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?

[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.

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).