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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."
Most of the funding that allows the ISS to continue comes from the US. What concerns me is whether or not the other space agencies have the funding to pick up where NASA left off and continue the research there. In any case, the station is far too yound to just be abandoned and it would be a shame if that were to come to pass because of the US's decision to withdraw support from the station in 2015.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I'm sort of puzzled: What sort of costs are associated with continued operations on the ISS?
Building the thing in the first place was certainly incredibly expensive, and things like the electrical generation capacity of that vehicle is amazing for doing all sorts of test... space solar power tests just to give an example. It certainly is the equivalent of a small municipal power generation facility in terms of the watts generated. How much has been suggested to be spent on just that one idea alone, that is already in operation and in space?
The only real expenses that I see are maneuvering thruster fuel, food and other general consumables, and of course the ground support stations and centers. The ESA has even addressed this particular issue, and questioned some of the incredibly wasteful spending just to accomplish this task alone that could be done at a much cheaper price.
It is sad that NASA won't even consider other alternatives for access to the ISS or that there may be legitimate solutions to keep it going for at least another decade if not longer. Then again, it was NASA that forced MIR to crash into the Pacific by playing political games. It wasn't costs that were so great that MIR couldn't have stayed aloft, nor congressional budget considerations either. Russia wanted to keep MIR going, but NASA threatened to kick them out of the ISS if MIR wasn't deorbited.
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.
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.
After the ISS is completed, the annual cost of maintaining it will be $4.5 billion a year. By comparison, the total budget of the ESA for 2010 is $5.4 billion (3.74 billion Euros). Keep in mind that's what the ESA spends for all of its projects -- the portion for human spaceflight and exploration is half a billion dollars.
You say it is $4.5 billion per year? I would love to see a private contractor be simply offered the opportunity to:
I argue that if you offered a space prize equal to $4.5 billion for the first company to put up a space station with a guaranteed lease agreement for $500 million per year after that for an additional 5 years, you would have companies tripping over themselves just to get such a vehicle built. I'm not talking $4.5 billion for the whole thing, but just for competing for an X-Prize type contest to get this as a one time deal.
Instead of one, I bet there would be two or three of these things built as well.
Too bad NASA would never consider doing that. For me, if they could simply de-orbit the ISS today, shut down the Shuttles completely and vacate KSC, and then offer for private contractors to get launch pads at KSC for their own heavy lift vehicles, no only could this happen and be affordable, but I think you would find that such a space station would be built well before 2020.
Heck, Robert Bigelow at Bigelow Aerospace has already offered to send up a space station module with the same volume as the ISS for about $1 billion (give or take some). It is even already designed, and all he is waiting on now is a customer to fly it. BTW, he does have experience operating space stations too, as he has two of them in orbit right now.
I'm not questioning the amount of money you have quoted here, as the number feels correct too. It just seems like NASA is incredibly wasteful of the money they have, and that it practically is the very definition of how to spend money in the most foolhardy method possible. Yes, I do know why it cost so much more to run it as a government operation, which is seriously getting off topic to go further.