Question: What do you do with a 654,000 pound space station with no budget past 2015?
Let her crash and burn, which is just what the current plan is for the International Space Station. The short story here is that NASA will not have the budget to keep the huge space station in orbit. It seems like a shame to let the $100 billion ISS fail in such a glorious method. NASA doesn’t have the money and soon will not even have transportation with the Shuttle on the quick road to retirement.
There are of course folks in the government that want the ISS to survive a bit longer, but they can’t find the money. AIG executives apparently need a bonus so the space station needs to come down. Sorry, science and humanity, some playboy needs to make yacht payment. Sad.
Not going to happen. They haven’t wasted all this time and money just to let it fail. Nasa has a history of besting expectations with its projects… how many probes have gone years beyond their life expectancies? and just because the shuttles are being shutdown doesn’t mean there isn’t transportation. Thank the Russians and their lovable Suyoz craft. Every shuttle launch of the past 6+ years has been to work on this thing. It’s a shame if they let it crash and burn, just so we can go to the Moon again
I think the Japanese also have an autonomous station supply vehicle. It is true no one else has the heavy lift capabilities of the shuttle, but once the station is built, less heavy lifts will be needed. I think the station will manage well beyond the shuttle until Aries comes online next decade
If you ask me, the answer is to sell it, have an auction and let a private organization take it over.
Maybe Richard Branson will buy it.
They are just playing politics attempting to get more money out of congress.
I heard Starbucks is opening a location there. So it will be there past 2016.
Nah It’s a Tim Horton’s they figured since they have New York on Lock dow that they would take on space next.
They better find something to do with it! I imagine other countries could step in if NASA wants to walk away.
Regardless…I’m gonna be a pissed off tax payer if they don’t put that thing to good use for many decades to come!
Oh, wait…..I am already a pissed off taxpayer. Carry on.
Anyone know If a private fund has been started to keep it afloat?
If not, anyone know how to start one?
The ISS does’nt really belong to NASA. It was originally the MIR Space Station heart that was used as the foundation for the ISS and quite a few countries jointly own it today.
Actually, MIR was brought down a few years ago as well. The ISS was built from scratch.
Well, actually, the Zvezda Service Module of the station was originally called “Mir-2,” so the ISS wasn’t quite built from scratch; that part of the station can trace its design lineage all the way back to the original Soviet Salyut station design.
The original Mir outlived its design lifetime by a long shot; hopefully the ISS will be allowed to do the same.
They could drive it to the Moon, and voilà, an instant lunar outpost ready at a fraction of time, money and resources required for a conventional outpost.
Time to recycle, NASA guys..
I agree 100% with the recycle option. They should figure out what they can do with the pieces and parts, and use them for the next station. But trashing the entire thing? Unbelievable and unacceptable (to me, anyway).
The amount of energy required to move the station from it’s current location to the moon would be quite a bit larger than launching a mission from scratch.
Nonsense. It’s much easier to move something from Earth orbit to elsewhere than it is to get it off the ground. Even a full retrofit of the station would be more cost efficient than an entire new facility. Assuming it can be done, of course.
It costs too much to send people into space. It’s also getting a lot more dangerous. Since we get a lot more bang for the buck out of robots, just sell the ISS to motel six.
It cost so much money to send people into space so lets declare the ISS as a $100B sunk cost? Sure, if we never intend to send another person into space – ever that makes perfect sense – but that seems to not be the case.
Just think what that $100B and thousands more like it could have really done for humanity back here on earth! Are tang, velcro and freeze dried ice cream really worth the cost?
Moving $100B from NASA doesn’t mean that the money goes into the “For the betterment of humanity” pile. Government budgeting doesn’t work that way.
Why dopes someone always say that?
Every dollar invested in NASA generates a 1000% indirect return for the economy, and an immeasurable return to society.
Virtually every aspect of the physical sciences benefits from research only those in space are in a position to do, from climatology and meteorology study to biology and physics.
Weather anticipation, communications technology, materials science, geology, etc etc
Oh yeah and then there is the slim (given their UNDER funded nature) chance that their orbital diagnostic equipment could save all of our lives by giving us a decade of warning of a celestial impact, like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Seriously, people that don’t want to fund space exploration and study are ignorant, plain and simple. Educate yourself.
wow…
couldn’t have put it more perfectly Brandon…
The Tang and Velcro comment above could not have been more ignorant.
The pursuit of knowledge doesn’t buy you votes.
ESA should buy it for a dollar and we pay the operating costs. But the ISS won’t be going down. It’s sensationalist crap so as to extract more money from the fed gov. They could also sell it to Ryan Air Galactic (RAG – what an appropriate abbreviation) – they know what cheap is :p
what’s up with people, that will never go down, this is another excuses to get more money, for wherever reason,remember, we are in the limited with global warming, that iss is the only way out.
think?
Why dont they just move it into deeper space and park it there untill its needed again, renovating it would be cheaper than replacing it.
The current cost to lift one pound into orbit is $8,000.00+ there is no way that NASA is going to allow the largest orbited mass to just burn up by bringing it down. If anything this is a publicity stunt by NASA PR to remind the public that they are still active. The ISS is 350km to 410km above the Earth at all times the Moon is 350,000+/- why not boost it to a Geosynchronous orbit 35,0000km +/-, this would put it up where they would not have to boost it back up to altitude 2-3 times a year as they have to do now, in addition at that altitude it could be safely “mothballed” and left for decades…..
No-one’s mentioned the European’s ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle). These babies are as big as a bus and can lift 7.6 tonnes – as well as push the ISS to a higher altitude.
As Nico Dettman of ESA politely puts it:
“We’re supposed to lift the station significantly because after the shuttle retirement the ISS will raise its average altitude from 330-350km to almost 400km to produce less drag,” said Mr Dettmann.
“Today the ISS altitude is linked – let’s say – to low shuttle performance. After shuttle is gone, ISS can fly higher but ATV will have to deliver a major part of that altitude increase.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8141256.stm
So Europe’s higher flying craft will save the ISS from a fiery death. Yay!
HI THERE WHAT KNOW I HOPE NASA IS NOT SHUTTING IT DOWN OR THE MOON OR MARS MISSIONS I WANT A MULTI-PLAYER DEEP SPACE GAMMING BEYOUND EARTH WHAT CONSOLE WILL BE THE FIRST REAL EXTERSTAL GAMING CONSOLE OR ET GAMMING CONSOLE
Just say “no” to CAPS LOCK.
Im always pro-NASA but have never figured out the purpose behind this station. Its been a total boondoggle.
If I didn’t have to give to so much money to so many charity’s here on earth, I’d help out in every way I could, but untill earth is fixed it wont be happening :(
What are you all on about!!! You would swear it was all up to NASA to what happens to the ‘International’ Space Station (ISS). There are 4 other major agencies in play here: Russia (RKA), Japan (JAXA), Canada (CSA) and the ten European nations that form the ESA. Then there is Brazil (AEB) and Italy (ASI) sub-funding NASA to keep it funded. NASA (inc. brazil’s and Italy’s funding) and Russia alone are at even odds funding wise, never mind the other contributors. The ISS is staying in space for a very long time. Oh and the Russia’s Proton M spacecraft has similar lifting capability as the shuttle, it just cant return in tacked like the shuttle.
Make It Obama’s Office And Residence And Send Him There. Make The World Happy
Good Idea GEORGE He Could Work On National Health Plan There With No Disruptions
Make It Obama’s New Office Send Him There Make The World Happy
What they should do is let it crash into the group of yachts purchased with bailout out money bonuses along with all the banking execs on board. “Oh yeah, you guys should head out to this awesome spot in the Indian Ocean this weekend. You’ll love it out there. Here are the coordinates. There’s supposed to be an awesome meteor shower!”
should wait till he’s moved on board before letting it crash tho. then the world would be a beter place.
I agree with Ankit Gupta completely. Theres no need to bring it down. Auction it off. This will be used for space tourism which is right around the corner. Bringing it down is pure foolishness
Why not move it to the moon or move it to higher orbit. No sense it letting it crash. Just money down the drain and we will just have to rebuild it all over again. A futher waste in tax payers money.
All the years I waited for it to launch, all the design revisions and paring down, all the years it took to become a reality and now it’ll be abandoned!? I hope it’s sold to Space Explorations Technologies (http://www.spacex.com/) or some of the other budding private sector space programs.
Sell it, its the most expensive object in the world, why burn it up in the atmosphere..!!