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."

Comments

I don't understand

[ctachme]

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.

Re:Where's the big science I heard about?

[naz404]

Well, all I can say is that 10 years from now, we'll be looking at this with 2020 hindsight.

*ducks*

Re:Where's the big science I heard about?

[Teancum]

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.

Centrifuge Accommodations Module

[4181]

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.

Re:Centrifuge Accommodations Module

[khallow]

How much of a blow to low-g biological research was the cancellation of the Centrifuge Accommodations Module?

I think it was a very serious blow to the value of the ISS, but that is IMHO. It's worth noting that the European modules have some centrifuges as well, so we may still get some low gravity research. I don't know the capabilities of these other centrifuges though.

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.

A common problem with our history of space development is simply that we haven't done the research to determine how to do a number of our goals in space or what the problems associated with doing that sort of thing in space. Low gravity research should be an obvious focus of biological science in space because there are long term plans for humans and other biological lifeforms to live in these environments. There are many other things that also haven't been done, but would be a lot less risky, if they were tried, even once. This process is called "retirement" of risk and occurs any time you figure out a risk, problem, or new technology for the first time.

Anyway, in addition to the effects of low gravity research, we also need to develop at some point technologies like more sophisticated orbital assembly techniques, propellant depots, high launch frequency rockets, aerocapture, nuclear propulsion (in space), etc. I think it's shameful that so much, that we know we'll need for the space program, both manned and unmanned, isn't worked out even with decades of opportunity to do so.

One key effect of risk retirement, which I particularly like, is that it reduces the barrier to entry for commercial activity in space. For example, suppose I wanted to make a business out of sending colonists to Mars (they pay me to go to Mars). I pick this example precisely because it is currently wholly unrealistic. One of the bigger reasons it is unrealistic is that I have no clue about many huge risks of moving people in space and colonization. In addition to the completely unknown effects of Mars level gravity (which is a third that of Earth), I have no idea how to bring people there in a cost effective and reliable manner, how to land them on Mars, where they will live, nor what they will do. This is before you even consider the cost of doing these activities (which probably will remain epically expensive for decades to come). Even a dozen competing groups would all have to deal with this problem. Without any sort of coordination, they'll all have to pay to solve the same tremendous problems. Some sort of communal problem solving makes sense.

Most of these risks are solvable (or at least, we'd be able to accept and plan for the consequences of them, once we know what those consequences are), but you can't even been to discuss a business plan with the paltry knowledge and technology we currently have. It just doesn't make a bit of sense.