Slashdot Mirror
ESA Wants ISS Extended To 2020
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that the European Space Agency's (ESA) Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain says that uncertainty is undermining the best use of the ISS and that only guaranteeing the ISS's longevity would cause more scientists to come forward to run experiments on the orbiting laboratory. 'I am convinced that stopping the station in 2015 would be a mistake because we cannot attract the best scientists if we are telling them today "you are welcome on the space station but you'd better be quick because in 2015 we close the shop,'' says Dordain. One of the biggest issues holding up an agreement on station-life extension is the human spaceflight review ordered by US President Barack Obama and the future of US participation in the ISS is intimately tied to the outcome of that review. Dordain says that no one partner in the ISS project could unilaterally call an end to the platform and that a meeting would be held in Japan later in the year where he hoped the partners could get some clarity going forward."
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is all Obama and I am an American but... to think that just because one nation wants to let their science programs slip even more doesn't mean that anyone should pull the plug on anything.
I fully support the efforts of any nation to keep the science going.
It isn't clear to me what the rationale for getting rid of the Space Station would be. As far as I can tell, if you didn't want to pay for shipping people up and down, you could still use it as a platform for scientific instruments. In that case, you would just have to occasionally use orbital corrections to compensate for atmospheric drag. So why deorbit it, ever? Is the cost of a few kilo's of propellant really that high? If you're talking about removing the crew that's one thing, but that's an incredible resource that you'd just be wasting.
The reason why more scientists arent interested in performing experiments on the ISS is because we know about everything useful there is to know about zero g vacuum a short distance above Earths surface.
Put more money into unmanned probes, where the real science is getting done. Keep in mind they cancelled the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter to pump more money into this piece of crap. That probe would have unbelievably expanded our knowledge of the Jovian system. I know sending humans into LEO is super neat and all, but weve been doing it for nearly 50 years.- Theres more useful things that can be done with NASAs very limited budget.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
With the station complete, needing only resupply that will be provided by Russian, European or US commercial launches (I'm hearing NASA wants to mostly buy the flights from them, as far as resupply goes), perhaps even Japanese cargo launcher, where's the really big problem in extending ISS life?
The worse thing for NASA then would be facing responsibility for the final fate of their modules - but I'm sure a deal "you can use them as long as you will properly deorbit them" (ESA and Roskosmos are certainly capable of this) isn't a problem?
One that hath name thou can not otter
In response NASA stuck out it's hat.
..is a good dunk in the Pacific. Flying people around in low earth orbit is neither science nor particularly inspirational as human spaceflight, and uses up billions that could fund real space science missions.
If NASA doesn't want it, they should sell it, or at least their share in it. Of course they can't because that's be slapping their own face. Kind of a handicap, being able to build something but nit maintain it.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Obviously they want the ISS to continue to be operational. They get to use it and the US tax payer gets to pay for it.
Yes I am aware that they pay for part of it, but it is a fraction of what NASA pays.
If NASA does not want to pay for supply and maintenance, will the other participating nations step up and pay for the flights?
If yes, an extension should be easy to negotiate. After all, de-orbiting the ISS won't bring any NASA Money back.
If no, you might as well de-orbit the station.
C - the footgun of programming languages
I've heard this suggested somewhere before that ISS would make an awesome vehicle for getting to mars.
They want the ISS to stay up until 20/20? I just don't see it.
I thought the Space Shuttle is going to be retired. So only the Russian Soyuz can make manned flights to the ISS. It's a bit strange though to imagine that in five years there might not be any more manned space flights.
Neither party in the US take space exploration at all seriously, because there is no short term quick money to be made. So we are spending roughly 1/3 of the budget that we really need to "do space right". We need to adopt a more "Japanese " style long term approach to research and profit making. But this requires the American people to rethink their mindset, which shows no probability of occurring. Having said that, it is idiotic to throw away a station we spent so many years building away. We have it, and it is much cheaper to maintain it than to build another one later. For that matter I have yet to see a valid reason given to retire the shuttle. Now there may be safety reasons for doing so, but I've never seen them in print, most of what I've seen is that "the shuttle is old, we need new and shiny", at they very least it should be used until new technology has been fully tested. We have too many "pointy haired bosses of BOTH parties" running the country.
How much of a blow to low-g biological research was the cancellation of the Centrifuge Accommodations Module? It seems that a good amount micro-g biological research has been done (and hopefully will continue to be done during the next ten years), but very little is known about low-g effects. I would think that multiple generation vertebrate (lab rat) study of the effects of prolonged 1/3 and 1/6 g exposure would be critical to understanding the issues of a mars mission or a lunar base.
We have one spare shuttle external tank beyond the current manifest, so even if the shuttle is retired, the program could be extended for one more flight. (Early Augustine Commission discussions suggested this as a good idea for a number of reasons.) Could CAM construction be restarted and rushed to completion in time for a launch 18 months of so from now?
Imagine an ambitious mars program that spent the next decade with humans not traveling beyond LEO, but doing the serious research needed. After five years or so of low-g biological research on the ISS, long term human exposure tests could be done in a spinning "habitat on a cable attached to a counterweight". That way, after ten years of accelerated rover exploration and materials and technology development, we would have the knowledge to plan a serious mars mission, quite possible involving one-way trips and permanent stays.
If nasa leaves it, the second its empty, russia will launch a fleet of ships to dock and steal it, then usa cannot even do anything about it.
If they deorbit the ISS, then its a subtle sign that usa it self has the same firey fate of de unification.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Hopefully the odds are a little better this time around, NASA disappointed so many hungry people last time.
You've cited the one and only one thing that needs to be done up there.
Everything else is pointless.
First person video of remote controlled devices is every bit as exciting as when there's someone holding the camera.
Finding life around other stars is even more exciting; and we could do that with the money spent on manned spaceflight, if instead we built big ass telescopes (in space or not). For example, with a 100m-wide telescope we know we have enough resolution to get a spectrum of the atmosphere of an earth-like planet around a nearby star. Dioxygen in the spectrum? I'm sorry that's 1000 times more exciting than chumps clogging their toilet in orbit.
I agree completely... but I'm a /.er, Joe thinks that dioxygen is for nerds and makes them want to punch things or push people into lockers.
---
Space Craft Feed @ Feed Distiller
Of course they do! Russia and Europe love having their meager space programs subsidized by US tax payers, and want it to continue. ISS access gives them prestige they do not merit. Throw the foreigners off of the Space Station Freedom!
an ill wind that blows no good
Is there a difference in meaning?
are going to have to force the United States to realise that the policy of denying the Chinese access to the global effort known as the International Space Station is bankrupt. Like it or not, the Chinese possess both the scientific and the economic muscle to play an important role in humanity's attempt to jump out of our gravity well, coupled with a burning desire to do so, and we can no longer allow the vagaries of US foreign policy to hinder them from contributing to this task.... Henri