NASA will retire the ISS soon
npr.org
npr.org
Taking NASA's rationale at face value (namely, that the bones of the ISS are too old and that adding new modules to replace the old ones is out of the question): what design decisions will the ISS' successor(s) take to avoid this same exact situation 30 years from now?
Aerospace vehicles and structures have a limited shelf life. Patching ageing stuff up in space is expensive. So building a new one from scratch might be cheaper long run.
Something? Yes.
Valuable enough to bring even one down? Doubtful.
Anyway, the last vehicle which could do this was decommed in 2011.
Given that the stated mission is to own and operate a space station -- and rent out the space inside it -- I assume they're paying particular attention to how to reduce the cost of operations.
In particular, on the current ISS, it strikes me that a lot of things require spacewalks to replace parts that seem like they could have lived inside, rather than outside. Things like batteries, coolant pumps, and power regulators seem to constantly require a spacewalk to repair or replace. Even though it probably requires some extra improvements to improve safety in order to be able to put the machinery in "a utility closet" rather than outside, I assume Axiom Space Stations will be designed to be maintained from the inside, rather than the outside.
I doubt that the new station will last much longer than 30 years -- but I also doubt it will cost a billion dollars a year (I mean literally) to run.
I disagree with the idea of corporations having any interest in duplicating the ISS.
ISS was first and foremost a cash sink --- which most corporate shareholders are perfectly content to leave to government.
Perhaps we should ask Scott Manley.
Yes.
The ISS has a less the optimal orbital inclination (51.6 degrees) purely due to Russian involvement. To meaningfully change that would take a lot of delta v. From Texas, Florida, or French Guiana, the US and EU would really have benefited from a more flat inclination.
It also orbits at 400 km. In the grand scheme of things, that's pretty low. The amount of delta v to change this is much less (but significant because the total mass of the iss is 400,000kg), but who wants to do this for a 30 year old space station that you're also going to to pay to maintain?
You'd also have to have something you'd want to do with the the thing, which nobody really has show that they have. It also apparently smells lol.
It will end up in the middle of the Pacific.
There is no black box that will survive reentry.
Not yet. Calling MIT!
I don't really see it being feasible. Better to just clean room the design based on today's knowledge and tech. Heavy lift is getting cheaper and cheaper anyway.
For the most part, ISS was a self serving example of circular logic. It put people in space so we could study people in space and try to justify the outrageous expense of putting people in space. As if there was some immediate, practical need or demand for this information.
It was a large make work project to justify the expense of another large make work project --- the space shuttle. And just like the space shuttle, the only people who will really miss it are science fiction fans and NASA employees who will have to find more productive work.
Over 1000 new satellites are now being launched every year. There are currently over 10,000 in orbit.
The most significant attribute of launches to ISS every year is the expense of supporting human cargo.
I assume the smart bet here for the government is to spend opex just on the things that are important to them and assume that some of the overhead costs of running a space station are covered by whatever independent commercialization opportunities the private company can realize. Thereby lowering the cost to the government as it doesn't have to pay the total cost of ownership.
My worry is that important strategic aspects that have no commercial opportunity end up being completely borne by the US government (and therefore the taxpayer) with a profit margin included and what looks clever on paper to move from a capex to an opex model simply becomes a more expensive overall. With added risk that there will only be a handful of companies who can execute any of these strategies and they may not wish to pursue the government's mandate in preference for their own commercial program.
Sometimes renting isn't better than buying.
When commercial space travel comes online, it will find more optimal locations for bases perhaps the moon and L1.
Where "soon" is about 7 years away, in January 2031:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#En...
It's a pretty dishonest use of the word, trying to be clickbait.
Also, what better way to say "let's not nuke the shit out of each other" than to cooperate on civilian space programs?
The height of the cold war when we had thousands of nukes pointed at each others cities, multiple proxy wars including Vietnam, a conservative Republican president and conservative Communist premier, yet somehow a civilian international space program was still considered worth it.
The whole "for profit" thing just seems like such a sham. It's only "for profit" because the government is paying the bills, while avoiding liability and scrutiny if something goes wrong. Every space accident will now be like the Virgin Galactic fatalities, a bunch of secretive corporate NDAs instead of an open inquiry like Challenger.
I think a major reason was that, for all its failings, USSR was a superpower, powerful, influential, with an internationally attractive ideology. Russia today is a sunsetting power kicking around itself.
This applies to cultural contacts in general too. Every time the US decided to "punish" the Soviets by cutting back cultural contacts... breathtakingly stupid (IMO).