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Comment by mglz | Hacker News Reader

Interesting proposal, but can this really be done?

> The ISS be stripped of whatever of the billions of dollars of still-useful hardware and tech it has aboard. This can be auctioned to one of the several new commercial space station facilities, or even, if appropriate, transferred to NASA’s planned lunar orbiting “Gateway” facility.

Are there any such reusable systems aboard the ISS? Can they be removed?

> The station be moved to a medium-high orbit, sealed, and declared a Universal Heritage Site.

What system would be used to bring people and supplies to that orbit? How much would it cost per launch?

And the elephant in the room: How can this project guarantee the safety of the station long term? We already know about cracks appearing and Mir also decayed over time.

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The station was built in pieces out of modules. Just as modules were added, they can be removed, I would assume.

Moving it to a higher orbit and just leaving it there is a way to ensure there's a long lived source of space debris. The sealing it up part kind of implies there wouldn't be any crew or supplies needed, but the thing will suffer collisions and decay (fall apart) on its own.

I don’t think that’s a safe assumption. These modules have been modified many times and might have used destructive techniques during installation. Dangerous space walks might also have been involved that would need repeating in order to disconnect them. Also, it’s unlikely they’re designed to withstand the vacuum of space once removed, so new assemblies would be needed to protect things while removing them.

Either way, the residual value of these systems is far less than the cost to produce them initially.

Source: Worked in aerospace for a number of years

Declaring it a heritage site sounds not smart, not like a long term solution to anything.

I do think the rest of this makes a lot of sense. Recycle the thing, scrap it, over many decades. Get the humans out, boost it, make sure it'll hold together. And then let whomever wants to come off pull parts or material.

This should be a lesson in space manufacturing/assembly/recycling. We could learn so much about how to work on space from this. And ideally there'd be no rush. Boost it, and wait 10 years for space industry to be more caught up, more interested & able to start work.

The author seems completely unaware of the effects of

- sixteen thermal cycles a day

- constant vibration (sometimes severely when it was boosted) which means fatigue

- numerous effects of radiation on every material in the station, including the metal that makes up its structure (hardening/embrittlement), but also every seal keeping people alive

> What system would be used to bring people and supplies to that orbit? How much would it cost per launch?

What people? What supplies? It would be parked there, noone would be visiting any time soon.

> And the elephant in the room: How can this project guarantee the safety of the station long term? We already know about cracks appearing and Mir also decayed over time.

Nothing is guaranteed, but a lump of unpressurized metal in a high orbit wouldn't face many issues.

> Mir also decayed over time.

Orbital decay can be ignored for objects high enough.

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