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Comment by LorenDB | Hacker News Reader

The point is not to keep it running; rather, we want to preserve the station so future generations can return to it as a historical marker. Sure, it might be unused, but I think we can afford to keep a few things like the ISS and Hubble in graveyard orbits simply due to their historical significance.

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Orbital archeology would be an amazing subject for science fiction. Indiana Jones meets Gravity

I think part of the problem is the cyclic thermal stresses on the station will eventually cause it to break apart and become dangerous. Im sure something could be done about this like maybe wrapping it all in aluminized mylar but it would take alot of time and money beyond changing the orbit. Personally i think congress should just allocate the funds for this from the defense budget (not the science budget!) and let space force administer the decommissioning.

how high would you have to move it, how much fuel would it take, and is that even actually feasible?

I suspect the answers to all those questions are why the people running NASA decided to bring it down.

Except it sounds like the same shuttle, and amount of fuel, used for the deorbit burn would be sufficient to also put it into a long-term stable orbit instead.

I read elsewhere it would take something like 100x the amount of fuel to move it up to a stable orbit. Maybe people are defining things differently, but bringing it down, just logically, has to be way easier with gravity and atmospheric drag helping.

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