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The Trump Administration is Moving To Privatize the International Space Station: Report (techcrunch.com)
The Trump administration is planning to privatize the international space station instead of simply decommissioning the orbiting international experiment in 2024, The Washington Post reports. From a report: According to a document obtained by the Post, the current administration is mulling handing the International Space Station off to private industry instead of de-orbiting it as NASA "will expand international and commercial partnerships over the next seven years in order to ensure continued human access to and presence in low Earth orbit." The Post also reported that the administration was looking to request $150 million in fiscal year 2019 "to enable the development and maturation of commercial entities and capabilities which will ensure that commercial successors to the ISS -- potentially including elements of the ISS -- are operational when they are needed." The U.S. government has already spent roughly $100 billion to build and operate the space station as part of an international coalition that also includes the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the Russian Space Agency.
The story does not read as the headline indicates.
I'm not a fan of discontinuing the ISS. Especially when it's still functional and appears it will be so for many more years. Even more so if there's no direct replacement for it.
While I wasn't a fan of the space shuttle to begin with, I also think it was foolish to retire it with no valid replacement.
I'm not sure how the international community is going to feel about the US selling off the ISS since several other countries have invested it the ISS as well. But Russia has also sold tourist trips to it in the past.
Trump Hotel and Casino IN SPACE!
Has checkbook, and the means to get there.
While I think that inevitably there needs to be more private-sector involvement in space development, I don't think my (and others') reasons for this are the same as Trumps' reasons. I also see some problems with privatization at this time:
1. There's great expense and little profit, currently, in anything space-related, that doesn't involve launching satellites. Private corporations aren't interested much in scientific research, they're interested in return-on-investment, and at the moment anything that isn't a productive satellite being launched into LEO isn't profitable. Perhaps in 50 to 100 years, given steady development of space vehicles, potentially lowering costs, there might be, but I just don't see it at current.
2. If it all becomes privatized, is there going to be goverment oversight (or perhaps U.N. oversight) to prevent covert militarization of the ISS, or it's future replacement? More specifically, how do we prevent some corporation, de-facto owned and operated by, say, China, from making it a covert military station in LEO?
It's the international space station. It is neither owned nor controlled by the US. It wasn't even originally built by the US, although they have certainly added part to it since.
It seems unlikely that any corporation would take on something like that - even SpaceX. It's a good platform for experiments and such, but it's not a money-maker. In fact, it's quite the opposite, and privatization of the ISS will not happen for that very reason.
According to a document obtained by the Post, the current administration is mulling handing the International Space Station off to private industry instead of de-orbiting
I'm having trouble imagining a scenario where private industry would be interested since there is no obvious profit motive or path to profitability in an orbiting laboratory. Even if they gave it away it would cost a huge amount of money to keep it running and how is any responsible private company going to pay for it?
...This is a discussion that's been ongoing for years now, as the ISS reaches the end of many critical components' design lifetime (particularly the life support, which was finicky when it was new and has not exactly aged like wine). The Trump administration may be somewhat more likely to actually go ahead with privatization, but it's not like the Obama and Bush administrations never considered it either. I'm sure the Trump administration will find, like its predecessors, that it's great to talk about selling the ISS but that there's not exactly a big line of potential buyers...the most serious discussions of private space stations (such as by Bigelow) are focused around much smaller installations.
I have no doubt that someone in this clusterfuck of an administration thinks "privatizing" the ISS would be a good idea, but I can't even see how it's a full-fledged idea, let alone a good one.
What's to be privatized? The entire station? Operations? Transit and resupply? All of it?
Private industry doesn't want to own the ISS. It was tailor-made for science, not for tourism, so it would make an awful space hotel. There isn't much demand for science on it from private industry - there's some, but the bulk of it is for NASA et al. trying to figure out how to do deep space exploration better. And let's not forget, half the ISS belongs to other countries. You could probably convince Russia to part with it for enough cash, but Japan? Canada? Seems unlikely. Not to mention, the ISS is nearing end-of-life - it's planned to be de-orbited sometime in the 2020s, because it's just not worth the cost of keeping it running past its designed lifespan.
Operations (replacing NASA's Johnson Space Center with private contractors) is vaguely doable but it doesn't play to private industry strengths. It's a one-off thing, no economies of scale, and it's so safety-critical that you can't shave much cost without risking lives. It's a zero-income project so the only way to squeeze a better profit out is to reduce expenses, and I just don't see how you could do that by any meaningful amount without inviting disaster. If this happens, it's a money-grab - some contractor with lots of donations to the GOP and/or direct connections to Trump will get a contract for several times what we currently pay, and they still will probably fuck it up.
As for replacing transit and resupply... we're already doing that. The Commercial Cargo Development program started under the Bush presidency, and Commercial Crew Development started under Obama. First crewed flights are expected this year. So this is just more of the Trump regime taking credit for stuff Obama (and Bush) did, while doing their best to burn everything to the ground.
Did you miss the part where they are going to burn it up in the atmosphere instead?
Wasn't NASA already (before the Trump administration) looking for buyers?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
The problem is that the ownership of the station is not clear. Also, the only country that is able to take people there is Russia. So I'm not so sure how much/little of the ISS is 'owned' by NASA.
Privatising it wouldn't necessarily mean straight up selling it off, that isn't really practical, as your sarcasm implies. More likely they would look to transfer operation of the station to a private entity, who they would pay a significant amount, but a lot less than is currently spent on running the station, to operate it on their behalf. This private entity would probably have scope to try and generate revenue from the station to make up some of the running costs, for example by charging countries, companies and individuals for using the station to do research or through space tourism, etc.
If those other countries are concerned they can pick up the tab to keep it running.
There are plenty of people in the US who want to keep it running. They just don't happen to occupy the white house or congress at the moment.
Privatization is better than de-orbit.
You are assuming privatization is possible. I'm having trouble imagining any viable privatization scenario. Explain to me where the profit comes from for a private enterprise taking over management of the ISS. Who would be interested and why? It costs about $3 billion/year to keep it flying so which private enterprise is going to foot that bill?
Someone has to pay the bills. Why should it always be the US?
A) We have the most money by a wide margin so that's why we get to pay for the expensive fancy stuff. There aren't a lot of countries that can afford something like the ISS and that is to our advantage. B) Investments in scientific research have big long term payoffs. If we have gotten everything we can out of the ISS then fine but if it still has value then it is foolish to pull the figurative plug on it early. There is also the opportunity cost to consider. That said though I have trouble with the argument that we should pull the plug on the ISS when we spend $600+ billion per year on a needlessly large military. Heck we spend hundreds of millions each year on tanks that we don't need and that the military doesn't want.
$75 Billion OBO No lowballs I know what I have
What? Big hands? PLEASE.....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Russia seems ready to go up to 2028 if they find other countries to follow them.
https://www.space.com/36356-ru...
Big ones, too. We'll keep doing what we're doing but we'll hand it all to a buddy of Trump's who will tack on 20% more cost. It's just simple grift. Nothing more (or less).
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This might not be a bad solution, depending on how it's implemented. Everything managed by NASA costs more. Paying private companies for running the space station might be less expensive and incur lower overhead.
Just like the cost difference between the Falcon Heavy, BFR, and SLS. Falcon Heavy launches will run right around $90 million, $95 million for fully expendable. SLS launches will cost a billion each. Delta IV Heavy is $400 to $600 million each, depending on when they're booked.
Just depends on the details. We don't necessarily want ISS run by the low bidder. If the management contract included resupply, then SpaceX would be in the best position to take on that task. They have warehouses full of flight proven boosters available for resupply missions.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Its not his fault. His ideology was blurring that part of the text so much that it became unreadable to him.
"His name was James Damore."
Well, you've got the crew chambers and cargo modules, but without any engines you'll have to give up when the first Open Space card is drawn. And no shield or front facing lasers. More than a bit risky.
Someone had to do it.
He is... Well, he's leasing them to Oil producers...
But "Exclusive economic waters" and "Territorial waters" are defined differantly.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
About time all those private ISS customers started ponying up.
Main reason for the great expense (of putting up the ISS and maintaining it) was that the govt spent $1 billion - $2 billion (depending on who you ask) per Shuttle launch to get up there.
The Shuttle hasn't been involved since 2011 and the ISS costs somewhere around $3 Billion/year according to NASA. According to NASA launch and transport costs account for about 34% of ISS operating costs. Systems operation and maintenance accounts for about 43% of costs.
Falcon Heavy costs less than 1/10th of that now, perhaps 1/100th of that in the near future, and carries more payload per launch to boot.
They don't need Falcon Heavy to support the ISS at this point. Falcon 9 is already supply resupply missions.
When the times nears that ISS needs to be de-orbited or given costly maintenance, it might be sensible to just give it away to SpaceX in return for promising to keep it in orbit and operational for a certain number of years.
Give me a credible reason why SpaceX would be interested. Their only interest in the ISS is in providing transport services to and from. There is no obvious profit in actually owning the station to them.
It's the international space station. It is neither owned nor controlled by the US.
The US paid about 2/3 of the cost to build the ISS so you better believe some of the parts of it are owned by the US government. In fact all the modules are owned by the countries that built them.
It wasn't even originally built by the US, although they have certainly added part to it since.
That is not even close to true. The first section was Russian follow a few weeks later by the first US section. The US has been involved from the start and has financed the majority of the project.
... an incredibly inconvenient orbit for North American visitors
Why are you saying it is inconvenient for North American visitors? The 51.6 degree inclination flies over all of the United States except Alaska, and most of the populate parts of Canada. If it were much lower inclination, it wouldn't fly over Canada at all.
I think you mean "a slightly higher inclination than the minimum energy launch from Kennedy Space Center", but even there, you only get a little over 100 meters per second by picking a lower inclination, and you give up your view of most of the United States (in fact, most of the land area of the world). -also, you wouldn't be able to get there from other launch sites such as Wallops.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
What could you do with your own orbiting weapons platform?
It's not NASA is going to be able police you. And does any world military have the ability to the shoot it down with currently online weapons?
Hmmmm.
Facebook is billions of individual "Skinner Boxes." And if you use it you are the pigeon!
"The Russians definitely won't cooperate with deorbiting it while it's still functional".
Sounds reasonable to me. And, until Elon Musk builds a suitable trampoline, no one other than Russians (or their guests) will be going there.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
does it come with electric powered Trabants?
mfwright@batnet.com
OTOH it's 420000 kg worth of materials already in space. The Falcon Heavy takes $90M for 8000 kg to GEO or ~20000 kg to LEO, so it's 21 launches = ~2B in launch costs alone. If you need a space station a few booster shots are pretty cheap by comparison, the problem is what's a profitable business in space. The Falcon Heavy launch costs work out to $4500/kg, which means you'd pretty much have to produce solid gold to turn a profit. Maybe if you could grow huge gemstones, create some crazy nano-tube materials or run zero-g experiments people would pay tons of money for but most likely it can be done cheaper on earth.
The other market is information, but that market is pretty well tapped out by communication satellites, broadcast satellites, GPS etc. and one ISS in a totally useless orbit isn't worth much at all. It's got man rating, but I don't think the market for space tourism is ready. And I don't think there's much commercial interest in astronaut experience just yet. Or ever, I mean it's not the 1960s anymore and rockets fly like it's CGI so you'd mostly be cargo to Mars or the Moon or whatever. And you can't simulate that on the ISS, low gravity is very different from zero gravity. Then again, maybe Musk will need a staging area....
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In your sarcasm you failed to emphasize the important bit. That this is a SPACE station.
That's no moon... it's a...
In that case we all agree not to tell them how much more efficient aiming the rockets at the target would be compared to their stupid "raining men" plan.
This wins sight picture of the day.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Seriously .. I don't think Trump's administration can do a thing without getting attacked for it. But this strikes me as a great idea. I mean, who cares if no private industry ends up wanting to buy the ISS? At least you can offer it up for sale and see what happens? If you just de-orbit the thing, you make absolutely NO money from it at the end and just add some pollution to the air.
As far as who would actually want to buy an orbiting research lab? Off-hand, I'm thinking big pharmaceutical firms might have some use for one? Maybe some government contractor would like it? I don't think anyone is thinking "Space hotel!" here ... but plenty of industries invest heavily in R&D and might have a use for an ability to run experiments in space.
The issue of other countries owning part of it? Well -- that may or may not make a sale unworkable? But people find ways to sell off items all the time that have multiple party ownership. Again, these other nations will get zero if the thing is just de-orbited.
In this case it means monetizing what would otherwise turn into a brief flaming fireball in the sky.
Imagine what a company like SpaceX could do with it...
Remember when GM was going through bankruptcy? Rather than bailing out GM, imagine if a company like Tesla had bought one of GMs bigger plants at pennies on the dollar - I bet you'd see a lot more Tesla's on the road, a lot more charging stations in your neighborhood, and a bit less greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere - but no, instead the Democrats propped up GM and locked in those factories to keep producing cars that run on dinosaur juice and pollute the atmosphere.
Ken
Good reason?
We're wasting millions on it annually for no particularly good purpose. We don't have a space shuttle anymore, and providing a justification for the space shuttle was the only real justification to have the space station.
The reason to de-obit it is because it is big enough for parts to potentially hit the ground, so they want to do it in a controlled manner.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
He mentioned it. And it's not in space. It's well within Earth's atmosphere.
We can bid on the Oval Office to be President for 1 term. AirBnB the Queen's Bedroom and Lincoln Bedroom, bidding starts at $100k/night. Those with wealth and success are obviously the most qualified to run the country and deserve the perks of their success and our admiration.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This may not be a great condition, well working space station but the thought of privatizing a space station just reeks of laying the ground work for an Elysium (2013) (movie) type situation.
Nah, to get to Elysium you have to climb the world tree.
The same number of people would be upset, just not the same people.
GM is huge! They are linked to a million jobs; yes most would be temporarily impacts but it would have had a big impact on the economy... At the time we had a depression already wreaking global havoc which didn't recover until around the last few years.
Tesla couldn't expand and borrow enough to buy up all that GM junk, they are running on massive debts NOW and they are TINY compared to GM! JUST THINK ABOUT IT.
FOREIGN car companies that were all getting help from their governments because they are big parts of their economy. They prop up major industries - everybody does it (who can.) Those foreign car companies would buy up the best parts of GM for their use. GM also owns a lot in other countries and supposedly having them based in the USA is an advantage (it used to be but now lobbyists decoupling corporations from their nations.) Not all of it because they'd not want to over extend during a depression; so you'd have probably most of GM just sitting and rusting.
GM makes stupid decisions but they are not much different than Americans... possibly smarter.
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Ladies and gentlemen, with today's launch of the Ayn Rand Space Station we're able to finally ensure lasting peace and corporation between multinational mega corporations from all over the world. What a joy to see Lockheed, Airbus, Mitsubishi, and BAE finally working toward a common profit target. Remember to sign up for Hulu Plus to view live streams from the ARSS with limited commercial interruption!
This is the first thing to come from the Trump White House that I actually think might be a good idea.
I'd rather see the ISS in orbit under the care of private companies who might actually to something really interesting with it than see it become a pretty light show in the sky.
When considering the remaining useful life of the station it's helpful to that the oldest modules are approaching 20 years in orbit, and took years to build before reaching orbit.
I seem to recall that the Russians indicated they are willing to separate the American segments and continue operating the station independently if necessary. This would not be trivial, as big chunks of the ECLSS are in the US Lab, Destiny, and Tranquility modules.
It's unclear what revenue streams could be supported by a private space station, but a great deal of space technology is "Build it and they will come".
I am somewhat skeptical of prospects of using the ISS for space tourism. The ISS doesn't have a shower, and the expedition crewmembers are strongly advised to work out in the gym every day, wearing the same clothes for multiple days... continuously for two decades. I assume that this has given it a uniquely fragrant bouquet that may not reflect well in the Yelp reviews.
Updated figures as Musk just said $150M for fully expendable heavy. With 63,800 kg to LEO that would put price/kg at $2343 and launch cost of ISS at roughly one billion instead of two. Still more expensive to launch your silverware into orbit than the actual silver though.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
and I'll have a company ready to accept responsibility just as soon as the checks from the Administration clear.
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Who, exactly, is going to pay to use this privatized Space Station? How much? ... And for what purpose?
I'd love to see the business plan for this operation.
Not that I'm against selling this orbiting turkey off -- assuming that the other stakeholders the US sucked in after we discovered (surprise!) that space stations are expensive, are on board. I'm just curious who they think they are going to sell it to.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Yawn. We've already discussed that in 2006: IBM to Buy ISS for $1.3 Billion
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
maybe you can explain to us how that is supposed to work?
Sure thing!
Why? I said privatization is better than de-orbit. I didn't say what that means or how it would work.
So you said a pointless bit of ideology completely detached from reality? That's pretty pointless. Saying privatization is better than de-orbit is meaningless unless you can back it up with a credible argument as to why and how it would happen. Privatization is not axiomatically the better option just because you like the space station. I'm willing to hear arguments about a path to making it work (I like the space station too) but I'm also not going to detach from economic (and political) reality.
The science done benefits everyone yet US is expected to pay for most of it. Got it.
And the US gets the lions share of the benefit from it unless we are idiots about it. Yes we pay for it and everyone benefits to some degree. But we benefit the most. That's how science research works. What happens is that US companies get the patents and first mover advantages and businesses that result from the research but everyone gets a drug that cures some new disease or solves some technical problem. The Apollo program is responsible in whole or in part for integrated circuits, freeze dried food, CAT scans, cordless power tools, ear thermometers, joysticks, memory foam, satellite TV, scratch resistant lenses, smoke detectors, and a lot more. If you don't invest you don't get the benefit down the road.
Since you brought it up maybe you can help define "needlessly".
Are you seriously going to argue that we need to spend more money on our military than China, Russia, UK, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India and Japan COMBINED? Don't waste my time.
What is the cost of peace?
What peace? We've started two more or less pointless wars in the last 15 years which we have spent trillions of dollars on (and borrow the money for BTW), are still fighting, and have certainly not made the Middle East any more peaceful. What HAS made the world more peaceful is economic cooperation. The EU was the epicenter of two world wars but now that they are an economic and to some degree political union the chances of that happening are remote. Peaceful cooperation between governments on a space station is a FAR more credible path to peace than buying more tanks and bombers and bullets.
So the 2-3 billion a year operational cost keeps being thrown around, why is that so high? Is it due to the number of support launches, and if so, wouldn't having cheap heavy lift capability (like the Falcon Heavy) make it much cheaper to maintain?
NASA has published a breakdown of the costs. Around 40% is maintenance and operations of the station. Around 33% is moving people and materials to and from the space station. Around 10% is the science mission and the rest is various and sundry other important things. Operating the space station requires paying for a lot of facilities, training, and very very smart people who don't come cheap.
Is it due to the number of support launches, and if so, wouldn't having cheap heavy lift capability (like the Falcon Heavy) make it much cheaper to maintain?
Short answer, no. At this point it isn't the amount of gear we can lift per launch that is the big restriction. Falcon Heavy might be able to reduce costs here or there but it's not going to make a substantial difference in the ISS budget even under the most optimistic assumptions.
It seems to me if nothing else the solar modules and frame would be useful for something, since they are already in orbit.
What exactly? With Falcon Heavy it might plausibly be cheaper to launch a new set of modules and frames than to try to retrofit the ISS to a purpose it wasn't designed for.
The US Dollar is backed by nothing but faith now.
All currencies are backed by faith. Pegging them to another asset does not change that. What gives gold it's value? Faith. Gold is valuable because people believe it is valuable. So even if you are on a gold standard you have a dollar backed by gold which is backed by faith. You haven't changed anything except to make a pointless abstraction layer that arguably hurts more than it helps.
You're talking about this year's operating costs. I'm talking about the whole thing, starting from the 1990's, cost to build it and launch it piece by piece, R&D, everything. That's what I meant by "great expense".
That is a sunk cost. It does not and should not matter for forward looking decisions. That money is already spent and we're not getting it back. Using money already spent is not a rational argument - it's a emotional one. We have the ISS as an asset. Whether we should continue to dump money into it or de-orbit it should be based solely on future expectations of need and utility and cost.
But if I were trying to set up a Mars colony, and if there's any kind of a need for orbital rendezvous or storage depot or some place to put people up for a few days while your big transports get refueled and serviced, and there's already a big space station there that you can use for cheap (or free), I might take it.
Nothing about the ISS will be cheap. It's pretty easy to come up with a credible argument that a mission to mars/moon would be better and more economically served by purpose built infrastructure than by trying to retrofit the ISS to a mission it was never designed for. As for space, SpaceX's BFR if it ever comes to fruition will have plenty of space to work with. I'm not opposed to examining whether the ISS could serve such a role productively but I'm dubious of its utility in such a role.
> Although it's tempting to advocate it be moved to a higher,
> more stable orbit, that's a non-trivially-difficult proposition.
That's a non-starter. There's a reason ISS orbits at approx 400 km above earth. The inner Van Allen Radiation belt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... usually has its bottom boundary at approximately 1000 km above the earth's surface, but dips lower during strong solar activity.
Electrical equipment can be hardened. Having the Apollo moon missions pass through the belts in a partially shielded vehicle for a few minutes on their way to/from the moon was one thing. Their radiation dose was approx what you'd get during a CAT scan. But you do not want people in the Van Allen Belts for a 6-month mission.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Do you know what ISS stands for? Where the hell did you get the idea it was not in space, let alone *well within* the Earth's atmosphere.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
And I wonder just how all the INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS feel about this? And contracts and treaties?
And I OBJECT to his misuse of *my* tax dollars.
Let the bidding begin.
This is how an Evil Villain get's their lair...
Muhahaha!