Russia May Be Planning National Space Station To Replace ISS

An anonymous reader writes with news that Russia may be building its own space station to replace the ISS. Russia may be planning to build a new, independent national space station rather than prolong its participation in the $150 billion International Space Station (ISS) program beyond its current 2020 end date. The U.S. space agency NASA proposed last year to extend the life of the ISS — the largest international project ever undertaken by nations during peacetime — beyond its currently scheduled 2020 end date to at least 2024.

Comments

We'll build our own station

[camperdave]

We'll build our own station... with blackjack and hookers!
In fact, forget the station.

What's it good for?

[bradley13]

I am totally pro-space, but I just do not understand the ISS. It is hugely expensive to keep and feed crews. And yet, the human habitation makes whole classes of experiments difficult or impossible, due to the atmosphere, the vibrations from movement, etc..

Where human presence could be useful: if we were actually building a space infrastructure. Capture some asteroids, use them for raw material, and build a base to use to get to the rest of the solar system. While lots of construction tasks can be automated, human intervention will occasionally be necessary. But we aren't doing that.

So, what exactly is the point of manned space stations? Is it really worth it? Or would the money, time and effort be better invested in some other types of space activity - automated experimental stations, or - let's dream - building a "real" base in space?

Re:What's it good for?

[vux984]

The ISS is a huge drain of money that could have been better spend on a large number of unmanned probes to do actual science.

Studying the effects of living in space on humans and solving those problems is actual science; with lots of practical applications in medicine etc that will have real benefits even for us earthbound people.

Longer term we will want to know and solve those problems as well, for actually getting people somewhere else, even if its not am immediate plan to put anyone permanently anywhere else.

Re:What's it good for?

[Thanshin]

So, what exactly is the point of manned space stations? Is it really worth it? Or would the money, time and effort be better invested in some other types of space activity - automated experimental stations, or - let's dream - building a "real" base in space?

What's the point of everything else we do in space if not to extend our horizon? Manned space stations allow us to advance in one of the pillars of colonizing space; the actual survival in that space.

The question should be quite the opposite. what's the point on every other investment that doesn't allow us to push our boundaries? What's the objective of humanity?

For me, the primary objective should be to expand, so for example every single dollar spent in defense, to fight among ourselves, is only useful in whatever science those investments bring along.

Re:What's it good for?

[hab136]

>So, what exactly is the point of manned space stations?

For one thing, testing various methods for keeping humans alive, healthy, and sane in space.

We need to expand beyond Earth. To do that, we'll need space stations as jump-off points, and we'll need to know how to survive extended periods in space (months and years). To do that, we need somewhere to test survival, like the ISS.

> Or would the money, time and effort be better invested in some other types of space activity - automated experimental stations, or - let's dream - building a "real" base in space?

The ISS cost $150 billion over 20 years, or about $7.5 billion a year to construct and maintain. The US currently spends about $3 billion a year to keep it going - or about $8 per person. It's not a lot of money. Think about that - watching a movie about space costs more than actually maintaining a real life space station.

We have to start somewhere. All the work put into building and maintaining ISS was necessary experience before would could build a "real" base. We can design all we want but there are a lot of lessons to learn when you try to put theory into practice.

Yes, for each individual experiment, automated experiments are cheaper and easier. They're still done: http://www.space.com/27003-rus...

We don't have to do ISS *or* automated experiments - we do both.

Space is the future and it takes big investments right now. They do pay off now, and they'll pay off even more in the future.

Re:What's it good for?

[N1AK]

Consider Philae - if it had landed a few meters in another direction it would still be working. If it had been a manned expedition, that wouldn't have been an issue.

For the cost of getting humans to and from an asteroid on a decade long mission (in anything approaching a functional state) we could have sent thousands of unmanned landers. Sending people adds a gigantic cost premium. It's nonsense to suggest the rover mission would have been better with people, it wouldn't have happened with people due to cost, and if we could afford the cost of sending people we could do hundreds of unmanned missions for the same cost as one manned one.

What do you mean "may be"?

[Hadlock]

Russia announced that they were planning to end their involvement with the ISS in 2009 or so. This is nothing new. They've been telegraphing their displeasure with the ISS program for half a decade or more, and their lack of willingness to continue with it past 2020. The portions they're sending up to the ISS will be detached and converted in to a separate space station shortly after 2020. This is not "news", this is "established fact". Maybe it's more noteworthy the second time that they publish this through official channels?
 
The ISS will be a 20 year old international experiment at that point, yes the US and Russian halves of the ISS share a common "atmosphere" but mechanically they're completely separate space stations capable of detaching at any time. Most of the Russian segment of the ISS is made from leftovers from their MIR 2 project. It's no surprise that they're wanting to separate from the ISS. Those space station modules have a finite lifespan and most of them will be nearing their operational limits around 2020, with a maximum lifespan of 2030. Either we replace them with new modules or deorbit the whole thing. Russia has decided to replace them with new modules and go their own separate way. They've been talking about this for a looong time. The ESA has been talking about teaming up with the Russians moving forward, rather than NASA on the next space station. China ended up building their own space station after being turned down by the Americans. We're not making a whole lot of friends in the aerospace field with the ISS these days. The New ISS may be everyone - (minus) America next time around, due to our overwhelming fear of sharing orbital technology with the Chinese (who aren't allowed inside NASA buildings, just ask any Chinese aerospace engineer).

Re:What would happen?

[Hadlock]

It was designed with a 10 year service life, then re-rated for 20 years. Current plan is 2024 but after that is really stretching things and major modules need to be replaced due to stressed placed on them by boosting the orbit (the ISS is actually in the upper atmosphere and loses about 2km (1 mile) altitude per month due to atmospheric drag. It gets reboosted by Soyuz and Progress spacecraft periodically.
 
Yes you could keep it going indefintiely but eventually the safety factor drops below an acceptable point. Based on what's there right now, that safe point is 2024-2030.
 
A next generation space station could possibly exceed a 25 year design life, but really, 25 years is pretty damn good given this was the first try since Space Lab for the US. For the Russians this is old hat, their segment(s) are just repurposed MIR 2 parts.