NASA Considers Abandoning ISS

mbstone writes "MSNBC is reporting that NASA is threatening to mothball the International Space Station unless Russia coughs up its share of the money for maintenance and support missions. NASA is now making "contingency plans" to leave the station unoccupied for as long as a year. What I want to know is, why a contingency plan? Didn't NASA already have a plan in place? Are U.S. taxpayers going to pay millions extra to develop new mothballing equipment and procedures that could have been designed-in at far less cost?? Also, I would be glad to house-sit, I use very little oxygen."

Comments

commercialism

[rppp01]

Wouldn't this be a good time to allow the private sector in on this? Why should the governments get all the fun up there? I can't help but think tourism and a private sector push into space will do for space industries and the like what the governments of the worlds could not: enable living in space- make it a reality.

Re:commercialism

[rppp01]

500+ years ago, Portugal and Spain sent groups of people to 'find a better way' without knowing whether or not it would be profitable. They went on hunches and rumors. Chris Columbus ran into what became America. England sent companies over to colonize in the 'name of the king'- but those companies were looking for profit. Look what happened from there. Most failed, but a few took hold, and here we are now-
I think it can be profitable, it just requires companies to think long term on the prospects of moving to space.

Re:commercialism

[vlag]

You've got Microsoft on the brain. It's not the IIS, its the ISS. There is a huge difference. One crashes and is susceptible to worms. The other can't crash and the worms are experimental. Can't remember which is which.

Re:commercialism

[MacAndrew]

Um, however moving the analogy or thumbnail representation of history may be, may I least point out there aren't any Indians in orbit who got there first and need slaughtering? Or that many of those settlers were not so much seeking new opportunities as fleeing the oppression of Europe?

Sorry to be crass about it, but these are very difficult situations. In no way does space harber the readily exploitable economic bonanza that did the New World, and much of other investment there is on faith or the gee-whiz factor, not any assurance of long-term gain.

Also, Columbus's expedition was not a Star Trek like project as the myth paints it. It was intended for profit, acquiring new trade routes, real estate, resources, and, on later trips, slaves. (As we head into thanksgiving, recall that Squanto learned English when he was forcibly removed to Europe as a slave. When he made his way back to Massachusetts, infection had destroyed his tribe ... leaving the nice fields for the Pilgrims to plant in thickly forested New England.)

Finally, Columbus never made it to what we thing of as America, unless you count finding a American Virgin Island or two. In five trips he never set sight on the mainland. And it's false that everyone though the world was flat! Aristotle determined it wasn't. Columbus's error was he significantly underestimated the diameter.

I'm not suggesting anyone in particular was a bad guy we need to be ashamed of, but protest substituting a caricature of the past, and especially basing our future decisions on that caricature.

Also at New Scientist

[singleantler]

More at New Scientist

It would be a great shame to lose the manned presence in space, even if the amount of research they have been able to do is heavily restricted by having a very small crew up there at any one time. The crew is limited by the size of the escape module - currently a Soyuz. It looks like it'll be 2012 by the time the planned NASA replacement escape craft is ready, so they're going to have to come up with something different in the meantime, or the ISS isn't going to fulfil anywhere near it's potential for research.

Paul.

ISS Costs

[ProfBooty]

Is this really a bad thing. Considering that the astronauts on board spend 85% of the time doing station upkeep. The science value of the mission is questionable. If NASA got the proper funding to go with the original plan of 7 astronauts, I could see the value of maintaining the station as valuable science could be preformed.

Shut it down for now, until more money gets passed to make the ISS valuable. Perhaps NASA should redirect more of its money from the ISS to new propulsion technologies (nuclear etc) to reduce lift costs (yes I know you probably wouldnt want to do a launch from the ground to LEO with nuclear rockets, but perhaps other avenues could be approached).

First hand experience

[Alomex]

I attended a meeting of one of the ISS partner nations. In exchange for their contribution they are allotted space in "lockers" to run their experiments. They had a hard time finding any research institution or private interest who wanted to use the locker (the price was around $10,000 per pound). Apparently there is not much current scientific need for a zero gravity environment.

They were willing to let you fly merchandise if you wanted to, so you could buy a space pen, or perhaps fly your uncle's ashes to outer space.

I left the meeting thinking that the ISS should never have been built, and this comes from somebody who is enthralled about space exploration.

Re:First hand experience

[Chris Y Taylor]

"I left the meeting thinking that the ISS should never have been built, and this comes from somebody who is enthralled about space exploration."

The problem with not building the ISS is, that we would have had to come up with some other gov't project to keep all those former Soviet rocket scientists busy. There isn't enough commercial work for them all, and we couldn't very well have them being unemployed. A large number of starving weapons researchers let loose in a multipolar world is just a Dr. Evil-style disaster waiting to happen.

I would have preferred a moonbase, but I can also think of worse make-work projects that could have been chosen instead.

Re:First hand experience

[prisoner-of-enigma]

One has to consider what we'd have if all the money spent on the ISS had instead been spent on a moonbase. In LEO, you have to drag everything of value up with you, but on the moon there's plenty of materials available to make life much cheaper to maintain.

You can extract oxygen from moon dust. Mix with a little hydrogen in a fuel cell and you get electricity, heat, and water, all necessary for a moonbase. Then crack the water back apart via electrolysis using solar cells (or a small thermoelectric nuclear) and you've got breathing oxygen and hydrogen to use all over again.

Experiments on moon dust from the Apollo missions even showed that if you mixed water with moon dust and a few other things you could get pretty good cement out of it, and protection from micrometeorites and cosmic rays to boot. Silicon, aluminum, and even titanium are present in moon dust and could be refined along with other elements to make some inefficient but cheap solar cells to put all over the lunar surface. Who cares if they're inefficient when you can have a few square miles of them with no atmospheric attenuation to worry about?

We have wasted more than just money on the ISS, we've wasted time and we've wasted the legacy and inertia of Apollo. What a shame it would be if the last to set foot on the moon should die of old age before the next visitor should go there. Sad, and pitiful.

Re:Russia

[simong_oz]

Yeh, of course it was Russia that cancelled the module which would have allowed 6 astronauts to be up there conducting experiments 24/7 ... which was one of the main reasons to build a low orbit space station.

Re:Boot the Russians Out

[foistboinder]

Evict the Russians if they are not willing or able to pay,

Unfortunately, it's the Russians that provide the Soyuz spacecraft (the only means for escape if soemthing goes wrong) and the unmanned Progress spacecraft. The ISS could not operate without either of these (especially the Soyuz).

The Problem with the Space Station

[pgrote]

As many people have commented the space station has been a huge black hole of money.

For each win we've had there we've suffered many setbacks.

85% of their time is required for maintenance.

Very little hard science has been done due to construction delays and retrofitting many of the parts.

Even the science they have done hasn't been much.

Russia may be a joke about contributing, but they have the right idea on raising money. Send people who can afford to millions up there to fund further development.

Like NASA is any better themselves

[FlemLion]

I think NASA should look more closely in the mirror first. Their own statement that they are delaying or canceling the CRV (Crew Return Vehicle) is what has put into question the whole viability of the ISS in the first place.

If it was not for the Soyuz that's attached there now, the ISS would not be inhabited at this time. What do they want now, have the Russians cough up a second Soyuz, so at least a crew of six could stay, because they are not up to their part of the CRV?

And by the way, this is no treat at all for the Russians, they were the first to suggest this, when NASA started complaining about the CRV.

Political Brinksmanship

[Chris Y Taylor]

I suspect that this is not so much a Space Policy move as it is a step in the dance of international diplomacy. The administration wants Russia to bear more of the costs, so they are floating out the idea of shutting down ISS as a negotiating tactic. I would not be surprised if they "settle" for Russia agreeing to extend their obligation to supply the station lifeboat for a few more years until NASA's orbital space plane is ready.

Shutting down the ISS is probably not likely. If it comes to that, however, I would not mind sacrificing a couple of years of 3 man station occupation in order to spend that money on getting a 6 or 7 man crew onboard sooner. Twice as large a crew should yield a lot more than twice the science.

The way such byzantine things work they may actually be after something completely different, like Russian support for a particular postwar Iraqi governmental structure.

Aha!

[Raul654]

I did a quick websearch -- Nasa had a page up (which has since disappeared), but there are copies floating around out there. Interesting reading though.

Re:If NASA is serious

[tomhudson]

But really, how many fatal accidents has the Soyouz TM had? (0) how many the US shuttle? (1) </quote>

They (russians) just lost a comm satellite yesterday, launched it into LEO (low earth orbit), insted of GSO (geo-stationary orbit).

Mind you, when it comes flaming back into the atmosphere and kills some cow in Auckland, it'll be geo-stationary.

Studies in Maintenance

[glassware]

Nice comment from the article:

"Significant risk increase" is expected based on the loss of the ability for a permanent crew to make an urgent repair spacewalk, as may become necessary under the normal rate of equipment breakdown.

If NASA wants to do some useful science on the ISS, they should start researching equipment that doesn't break down in orbit. Even if the ISS doesn't provide any great research or achievements, why not use it to validate methods of building things and keeping stuff in orbit reliably?

NASA could stop sending up identical copies of the gyros and oxygen scrubbers that break every week, and start sending up experimental items to find one with a better failure ratio (while of course keeping spares handy to avert disaster, I'm sure).

Maybe this way, when a cheaper space vehicle or space station comes about, they'll know how to keep it working.

Re:requires companies to think long term

[constantnormal]

long term... is that two quarters or three?

Re:Exposure to vacuum

[aiabx]

Vacuum only acts as an insulator as far as conduction of heat is concerned. You will still radiate away all of your heat, and pretty quickly too, though probably not as quickly as you would asphyxiate.
-aiabx

Re:Exposure to vacuum

[spike hay]

You will not explode in a vacuum, provided you exhale before depressurization. In space, you would remain concious for about 10 seconds (this happened to one person who was accidentally depresurized during training.) and you would live for about 2 minutes. It takes a long time for the blood in all of your tiny little capillaries to boil off and cause swelling, long enough for you to die of asphyxiation before you have to worry about that.