The Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility: Where Spacecraft Go To Die (bbc.com)

dryriver writes: Whether you launch a satellite into space or an entire space station like the Russian Mir, the Chinese Tiangong-1 or the International Space Station, what goes up must eventually come down -- re-enter earth's atmosphere. The greater the mass of what is in space -- Mir weighed 120 tons, the ISS weighs 450 tons and will be decommissioned in a decade -- the greater the likelihood that larger parts will not burn up completely during re-entry and crash to earth at high velocity. So there is a need for a place on earth where things falling back from space are least likely to cause damage or human casualties. The Oceanic Pole Of Inaccessibility is one of two such places.

The place furthest away from land -- it lies in the South Pacific some 2,700km (1,680 miles) south of the Pitcairn Islands -- somewhere in the no-man's land, or rather no-man's-sea, between Australia, New Zealand and South America, has become a favorite crash site for returning space equipment. "Scattered over an area of approximately 1,500 sq km (580 sq miles) on the ocean floor of this region is a graveyard of satellites. At last count there were more than 260 of them, mostly Russian," reports the BBC. "The wreckage of the Space Station Mir also lies there... Many times a year the supply module that goes to the International Space Station burns up in this region incinerating the station's waste." The International Space Station will also be carefully brought down in this region when its mission ends. No one is in any danger because of this controlled re-entry into our atmosphere. The region is not fished because oceanic currents avoid the area and do not bring nutrients to it, making marine life scarce.

Comments

dammit...EVERY time we go fishing here

[turkeydance]

something falls and scares the fish away

Re: dammit...EVERY time we go fishing here

[schleimkeim]

what the fuck is wrong with you?

WHY?!?

[DatbeDank]

We've spent so much money building the ISS and they think it's ok to just let it fall into the ocean after melting into a hunk of metal?

What's the f*cking point of this at all? So we can say, "yeah at one time we had a livable tin can in the sky!"

Am I the only one who is infuriated by this? The ISS is our only viable space platform for anything and these short sighted dip $hits think it's a disposable research toy.

Anything we send up there should be thought of as being up there for damn good (unless it really is useless trash). It's an investment for the future even if it seems silly now. Build off of the damn thing FFS!

Re:WHY?!?

[ccb621]

Gravity. What goes up will eventually come down unless it is pushed up again. If a satellite is beyond its lifespan, or the station is no longer feasible to maintain—whether the cost is too great, or there are no more experiments—it has to come down. Keeping it up costs resources—fuel.

Re:WHY?!?

[fisted]

Something something component design life

Re:WHY?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who is infuriated by this? The ISS is our only viable space platform for anything and these short sighted dip $hits think it's a disposable research toy.

Do you really think NASA are a bunch of short-sighted dipshits who put billions in hardware into space, kept it continuously occupied for 16 years and 354 days since the arrival of Expedition 1 on 2 November 2000, and spent millions on its upkeep, tracking, re-supply missions so they can treat it as a disposable research toy?????

No, the more likely answer is you're a fucking idiot, and have no concept of just how hard it is to get there, but that like all machines it has a useful lifespan and will eventually wear out or need replacing?

If idiotic politicians don't kill funding, with luck a replacement will be in place before they de-orbit the damned thing. But don't make the childish mistake of thinking these guys don't plan on milking everything they can from it.

You may be an idiot, but they sure aren't.

This is hard shit. But nothing humans makes lasts forever.

Re: WHY?!?

[Dutch Gun]

Bullshit. The ISS costs *nothing* to keep up since it is positioned at exactly the point where Earth's gravity equals the moon's gravity, so it just hangs there. The only reason it's being decommissioned is so that they can launch another one that was designed by women and people of color.

No, it's in low earth orbit. You're thinking of a Lagrange point, which is much further out. There's actually atmospheric drag on the ISS such that, without periodic corrections, will drag it down out of orbit. That's true of ANY low earth orbit satellite, of course.

At it's current altitude, the ISS orbit decays about 100m per day. And the lower it dips into the upper atmosphere, the faster the rate of decay becomes. Without correctional boosts, the ISS would probably fall from they sky relatively quickly. I've seen estimations of approximately six months or so.

Re: WHY?!?

[93 Escort Wagon]

At it's current altitude, the ISS orbit decays about 100m per day. And the lower it dips into the upper atmosphere, the faster the rate of decay becomes. Without correctional boosts, the ISS would probably fall from they sky relatively quickly. I've seen estimations of approximately six months or so.

Pseudoscientific technobabble. I know from my decades of watching Star Trek that objects in low planetary orbit have mere hours before they burn up in the atmosphere. And also that, as the orbit decays, there’s lots of faster and faster beeping, and all the instrument panels start to spark and smoke.

Re: WHY?!?

[Dutch Gun]

I never underestimate the depths of someone's ignorance. And oddly enough, it's often in direct proportion to the zeal with which they show it off.

Re:WHY?!?

[Miamicanes]

NASA has official plans to deorbit the ISS if it loses funding because it's required by law to have such plans.

Russia would never, EVER allow NASA to actually go through with it.

If NASA sent a demolition crew up to the ISS to start taking it apart, Russia would promptly evict them & announce they were taking over the station.

The US would bitch & moan, compare it to space piracy, and threaten retaliation. Russia would roll its eyes and point out that we were planning to junk it anyway.

After a week or two of tense negotiations, the presidents of the US and Russia would hold a press conference to announce their deal... the creation of a new commercial space resort, transfer of the American modules to it in exchange for partial ownership of the new venture, and an agreement by Russia to maintain it going forward. A few already-wealthy Russian oligarchs become even wealthier, the US declines to cash its dividend checks, space tourism becomes a reality (driven by the acquisition of a prohibitively-expensive asset for free) and the space station continues in orbit for another hundred years.

The fact is, Russia would be insane NOT to do it. Even if the US side became completely derelict and ceased to be habitable over time, it would STILL be valuable as a source of recyclable raw materials already in orbit. Or even just a place to store shit that's halfway between "garbage" and "stuff that might be useful for something, someday".

Re:WHY?!?

[Miamicanes]

"safe design life" has an entire range of meanings. A module that was built to be safely habitable by human occupants might cease to be safe for that purpose, but still might be useful as a storage area. Kind of like how a damp basement might not be suitable for a bedroom, but is perfectly OK for use as a laundry room & place to store nearly-worthless junk for decades.

Maintaining things in low earth orbit costs money, but it's NOTHING compared to the cost of getting stuff up there in the first place.

Re: WHY?!?

[rl117]

They can do free direct delivery. But only once.

Re:WHY?!?

[bobbied]

Actually, they will just deorbit it piece by piece... The Russians, who have the technical means of launching replacement parts, but cannot afford to and the USA which has the money but not the technical means must both agree to keep this running, or it comes down in a blaze of glory.

Neither country can maintain this station alone, at least right now. Together, the plan is to keep things going by slowly replacing pieces and parts with new, one module at a time and deorbiting the junk. If they both don't agree, then the US shuts down it's technology and the Russians stop supplying the station and it's all over...

Re: WHY?!?

[omnichad]

instrument panels start to spark and smoke.

I've always wondered why futuristic societies left surge suppression out of their control panel designs. Seems like any direct hit to shields causes a ripple current to feed back into the control circuits.

really its name is R'lyeh

[at10u8]

and dumping spacecraft there risks angering the Great Old Ones

Call of Cthulhu module?

[MAXOMENOS]

Bombing a lifeless void in the South Pacific with space junk....what could go wrong?

Who cares where they come down?

[Picodon]

“Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?”

Butterflies and Hurricanes

[PopeRatzo]

"The Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility" sounds like the title of a prog-rock album.

Reasons for ISS low earth orbit

[knorthern knight]

Why 254 miles above the earth's surface, where there's still some atmospheric drag, you ask?

1) Minor reason... to keep down fuel costs of sending people+supplies up to it. The trade-off is fuel costs of constant burns to keep ISS in orbit.

2) Major reason... the lower Van Allen radiation belt begins approx 500 km (approx 300 miles) above the earth's surface. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... A moon mission (or beyond) would pass through the belts in a matter of hours; ditto for re-entry returning to earth. With sufficient shielding, you get the equivalant of a few whole-body X-rays. A 6-month mission inside the belts (i.e. above 300 miles) would probably be fatal.

Note that the belts trap charged particles, which would require shielding once you get beyond the belts. The Apollo lunar missions needed that extra sheilding. And that only sufficed for ordinary conditions. Had the sun had shot out a major solar flare pointed toward us during an Apollo mission, the astronauts would've been dead, no ifs, ands, ors, buts.

Re:Reasons for ISS low earth orbit

[4wdloop]

Thanks, that explains LEO and constant falling down. But since it costs so much to bring anything up, would it still be very valuable to keep it flying with fueling it?

I suspect the maintenance is more than just fuel. The heat/cool, air, seals, power all require machinery that breaks so there is a constant need of attention. I used to have a sailboat, it too kept dissolving even if not used.

Re:Reasons for ISS low earth orbit

[careysub]

I suspect the maintenance is more than just fuel. The heat/cool, air, seals, power all require machinery that breaks so there is a constant need of attention. I used to have a sailboat, it too kept dissolving even if not used.

And you suspect rightly. The workload of maintaining the ISS is almost two full time people. It could not be left unoccupied for long and expect its systems to remain intact and functioning - though there would be less stress on the system with no one on board. Some type of hard shut-down procedure to mothball it would be required, and probably require spending more money on special equipment to do it. And then reactivating it later would be an untried operation.

And then there will be frequent reboosting cost, which is currently done about once a month.

Entirely the point

[DrYak]

There's actually atmospheric drag on the ISS such that, without periodic corrections, will drag it down out of orbit. That's true of ANY low earth orbit satellite, of course.

At it's current altitude, the ISS orbit decays about 100m per day. And the lower it dips into the upper atmosphere, the faster the rate of decay becomes. Without correctional boosts, the ISS would probably fall from they sky relatively quickly. I've seen estimations of approximately six months or so.

Which is entirely the point of using that orbit.
Anything else beside the ISS (i.e.: debris) will lack said boost and will eventually fall from the sky rather quickly, which means that such low orbit are relatively clean and only contain the few man-made object that can actually boost and nothing else: this means a lot less risks of debris/micro-meteorite impact and a lot less necessary collision-avoidance corrections.

Re:Insert catchy title here

[cellocgw]

We are only now beginning to realize that dumping trash from our coastal cities into the seas is not a good idea. How much longer to realize the same about space trash?

On the off chance that, being Monday and all, I'm not being trolled here: The total mass or volume of space junk that's made it back to Earth is dwarfed by the mass of trash that NYC hauls out to sea every day. Multiply that by the number of reasonably large cities and see how much of a dent in the total trash mass space-sourced stuff makes.