NASA Plans To De-Orbit ISS In 2016

NewbieV writes "The international space station is by far the largest spacecraft ever built by earthlings. Circling the Earth every 90 minutes, it often passes over North America and is visible from the ground when night has fallen but the station, up high, is still bathed in sunlight. After more than a decade of construction, it is nearing completion and finally has a full crew of six astronauts. The last components should be installed by the end of next year. And then? 'In the first quarter of 2016, we'll prep and de-orbit the spacecraft,' says NASA's space station program manager, Michael T. Suffredini."

Comments

Re:WTF?

[ArsonSmith]

Seriously, NASA is just welfare for engineers.

Re:I didnt sign up for this

[Hadlock]

Well hey, while we're at it, let's burn harvard university to the ground. Because clearly we don't need them doing and teaching 400 year old science. Once its burnt down we can spend untold billions rebuilding the infrastructure and putting in new scientific instruments and professors. Seriously? Its not terribly difficult to add new instruments. Its unbeleivably costly to design, certify, then fly new ISS segments into space, connect them etc. If they're already up there just remodel! Burning it up in the atmosphere rather than just connecting it to a new spacestation in unbeleviably wasteful. I'd consider selling it to a private party long before burning it up.