Russia Wants To Work With NASA On a New Space Station

HughPickens.com writes with news that Russian officials are talking about working with NASA to build a new space station as a replacement for the ISS after its operations end in 2024. Igor Komarov, head of the Russian Federal Space Agency, was unambiguous in his support for such a partnership. He added, "It will be an open project. It will feature not only the current members of the ISS." NASA, while careful not to discourage future cooperation, was not so enthusiastic. They said, "We are pleased Roscomos wants to continue full use of the International Space Station through 2024 -- a priority of ours -- and expressed interest in continuing international cooperation for human space exploration beyond that. The United States is planning to lead a human mission to Mars in the 2030s, and we have advanced that effort farther than at any point in NASA's history. We welcome international support for this ambitious undertaking." They reiterated that there are no formal agreements in place as of yet. These comments come as three crew members arrive at the ISS, two of whom will be up there for an entire year.

Comments

Why do thei retire the ISS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do they retire the ISS? Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to keep it in orbit and expand/maintain what we already have up there?

Re:Why do thei retire the ISS?

[Anonymous Coward]

The materials are not radiation rated for much longer than 2024, and we simply don't know how long some of the seals will last.

Re:Why do thei retire the ISS?

[buchner.johannes]

Sometimes you just need to build from the ground up.

That's gonna be difficult for a space station.

Need the ISS

[Todd Knarr]

If the US wants to go to Mars for more than a single short mission, it's going to need the ISS or a replacement. We'll need to be able to build ships in orbit so they aren't limited by the constraints of the first hundred or so miles of the trip (lifting the ship up from the surface to Earth orbit), that's the only way we'll be able to build them large enough for the crew, supplies and equipment needed for a mission of more than a week or two. And if we want this to be a sustained thing, sending more than a couple-three missions, we're going to need to be able to build ships without shipping the majority of their components up from surface.

We can already see the parallels from large historical construction projects in the US. For Hoover Dam they didn't ship the concrete in from the nearest cities and they didn't have the workers commuting between the dam site and those cities. They set up the cement plant on-site to make the concrete from local materials and a town sprang up at the site to house and supply the workforce. For resources (silver, gold, timber, cattle, oil, etc.) it's worked the same way, people moved to where they were needed and the facilities and infrastructure to house, support and feed those people grew with the population. Because frankly you just can't run an oil field in Texas with all your workers and suppliers back in New Orleans.

Re:Need the ISS

[Kjella]

If the US wants to go to Mars for more than a single short mission, it's going to need the ISS or a replacement. We'll need to be able to build ships in orbit so they aren't limited by the constraints of the first hundred or so miles of the trip (lifting the ship up from the surface to Earth orbit), that's the only way we'll be able to build them large enough for the crew, supplies and equipment needed for a mission of more than a week or two. And if we want this to be a sustained thing, sending more than a couple-three missions, we're going to need to be able to build ships without shipping the majority of their components up from surface.

And the ISS will help how, exactly? The entire ISS came from the Earth's surface. Unless you have a really fancy plan to do asteroid/lunar mining, that's where all future materials will ultimately come from too. The ISS is way, way down in Earth's gravity well so if you could do mining you wouldn't build it there anyway. We can assemble a ship in orbit with or without the ISS, nothing really gets easier. What we're building must have a crew module, so any astronauts working on assembly can just live there. Not that I really see the need, the assemblies could dock like spaceships do and just interlock with bolts.

Star Trek has ruined a generation's sanity when it comes to space stations. The only reason you'd want a space station is so you can have a ship come in for maintenance, repair, upgrades or refueling in orbit so they don't have to go down the gravity well. If all you're doing is sending ships out never to return, it's a total waste of time. Unless you get to the point where you have a shuttle taking things from Earth orbit and Mars orbit and returning for a refuel it doesn't make sense. And it probably doesn't make sense unless you can refuel in Mars orbit. Which means it's not happening in this century.

Space stations are not like gas stations where you just drop by as you pass one by. Unless you're planning to be in Earth orbit, entering Earth orbit to dock with the ISS and deorbiting to get to your destination costs a helluva lot of fuel. And that is the crux of the issue, it almost never makes sense to build a waypoint into your route as opposed to just going to whereever you were planning to go in the first place. If possible you might not even want to assemble in oribt, just launch multiple rockets on the same trajectory and have the bits assemble in zero g before firing off to their final destination.

The official Russian position:

[duckintheface]

"I propose that the United States delivers its astronauts to the ISS with the help of a trampoline." Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin
http://bit.ly/1BSlzlo
That's why the US can't trust the Russians to be part of a future joint space project. As soon as they have some leverage, they will use it.

Re:The official Russian position:

[Luckyo]

Out of interest, what do you then call US leaders who reacted the way they reacted and continue to act when Castro took power in Cuba in an overthrow of massively unpopular US-supported dictatorship then? Or when he took USSR nuclear missiles?

That country didn't even have direct ground access to US, nor had been used as staging ground for assault on US heartland several times before in the history. Let me remind you of an obvious fact: all countries do things that Russia does and much worse when they feel their survival is threatened.

The best part is that you're massively anti-democratic with that statement - overwhelming majority of Russian people specifically support the current policy of Russia. Not the leader but his policy. Even pro-Western organisations doing polling in Russia are in full agreement with this. How would you feel about comparing US leaders to North Korean ones in terms of "sanity"? Because one could easily make the point that they are far more crazy. Whereas North Korean leaders are quite logical in their actions being driven by survival of their dictatorship in their country, US leaders are often driven by severely conflicting interests that end up hurting the country itself as they feud with one another.

Please remind yourself that "insanity" and "not being pro-Western" are only synonyms in propaganda.

Why does it need to be replaced?

[BlueCoder]

Please explain to me why it needs to be replaced? It's took a lot of money to get all that weight up there in the first place. As an engineer I want to reuse and expand and not throw anything away.

NASA can't build tin cans that can survive in space for a hundred years? There are planes from WW2 that are still flying and those rattle. And yes I can understand that they can turn into swiss cheese but that's what patching and welding is for.

Hopefully at some point Elon Musk will be able to back away from the day to day operation of SpaceX and start recycling and manufacturing facilities in space. Things get at least a hundred times cheaper when they don't have to survive the stresses of liftoff. I can see a day when everything is covered with shielding panels and as they get corrupted are replaced, melted down and recast.

Re:Why does it need to be replaced?

[ColdWetDog]

A seagoing vessel is probably a better analogy (boats fall apart just floating around) - while there are ancient boats still floating, pretty much everything in them has been replaced at one point or another. In a dock - which is a pretty benign environment. It may be impossible to disassemble the ISS and replace the bad parts in orbit. Look at how much effort goes into just putting a new refrigerator on the outside of the thing. We just don't have the technology to uncouple a module, re weld a section and bolt / weld it back together again.

We likely should be working on that ability but this sort of construction and repair isn't sexy enough, I guess. Space is hard. Very hard. Budget constraints have made it so the US and Russia are really just jogging in place on the ISS - very little real research (such as in orbit assembly) is even being contemplated.

ISS-2 will be put together on the ground and boosted into segments and snapped together in orbit, but it won't be 'built' in orbit. There won't be any machining, welding, wiring, insulating or any of those types of functions done in space. We are no where near being able to do that past the sound stage.

Re:Why does it need to be replaced?

[cold fjord]

Name one unique plane from WW2 that is still flying.

I hope you don't mind that there is more than one.

Mid-Atlantic Air Museum

Get behind the wings of these authentic WWII warplanes

Re:Why does it need to be replaced?

[Luckyo]

That is wildly unrealistic with our current capabilities and well in the realms of fiction. In space you have countless problems when trying any kind of significant production, ranging from access to work force, access to hardware, having to lift all components and all machinery from the planet's gravity well into orbit, to things like power supply problems, cooling problems, highly hostile environment problems, and countless others.

Even if we had the technological capability to do what you suggest, the costs would outstrip making same things on the ground and then lifting them to orbit by what is likely order(s) of magnitude.

Re:Why does it need to be replaced?

[DerekLyons]

As an engineer I want to reuse and expand and not throw anything away.

If you were truly an engineer (a real one, not just someone with an overinflated title), you'd know that things age and wear out.
 

NASA can't build tin cans that can survive in space for a hundred years? There are planes from WW2 that are still flying and those rattle.

A real engineer grasps the impact of parts count and complexity. Not only is the ISS not just a "tin can", those planes are orders of magnitude simpler than the ISS.
 
Not to mention that those planes take hundreds of man hours a year to maintain in flyable condition - and man hours in space cost tens of thousands per.
 

Things get at least a hundred times cheaper when they don't have to survive the stresses of liftoff.

Sure, as any engineer knows, you can easily manufacture things given enough infrastructure. Since you're an "engineer", you should be able to estimate the cost of developing a (currently non existent) weightless capable factory complex, and the costs of placing hundreds to thousands of tons on orbit, and the ongoing costs of logistics, support, and maintenance needed to produce those "hundreds of times cheaper" parts. You'll also be able to understand that a space craft is made of hundreds of different kinds of materials, only a few of which are amenable to recycling.

What's wrong with the old one?

[Whiteox]

So what happens in 2024? They shut ISS down? I expect to see another crater somewhere in the middle of Australia soon after.
Anyway, if you are going to build another one, then move it far out at null gravity between the Moon and Earth, instead of stuffing around in Earth orbit, i.e. stationary. Make it count as a stepping stone at least.

Re:The Russians poisoned the well

[Karmashock]

In regards to non-proliferation of NATO, that can't hold indefinitely.

The people of the world can make alliances if they want and associate with whomever they want. What is more Gorbachev gave away things that he couldn't control anymore. Much as the French sold parts of America to the United States. Of course they did... they couldn't hold the territory so they sold it. Had they not sold it, they would have lost it and gotten nothing for it.

As to your economic situation, the US has offered Russia help with economic development for many years. Your country could have rail running from Europe to China. You are in the middle of everything and you could profit by being a trusted interlocutor between powers and economies.

Your natural resources are also vast... on that alone you could be incredibly rich. Look at the Norwegians, they are very wealthy in large part because they have oil from the north sea. Russia has vastly more oil and so much more. And yet you fail to exploit it properly.

Recently Russia said "hey we could have a highway through Alaska and Siberia that connects the Americas to the Eurasian continent. No one is going to sign off on that because we don't trust you.

And we don't trust you because of this sort of behavior. If you just stopped being crazy for awhile we'd invest in you more. But we don't feel safe investing in you because we know you'll just use it as leverage to hurt us.

On topic with this push for a new space station, the US felt the shared voyage into space that our countries shared could help bridge a gap between our cultures. We thought, maybe by cooperating with that we could grow closer together and become friends.

When we needed your help launching things into space, you instead used our lack of launch capability as leverage to hurt us. You said things like "maybe the americans could use trampolines to get into space"... This was a betrayal and a petty one.

We don't need to go to the ISS station at all. The only reason we have the ISS at all was for political reasons. We wanted to be your friends. It was a shared project.

And when we tested whether it had been at all successful... you betrayed us. The ISS is a failure. Our diplomatic efforts with your country are a failure.

And because you won't stop... we're going to have grind you down for a few more generations until you're so weak that your neighbors start eating at your borders. We won't invade you. But the Russian frountier is large and your neighbors are only kept in check by fear of retailiation. You will grow weaker and they will grow stronger.

Your country has spread nuclear technology around the world.And to where more than anywhere else? The countries near you. You are sowing the seeds of your own destruction. You will be torn apart by a dozen countries... while we watch.

Your are the children of the Eastern Roman Empire... and like your forefathers you have made the same mistake all over again.

We could have been friends. But you have shown yourselves to be unworthy of that. We trust the Chinese more than we trust you. They're smarter than you. It is why they broke with the Soviets during the cold war and made peace with the US.

Look at the result. They have prospered while you have withered.

I pity your children. They do not deserve the consequences of what your generation and your father's generation and your father's father's generation has brought upon them. But it is unavoidable.

We could have been friends... *shrugs*

Re:The Russians poisoned the well

[Karmashock]

As to lumping people together... this is possibly the most idiotic and obtuse comment I've seen all day. Good work.

I am obviously referring to the Russian government. If I call the North Koreans stupid, I'm not referring to every single fucking one of them you complete fucking idiot. That is directed at you by the way. You are a fucking idiot. But when one references a nation, one is generally referring to the government or official policy of that nation... ESPECIALLY when talking about foreign policy.

Anyone that wasn't a complete asshat would know that. Since you didn't... *shrugs*

As to me being full of myself, well... all things are relative. Compared to you, I am a God King of the universe. Compared to someone else, I might just be another jerk. All things are relative, chum.

As to no nation wanting to be friends with the US?

So, Europe does, Eastern Europe does, about half of the middle east does, Egypt does, Japan does, South Korea does, China does most of the time... I could go on.

Friends means what I said... friends. Russia has no friends. The US has lots.

Countries invest in the US all the time and feel their investments are secure. Investment in Russia is minimal because no one trusts their fucking stupid government.

Happy there? I said there government and not their people? Even though, their government is only in power because their people put it there and like it. Putin isn't pushing Russians into work camps from what I can see, so the average Russian has to take some responsibility for this bullshit.

I await your rebuttal. :)

Re:call it the Ukraine-2

[dunkelfalke]

i stopped reading there

And this is a part of the problem. Saying "la la la I can't hear you" doesn't change the facts. Kindly read completely, then respond.

russia meddled in an *internal* georgian dispute that occurred within the internationally recognized borders of georgia. then it divided the country into a "new" bullshit country abkhazia

Abkhazia is not a new bullshit country, it is, in fact, a very old one, but it is a different history lesson. Russia meddled in an internal Georgian dispute because, among the civilians in Tskhinvali, their peace keeping forces stationed there were also shelled. That is the official reason.

is it ok if the usa invades the mexican district of sonora and announces that it is a new country? why can the usa do this? uhhh... drug smuggling. yeah, that's our reason. perfectly good reason, totally understandable, right moron?

Was it okay that USA has bombed Serbia - a sovereign country - into submission and divided the country during the civil war, recognising a new independent country there? Even though Kosovo has been a part of Serbia for almost a thousand years? This has set a dangerous precedent. Meddling on other civil wars (Lybia and Syria quickly come to mind) hasn't helped the argument about internal affairs of a sovereign country either.

can the american fbi go into canada and arrest people? no? why not. can the us army occupy ontario? why not? because canada is a sovereign country, you dumb fuck

In fact they can. CIA routinely abducted people, torturing them in secret prisons (some of them were on Poland's soil, and these bastards call themselves Europeans). Guantanamo bay is full of them.

no country, anywhere in the world, does what russia did to georgia and ukraine without consequences.

Well, apparently this is not the case. See my example above with Serbia. Invading sovereign countries and topple governments, meddling in civil wars, bringing suffering to civilians is a favourite past time of NATO countries. USA, UK, Germany, France, Turkey, Poland, Australia and many more.

By the way, Georgia and Ukraine also took part in the Iraq invasion. For them it was just normal and fine, because their big brother USA has asked.

if you do, continue speaking on this topic. but if you continue to assert russia invading and dividing georgia and ukraine is "reasonable" then you do not understand what the fuck sovereignty means and are therefore announcing yourself as a complete moron or a propagandized idiot on this topic and you should shut up

Sovereignty doesn't mean much really if a strong enough country decides a military action is in order. That is what we in Germany call "die Realpolitik". I am personally not happy about this at all, but, unfortunately, when it comes to international relations, might makes right.

And speaking of internal problems, since Russia is the legal successor of USSR and the breakup of it was processed... well, let us say, not exactly constitutional way, one could, being a devil's advocate, argue, that it is an internal problem of Russia and all these countries are just illegal separatists. Somewhat far fetched, but the breakup was really handled bad, leading to several wars (The aforementioned civil war in Georgia, then Transnistria, the Armenia-Azerbayjan war, Tajik civil war, wars in Chechenia and Ingushetia, the current situation in Ukraine, which was bound to happen sooner or later and so on). This is why I can only sadly laugh when I see people here on Slashdot say that the breakup was peaceful.

I speak Russian fluently, although, obviously, with a German accent, and have visited several former Soviet republics (going to Ukraine in two weeks BTW) and east European countries, this - and being born on the other side of the Iron Curtain - gives me a somewhat different perspective on all that.

P.S. there was really no need for insults there. We both are grown-ups and can hold a polite discussion.

Re:call it the Ukraine-2

[dunkelfalke]

You know what?
Fuck you and the horse you rode on in.
You lack reading comprehension, you have no experience in life, you are myopic, haven't seen different countries, don't speak different languages and only know what your school books have told you. You are grandstanding about sovereignty, but in your eyes sovereignty is only important when it is about oh so evil Russia. Other countries may invade at their will, because it is apparently a different sovereignty.

Talking about Czechoslovakia and Austria, but have you been there? Do you speak their language? I've been there and I bloody do. Have you ever seen what a civil war is like? I have.

And here you are telling me that I am not your equal? Well, guess what, I am not. I am better. I have seen more, I have known more. You are a disappointment, really. Now bugger off my lawn.