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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.
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!
Yeah but he won't want a fixer-upper, by the time NASA is out of the ISS he'll hopefully have BFR up and running and can just buy a few modules from Bigelow and launch them himself, more space and probably a fraction of the cost with none of the upkeep headaches. Plus that way he can lay them out the way he wants them with the most modern tech, not something from the 80's.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
The story does not read as the headline indicates.
It's "mulling" and reportedly (a) only the Trump team is considering this and (b) *everyone* else in the world -- including Ted Cruz -- thinks it's a monumentally dumb idea. From the original Washington Post article:
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said he hoped recent reports of NASA’s decision to end funding of the station “prove as unfounded as Bigfoot.” He said the decision was the result of “numskulls” at the Office of Management and Budget. “As a fiscal conservative, you know one of the dumbest things you can to is cancel programs after billions in investment when there is still serious usable life ahead,” he said.
Boeing, which has been involved with the station since 1995, operates the station for NASA, which costs the agency $3 billion to $4 billion annually.
So far there are *no* private companies that want the expense and responsibility of maintaining the ISS -- especially as there is no business plan for something like this.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Also, the only country that is able to take people there is Russia.
This isn't really true. The Dragon capsule is quite capable of taking people there; it just hasn't been certifies yet because the FAA / NASA is still investigating the explosion of the Falcon 9 rocket from last year.
That's a good thing, of course; there hasn't been much need to rush development, so erring in favour of safety makes sense. But if the US really wanted to get a crew to the ISS next week and Russia refused to cooperate, SpaceX has the capability to get them there.
The first manned Dragon flight is scheduled for May, at which point it should recieve full certification and start doing regular runs to the ISS.
Half is Russian and half is mostly American. It should be possible to do what King Solomon refused to do, and split it in half.
The famous story of King Solomon didn't exactly play out like that.
Two women claimed to be the mother of a baby. Solomon called for the baby to be cut in half, and each half be given to each woman. One of the women screamed and pleaded with Solomon to give the baby to the other woman. Solomon then knew who the real mother was.
Threatening to split the ISS in half may very well result in exactly that happening. It has no single "mother" who would surrender it for the greater good.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
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
instead of de-orbiting it
Selling it is better than burning it up.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Trump space station is the biggest space station in orbit
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.)
I know I'm not really contributing anything useful to the conversation by saying this, but I'm going to read his name as "Sen. Ted Cruz (T-Rex.)" from now on.
Remember the Iridium satellite phone network system. This was a large constellation of communication satellites that could connect directly to each other as well as to satellite phones. After the original company went bankrupt, the plan was to just let all those satellites burn up. They were saved by a sell-off where satellite phone rentals were leased to emergency relief agencies because of the full coverage across the planet.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Actually Solomon only knew who really cared for the baby. There are mothers who don't give a shit about their baby and women who can't have a baby but really want one.
The important thing is that the woman who cared the most for the baby ended up with it, and it would be the same with the ISS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism