money to operate ISS, build and operate Gateway, and fund whatever emerges from the whole Axiom/Starlab/Orbital Reef mix – and do the Artemis things on the Moon – not to mention the notional Mars exploration things that NASA also crows about. NASA’s 50-year-old space suits leak and one of the replacement efforts is quitting. Oh – and Mars Sample Return and other large space science projects want their share too. That said, throwing things away is defeatist, unimaginative, and not the way we’re going to expand throughout the solar system – all while reusability is the new paradigm in the space world. Indeed, SpaceX is making and improving Starships at a rate that is more like a consumer electronics company. One Starship flight could add a decade of life to the ISS. FWIW Here is the International Space Station Deorbit Analysis Summary which has this rather odd justification for not allowing a Starship near the ISS: “However, ascending to these orbits would require the development of new propulsive and tanker vehicles that do not currently exist. While still currently in development, vehicles such as the SpaceX Starship are being designed to deliver significant amounts of cargo to these orbits; however, there are prohibitive engineering challenges with docking such a large vehicle to the space station and being able to use its thrusters while remaining within space station structural margins.” Yet NASA is totally cool with docking a Starship to the Gateway space station 240,000 miles from Earth. But let’s splash ISS instead. NASA is at risk of being known for what it can’t do as opposed to what it can do. Imagination is no longer in NASA’s toolkit.
Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member... More by Keith Cowing
One Starship has as much pressurized volume and more payload and personnel capacity than the entire ISS. Why develop new mini modular ‘commercial’ space stations when 1 Starship launch can replace the current entire world capacity? And Starship is flying now, and its development is not (for the most part) being paid for by US taxpayers. Seems like a great alternative may be available now, or anytime.
A SpaceX de-orbit device would seem also to be capable of playing the role of ISS rebooster. If funds and need allow, this device could also be used to keep ISS on orbit and continue operations, as long as the station can be operated. (The cracking issues in the Roscosmos segments do not give me a lot of warm feelings about the long-term functionality of ISS.)
Is there something that I (we) can sign to support pushing the ISS to a higher orbit? It is an incredible waste to dump it in the ocean. Makes NO sense.