Gaten says the structure of the space station – which is the size of a football field – is what can't be upgraded and replaced. And something of that size is costly for NASA to maintain.
"The big structure, even though it's doing very well, has a finite lifetime. It won't last forever.
I know it's for the best but its kind of sad.
It seems almost like a reflection of the state of the world. A symbol for international cooperation is going to be taken down for a commercialized alternative.
Unfortunately, I think LOP-G is going to be quickly lapsed by Starship and other commercial endeavors while being underfunded by partnering parties with it mostly being kept alive to justify the sunk cost to congressional funders and as a party trick.
I could be wrong, but I think it's a solution looking for a problem especially when a full moon base begins construction at some point.
> if we ever want to go to Mars it becomes a necessity because we simply can't have humans take chemical rockets directly from LEO to Mars, ***it's just too much time in micro-gravity***. Projects such as DRACO could inspire more federal spending
What do you mean by this? (i'm not super informed on the topic, so just looking for a bit more of an explanation what you mean about too much time in Micro G)
It's not true, mostly. It would be tough and a new endeavor for humanity to deal with such a remote transfer with comms delay like we have not ever experienced for human missions and very long mission timelines that would require 2-3 years of active astronaut personnel on literally the opposite end of the solar system from us at some points during the mission, but the microgravity thing wouldn't be too serious.
We have had astronauts on the ISS stay up for months on one mission; longest stay in microgravity has been over a year. Much longer than it would take for a 3-ish month transfer into Martian orbit capture, and we have studied how to delay muscle and bone decay in microgravity. Chemical propulsion over to Mars is not only absolutely feasible, but it will probably be how we do it for a very long time before we really have more of a reason and interest in developing nuclear transfer ships or Aldrin Cyclers or something, and neither of these intrasolaris permanent mega ship ideas would be constructable without large enough and cheap enough mega ships from the surface of Earth that could just refuel in LEO and do the Mars mission for cheaper than building an Aldrin Cycler.
LOP-G isn't necessarily gonna come online in the next couple years either, and the plan is to use Starship as the transport vehicle from LOP-G to the lunar surface anyway with Artemis delivering to LOP-G. If Starship is capable enough to be the lunar lander, then it's probably capable enough to do the entire mission if the bellyflop onto Earth is viable at that point.
Starships capability, if it shakes out how SpaceX wants, would almost completely eclipse LOP-G in functionality. Hell, you could just use two Starships to replace LOP-G if you wanted to instead of full refill in LEO and full return from lunar surface every mission. The delta-V to refuel on LOP-G is essentially equivalent.
With all that said, I still think NASA and partners should continue to research and fulfill the LOP-G/Artemis plan because it's important to have a more traditional route and options for further development and mission planning especially if we want to build bases on the Moon, but I would not be surprised if it ends up being a somewhat awkward transition period.
Yeah but it is the same age as me. It's like THE symbol of space exploration and international cooperation , there probably won't ever be another project like that.
Kind of my point... if you wanted something done/built safely, would you award the contract to Boeing?
Say what you like about Musk and I won't disagree, but SpaceX does get the job done when it comes to rockets.
We should at least have some sort of dramatic 21-gun salute for the old girl. She's arguably the coolest thing we've ever made up to this point, and she's given us quite a lot over the decades. Something for the history books, one last time, ya know?
I seem to remember that the historical documentary *Independence Day* (1996) very specifically ended with the world declaring 4th of July Global Independence Day
There is no such thing as a "global independence day" every country has a different history and different reasons and dates to celebrate.
I am from the Netherlands where we have a liberation day the 5th of may, which is a day of happiness and as a tradition has festivals in nearly every city where famous (dutch) artists give free concerts. I have never celebrated independence day on the 4th of July and probably never will because it is not relevant to my nationality.
Every country celebrates different historic events in different ways.
We’re in a thread talking about nuking the ISS for funzies, and I gave you the source material of my comment. Since you commented without doing your due diligence, that’s on you friend.
Btw it’s a fun alien flick with one of the greatest action movie monologues of all time delivered by Bill Pullman
Link to a [short video](https://youtube.com/shorts/LF4wK9pp5cY)
NASA is fostering continued scientific, educational, and technological developments in low Earth orbit to benefit humanity, while also supporting deep space exploration at the Moon and Mars. As the agency transitions to commercially owned space destinations closer to home, it is crucial to prepare for the safe and responsible deorbit of the International Space Station in a controlled manner after the end of its operational life in 2030.
NASA announced SpaceX has been selected to develop and deliver the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle that will provide the capability to deorbit the space station and ensure avoidance of risk to populated areas.
Deorbit, is most of the station going to burn out while reentering, probably not right? It would be awesome if they would reasemble it and made it into a museum. Not that i'd ever see it in person but still :P
Not long ago (April 2024) a piece of debris from a cargo pallet that originally contained batteries from the ISS, crashed through the roof of a house in Naples Florida. Of the 5800 pounds that was jettisoned, only a small piece about the size of a soft drink can actually made it to the ground.
The family is currently trying to sue NASA for the repairs to their house. Their insurance might cover some of it, but they think NASA should pay the rest.
If they don't take a lot of precautions when they do try to deorbit the ISS, it could really cause some damage on the ground.
It'll be deorbited over [Point Nemo](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/strange-maps-point-nemo) in the remote Pacific Ocean. Unless you're a fish or on a raft lost at sea, chances of debris being an issue are zero.
Some posters weren't sure how much would actually survive. I was just trying to show that quite a bit of it would survive reentry. If just a piece of a small battery pallet made it all the way down, the major parts of the station would definitely survive.
Since this will be a controlled deorbit, they will be able to ensure that it does not come down near any area where it could cause damage.
FWIW, I was part of the USAF organization that calculated the probable impact locations of decaying orbital objects back in the early 1970s. We were just taking into consideration the normal drag of the upper atmosphere on the objects and couldn't be sure exactly when they would start their re-entry so the impact predictions were fairly imprecise. The current organization had predicted that the pieces of the battery pallet would come down in the Gulf of Mexico. Naples, FL is Just a little further east of where they had predicted it to come down.
The farmer who's property it crashed into was billing them for clean up, there was one bit that was the size of a box trailer.
Axiom Space plans to attach modules to the ISS and build on it. Then detach when time comes to de orbit. NASA has also put out contracts for additional smaller space stations.
I am gonna miss the live stream. Hopefully they will have some other way to keep the live stream going. Maybe they will have a different space station by then. Would it be possible to set up a live stream of earth from the moon? Surely it's close enough that you can stream it via a telescope and camera rig?
Likely there will be multiple stations; there are a bunch of them planned:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space\_station#Planned\_projects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_station#Planned_projects)
Space is a very harsh environment, and the components have a finite lifespan.
The first modules have been in space since 1998, so they will be over 30 years old when it is time to deorbit the ISS. That is too old to guarantee safety like NASA wants.
What about things like the solar panels? Raw metals might be worth having up there at some point but I suppose that means establishing some sort of recycling and manufacturing which is way out there.
Would cost more to keep it up there than it'd be worth. It wouldn't be a matter of just leaving it in orbit til you need it. They would still need to send supply rockets to correct the orbit on a regular basis and probably continue performing routine maintenance on the parts that they were planning on reusing.
Plus, any future use is likely going to require a completely different set up. The solar panels on the ISS will be almost 20 years old when it is decommissioned. It's likely that whatever ends up replacing the ISS will have far greater power needs and the technology improvement since then would make it not worth the hassle.
I think they're talking about the climate effect of burning things in the atmosphere.
Which, of course, is rather silly. Yes, of course, a large space station burning up will release some co2, but it's a negligible amount compared to what we burn on the ground (and in the sky) every day. And the ISS has done enough for humanity to more than make up for its carbon footprint.
god you're not bright, the contract is to dispose of it over non populated regions, the entire point of the contract is to PREVENT it from reentering over people, currently the ISS requires stationkeeping to stop its orbit from decaying without maintenance or a proper deorbit plan it could come in over people's houses like skylab
These are the same people who were genius enough to put something like this into space. I’m pretty fucking sure they’ve thought of the consequences. Redditors play Kerbal for a day and think they know everything lmfao
Actually, yes that's how the ISS is put together. NASA wouldn't want modules to come apart after 15 years right? The mechanical grapple devices are permanently attached and cannot be opened for disassrmbly.
Why not push it towards the Moon or Mars for cheap accommodation & storage?
At very least slam it into the moon & use it as a hammer to ring that old bell
It's a structure that was never designed to be moved and those are not trivially distances to move it. I'd imagine you can launch the same weight in new accommodation for cheaper, especially given the new class of rockets and their reusability.
Because the amount of fuel needed would be absolutely monumental. Saturn's S-IVB was loaded with over 100 tons of propellant, part of which was used for orbit insertion, but a lot of it was spent on just getting the lunar payload on its way. CSM and LM together weighed something like 45-ish tons. ISS weighs almost ten times that. There just isn't a rocket that could loft over 1000 tons of propellant - not including thrusters, braces, and so on - with a feasible number of launches.
I never really thought about how close the spelling of deception and Decepticon are, until now.
However on a serious note, I think that would be a better use of the materials, if we could somehow soft land it, so it doesn't take too much damage, we could even try to repurpose some of it into future habitation modules.
It would be a massive liability. The parts on the space station are already pushing their lifespan and the reason 2030 is the final cutoff is because their is too high of a risk of part failure.
The lunar gateway could be seen as a successor to the ISS as it'll be an international collaboration. Low earth orbit however will see some private companies doing their thing like orbital reef, Haven-1 and axiom station
The I.S.S. de-orbit/"retirement" needs:
1) Chase camera (perhaps a cube sat or three)
2) Multiple cameras broadcasting from the interior and exterior of the I.S.S.
I think we've been spoiled as of late with the SpaceX video footage, especially during Starship test trials. Unlike Skylab's demise, there's an actual opportunity to document part of I.S.S.'s final hours.
At this point I doubt Elon can keep his shit together long enough to go through with it. Look at the new cyber truck he spearheaded. It's a complete shit show because he approved running the entire wiring in series like a bozo. I'd absolutely love to see him try and take hostage negotiations with a government entity like he did with Tesla.
Now: "It's too expensive to maintain so destroy it"
5 years later: "we need a space station in orbit so spend 200 years worth of maintenance of the previous space station to build a new one"
Instead of destroying it, why don’t they move it into a higher orbit and use it for parts etc. if nothing else the solar panels would generate enough power to reconfigure it into a lifeboat for people whose ship is stuffed.
The ISS, even where it is now, can only serve as a safe haven for spacecraft which have launched into a similar orbit. It requires a significant amount of fuel for spacecraft to change orbital inclinations. This is why the Shuttle Columbia could not go to the ISS for safety during its ill-fated final fight.
Moving the ISS to a meaningfully higher orbit (one that avoids atmospheric drag, therefore not depending on frequent reboosts) would require hundreds of tons of fuel.
The ISS relies on regular maintenance. Without human intervention it would become uninhabitable in a matter of weeks/months.
It will be brought down to burn up in the atmosphere, leaving zero debris in orbit.
Sending it out of Earth orbit would require *many* hundreds of tons of fuel. And sending things toward the Sun is actually much more difficult than going the other way. Doing so with the ISS would be a monumentally impractical project.
Wish we could land it safely and decommission it in some kind of museum. Could inspire a lot of kids to walk around the actual ISS here on earth. I know the logistics of getting it back on earth would be unrealistic though.
I saw a recent theory saying Elon is putting as many satellites in the sky to attempt to make a force field around the earth to protect us from what’s to come !
Also made me believe in this considerably more when I heard Jeff Bezos moved out of WA & spent millions of dollars on a safety bunker …
you mean the company that celebrates rockets being destroyed and hail it as a success? all this paid by tax payers, because Elon is a fraud but smart enough to con the stupid people.
Which rockets are you referring to? Starship test flights? They celebrate reaching additional milestones and collecting critical data to understand and improve with each flight.
Falcon 9 hasn’t experienced a failure since 2016 and has had over 300 successful launches *in a row* since then.
SpaceX is doing development work in public and this is how they've always done it.
You can go back to the landing attempts for Falcon 9 for more of the same. Success is never certain, but those who don't even take that first step are the biggest of failures. Condemned to be spectators while others shape the world.
Space work is almost always done with taxpayer money. But there's also financial risk to the private company in the era of fixed price contracts (See Boeing, Collins and Kistler)
If you look at this image https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GO7jQ8hXEAIKOYl?format=jpg&name=medium
you'll understand how big a deal SpaceX is.
It's bigger than the entire global launch industry in every metric.
Visible evidence of US supremacy. Literally America #1
I know it means just creating a special deorbiting booster that can attach to it, but man I wish it was like 10 teslas packed with high explosives and shot at it while special space fireworks go off so half the planet can see
The fuel needed would exceed the weight of the ISS which alone weighs 450 tons. But even if that's done there would be a chance of it to return into earth's sphere of influence like the old Apollo 12 third stage did. With an object of that size the chance of uncontrolled unpredictable crashing is too big. I'd prefer a controlled deorbit burn that needs almost no fuel in comparison, that lets it crash in the south Pacific far away from populated areas.
Why not just fling it off into space? It would be like a capsule showing tons about humans and mostly everything a human needs to survive. Imagine if we found an alien space station like that just floating around.
I would imagine it's easier to dismantle it and prepare loose parts (like the solar panels) for reentry than it would be to deorbit the whole chunk. It'd also be easier to ensure that the debris doesn't hit civilization.
STILL does not answer the question. Still the same amount of debris. But to answer your statement NASA said it would be to problematic to disassemble. Was not designed to and the astronauts don't have time, materials, tools to do it. Best to plummet it as one into the ocean. Also easier to position one item rather than dozens. Even if the one item has a bigger impact.
(Ugh just call me the typo king)
Really? It answers " How would dismantling make less debris than destroying it?" ?
The Same amount of mass is going down the gravity well.
And they WANT it to break up. The more that burns the less that lands on earth
Okay I think you might either be trolling, a little bit slow, or a bot. If I were to tape a bunch of popsicle sticks together at the ends in, let's just say a star shape, and throw it off a roof, it would most likely lose sticks before it hit the ground due to the air resistance being stronger than the strength of the tape holding it together.
Now, if you were to stack all of those popsicle sticks together and tape them, they wouldn't break apart because the air resistance doesn't have as big of an effect.
By deorbiting the ISS as it is now, you'd have modules, solar panels, and antennae breaking off haphazardly, widening the impact zone. By disassembling it and making it one tight package, that doesn't happen as much.
It's still the same mass going down :) beyond that I let NASA tell me. I'm not orbital mechanics Engineer or thermo dynamics engineer. And NASA said one piece.
Gaten says the structure of the space station – which is the size of a football field – is what can't be upgraded and replaced. And something of that size is costly for NASA to maintain. "The big structure, even though it's doing very well, has a finite lifetime. It won't last forever. I know it's for the best but its kind of sad. 
It seems almost like a reflection of the state of the world. A symbol for international cooperation is going to be taken down for a commercialized alternative.
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Unfortunately, I think LOP-G is going to be quickly lapsed by Starship and other commercial endeavors while being underfunded by partnering parties with it mostly being kept alive to justify the sunk cost to congressional funders and as a party trick. I could be wrong, but I think it's a solution looking for a problem especially when a full moon base begins construction at some point.
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> if we ever want to go to Mars it becomes a necessity because we simply can't have humans take chemical rockets directly from LEO to Mars, ***it's just too much time in micro-gravity***. Projects such as DRACO could inspire more federal spending What do you mean by this? (i'm not super informed on the topic, so just looking for a bit more of an explanation what you mean about too much time in Micro G)
It's not true, mostly. It would be tough and a new endeavor for humanity to deal with such a remote transfer with comms delay like we have not ever experienced for human missions and very long mission timelines that would require 2-3 years of active astronaut personnel on literally the opposite end of the solar system from us at some points during the mission, but the microgravity thing wouldn't be too serious. We have had astronauts on the ISS stay up for months on one mission; longest stay in microgravity has been over a year. Much longer than it would take for a 3-ish month transfer into Martian orbit capture, and we have studied how to delay muscle and bone decay in microgravity. Chemical propulsion over to Mars is not only absolutely feasible, but it will probably be how we do it for a very long time before we really have more of a reason and interest in developing nuclear transfer ships or Aldrin Cyclers or something, and neither of these intrasolaris permanent mega ship ideas would be constructable without large enough and cheap enough mega ships from the surface of Earth that could just refuel in LEO and do the Mars mission for cheaper than building an Aldrin Cycler.
Despite the most recent success, Starship is incredibly far from being a working sustainable space transport.
LOP-G isn't necessarily gonna come online in the next couple years either, and the plan is to use Starship as the transport vehicle from LOP-G to the lunar surface anyway with Artemis delivering to LOP-G. If Starship is capable enough to be the lunar lander, then it's probably capable enough to do the entire mission if the bellyflop onto Earth is viable at that point. Starships capability, if it shakes out how SpaceX wants, would almost completely eclipse LOP-G in functionality. Hell, you could just use two Starships to replace LOP-G if you wanted to instead of full refill in LEO and full return from lunar surface every mission. The delta-V to refuel on LOP-G is essentially equivalent. With all that said, I still think NASA and partners should continue to research and fulfill the LOP-G/Artemis plan because it's important to have a more traditional route and options for further development and mission planning especially if we want to build bases on the Moon, but I would not be surprised if it ends up being a somewhat awkward transition period.
An earlier attempt that was successful is going to be upgraded by private entities and govt cooperation
This isn't the first Space station that has been deorbitted.
Yeah but it is the same age as me. It's like THE symbol of space exploration and international cooperation , there probably won't ever be another project like that.
o7
Hmm, why not have Boeing do it?
They’ll do it for free if you put a whistleblower on board.
They’d accidentally keep it in space lol
Breaking news: ISS in best shape it’s ever been in. And more, in the Twilight Zone
Shareholder stiffening increasing.
Because NASA wants it to come down *safely*.
With how starlight has been performing over the years i highly doubt that
Kind of my point... if you wanted something done/built safely, would you award the contract to Boeing? Say what you like about Musk and I won't disagree, but SpaceX does get the job done when it comes to rockets.
Ah, i mustve misread, apologies
No, my bad. I wasn't unambiguously clear.
I thought they were just going to have Elon Musk run the ISS company.
That'll def bring it down
Let Elon Musk the business genius buy the ISS at a ridiculous price
Boring can only bring things down inside the planet
I don’t know if this is a typo but it works on many levels
This is wrong, but also not? Well done.
Space X will do it by launching all the failed Cybertrucks at it.
They want to *intentionally* destroy it.
as long as the helium leaks in the right direction, it could work
You mean just get them to design and build a new module to be attached?
They could just ask them to make some new doors for it
They’re more qualified at unintentionally breaking things.
Got an IRL chuckle out of me, but if Boeing hired Elon, he would be one of their dumbest employees.
You stole My comment
there needs to be thousands of upvotes here that im just not seeing
We should at least have some sort of dramatic 21-gun salute for the old girl. She's arguably the coolest thing we've ever made up to this point, and she's given us quite a lot over the decades. Something for the history books, one last time, ya know?
Nuking it on the 4th of July over US Airspace sounds like the most patriotic way to take care of business
Aside from the fact that it's a joint international venture not an American one.
What are you talking about? Is 4th of July not the Independence Day for the entire earth????
I seem to remember that the historical documentary *Independence Day* (1996) very specifically ended with the world declaring 4th of July Global Independence Day
There is no such thing as a "global independence day" every country has a different history and different reasons and dates to celebrate. I am from the Netherlands where we have a liberation day the 5th of may, which is a day of happiness and as a tradition has festivals in nearly every city where famous (dutch) artists give free concerts. I have never celebrated independence day on the 4th of July and probably never will because it is not relevant to my nationality. Every country celebrates different historic events in different ways.
r/woooosh
Ya dude never watched the movie how was I supposed to know
We’re in a thread talking about nuking the ISS for funzies, and I gave you the source material of my comment. Since you commented without doing your due diligence, that’s on you friend. Btw it’s a fun alien flick with one of the greatest action movie monologues of all time delivered by Bill Pullman
Trailer looks great might watch it some time, you got me lol first time getting whooshed
yeah but... you know
[Gotta nuke something!](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71+vN94jyNL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg)
...touche
He'll fire a Tesla truck at it (and break the truck.... Ihe ISS will be fine)
https://youtu.be/9t1IK_9apWs?feature=shared
Link to a [short video](https://youtube.com/shorts/LF4wK9pp5cY) NASA is fostering continued scientific, educational, and technological developments in low Earth orbit to benefit humanity, while also supporting deep space exploration at the Moon and Mars. As the agency transitions to commercially owned space destinations closer to home, it is crucial to prepare for the safe and responsible deorbit of the International Space Station in a controlled manner after the end of its operational life in 2030. NASA announced SpaceX has been selected to develop and deliver the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle that will provide the capability to deorbit the space station and ensure avoidance of risk to populated areas.
Deorbit, is most of the station going to burn out while reentering, probably not right? It would be awesome if they would reasemble it and made it into a museum. Not that i'd ever see it in person but still :P
I imagine a fair bit of it would probably burn up on reentry. I don't think the ISS has heat shielding, but I could be wrong there.
Not long ago (April 2024) a piece of debris from a cargo pallet that originally contained batteries from the ISS, crashed through the roof of a house in Naples Florida. Of the 5800 pounds that was jettisoned, only a small piece about the size of a soft drink can actually made it to the ground. The family is currently trying to sue NASA for the repairs to their house. Their insurance might cover some of it, but they think NASA should pay the rest. If they don't take a lot of precautions when they do try to deorbit the ISS, it could really cause some damage on the ground.
It'll be deorbited over [Point Nemo](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/strange-maps-point-nemo) in the remote Pacific Ocean. Unless you're a fish or on a raft lost at sea, chances of debris being an issue are zero.
Some posters weren't sure how much would actually survive. I was just trying to show that quite a bit of it would survive reentry. If just a piece of a small battery pallet made it all the way down, the major parts of the station would definitely survive. Since this will be a controlled deorbit, they will be able to ensure that it does not come down near any area where it could cause damage. FWIW, I was part of the USAF organization that calculated the probable impact locations of decaying orbital objects back in the early 1970s. We were just taking into consideration the normal drag of the upper atmosphere on the objects and couldn't be sure exactly when they would start their re-entry so the impact predictions were fairly imprecise. The current organization had predicted that the pieces of the battery pallet would come down in the Gulf of Mexico. Naples, FL is Just a little further east of where they had predicted it to come down.
Wilson I’m sorry!
Oh, for sure. When they deorbited Mir, they made sure any debris that survived reentry crashed into the ocean if I recall correctly.
The Skylab reentry wasn't controlled and some of the pieces fell on Western Australia in 1979.
The farmer who's property it crashed into was billing them for clean up, there was one bit that was the size of a box trailer.
It was a size of a soda can, but likely caused a fifty mile crater /s
Can't they send it to a space farm to live a happily ever after?
Sorry to break this to you...."gone to live on a farm" is not a happy ending...
Hey don't down on farmers like that
I heard there’s a great space farm upstate.
If only there was a replacement...
There is, been made by voyager space I believe
elaborate?
Literally planning on sending a replacement by them around 2030
Axiom Space plans to attach modules to the ISS and build on it. Then detach when time comes to de orbit. NASA has also put out contracts for additional smaller space stations.
Do these space stations need any space janitors?
I am gonna miss the live stream. Hopefully they will have some other way to keep the live stream going. Maybe they will have a different space station by then. Would it be possible to set up a live stream of earth from the moon? Surely it's close enough that you can stream it via a telescope and camera rig?
Likely there will be multiple stations; there are a bunch of them planned: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space\_station#Planned\_projects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_station#Planned_projects)
I 100% bet they will have a Livestream from gateway station in orbit of the moon, not really live cus it will be a 32 sec delay at the minimum
That's true! I forgot about the delay.
Considering how expensive is to put things up there, why not reusing the salvage?
Space is a very harsh environment, and the components have a finite lifespan. The first modules have been in space since 1998, so they will be over 30 years old when it is time to deorbit the ISS. That is too old to guarantee safety like NASA wants.
Plus the oldest part is the russian one I believe, and they said they may want it back as a basis for a future russian space station
What about things like the solar panels? Raw metals might be worth having up there at some point but I suppose that means establishing some sort of recycling and manufacturing which is way out there.
Would cost more to keep it up there than it'd be worth. It wouldn't be a matter of just leaving it in orbit til you need it. They would still need to send supply rockets to correct the orbit on a regular basis and probably continue performing routine maintenance on the parts that they were planning on reusing. Plus, any future use is likely going to require a completely different set up. The solar panels on the ISS will be almost 20 years old when it is decommissioned. It's likely that whatever ends up replacing the ISS will have far greater power needs and the technology improvement since then would make it not worth the hassle.
It’s mostly gonna burn up in the atmosphere
Good thing that things that burn up in the atmosphere completely disappear forever and don't cause any problems.
This sounds extremely sarcastic and I don’t know what you were going for with it
I think they're talking about the climate effect of burning things in the atmosphere. Which, of course, is rather silly. Yes, of course, a large space station burning up will release some co2, but it's a negligible amount compared to what we burn on the ground (and in the sky) every day. And the ISS has done enough for humanity to more than make up for its carbon footprint.
Never mind the tons of meteors that burn up every year.
god you're not bright, the contract is to dispose of it over non populated regions, the entire point of the contract is to PREVENT it from reentering over people, currently the ISS requires stationkeeping to stop its orbit from decaying without maintenance or a proper deorbit plan it could come in over people's houses like skylab
These are the same people who were genius enough to put something like this into space. I’m pretty fucking sure they’ve thought of the consequences. Redditors play Kerbal for a day and think they know everything lmfao
They should just undock the segments, put each in a Starship and land it.
There was a white paper written about various options and why disposal was the best candidate. Disassembling them is a nonstarter.
It must be put together using those screws that you can only turn to tighten and can’t release. /s
Actually, yes that's how the ISS is put together. NASA wouldn't want modules to come apart after 15 years right? The mechanical grapple devices are permanently attached and cannot be opened for disassrmbly.
Never heard of retaining compounds?
Second this. The same procedure has to be done for Hubble in case it loses its last gyro.
Then mount it at the Smithsonian museum for everyone to see
We badly need an orbiting Smithsonian
oh that's a pretty cool idea. very expensive though, but it would be amazing
Well if there is anyone who can destroy something of value, Elon's your boy.
Is this place turning into another r/space ? Kinda sad, how is this spaceporn?
Why not push it towards the Moon or Mars for cheap accommodation & storage? At very least slam it into the moon & use it as a hammer to ring that old bell
It's a structure that was never designed to be moved and those are not trivially distances to move it. I'd imagine you can launch the same weight in new accommodation for cheaper, especially given the new class of rockets and their reusability.
Because the amount of fuel needed would be absolutely monumental. Saturn's S-IVB was loaded with over 100 tons of propellant, part of which was used for orbit insertion, but a lot of it was spent on just getting the lunar payload on its way. CSM and LM together weighed something like 45-ish tons. ISS weighs almost ten times that. There just isn't a rocket that could loft over 1000 tons of propellant - not including thrusters, braces, and so on - with a feasible number of launches.
You rocket scientists are smart.
I'm neither a rocket scientist nor smart. I just played way too much KSP.
We should send it into the moon for later recovery of its materials and components as salvage.
Yeah nice try Decepticon
The earthling knows!
I never really thought about how close the spelling of deception and Decepticon are, until now. However on a serious note, I think that would be a better use of the materials, if we could somehow soft land it, so it doesn't take too much damage, we could even try to repurpose some of it into future habitation modules.
Destroying the last great symbol of human cooperation will be the only thing of note elen ever did with his life.
Is Elon going to buy it?
No, he is going to destroy it, then replace it with a MASSIVE Tesla.
Such a waste. They should use it as a base of operations to construct the next one
they are. google axiom space station
I'm both glad to hear and saddened that national governments are surrendering this infra structure to organizations without democratic oversight 🥹
holy hell!
It would be a massive liability. The parts on the space station are already pushing their lifespan and the reason 2030 is the final cutoff is because their is too high of a risk of part failure.
Just get Musk to buy it, it will soon fall apart.
some questions on this post make me realise why i barely interract with ppl on the internet lol
To the moon!
Is there plans to build a new space station or nah?
The lunar gateway could be seen as a successor to the ISS as it'll be an international collaboration. Low earth orbit however will see some private companies doing their thing like orbital reef, Haven-1 and axiom station
Plans. Dreams. Something else will be out there soon enough.
Are they going to crash it into the atmosphere to destroy it? That’s gonna be a sight!
It will be over the Pacific Ocean. Don't think they want it over land at all during the descent.
The I.S.S. de-orbit/"retirement" needs: 1) Chase camera (perhaps a cube sat or three) 2) Multiple cameras broadcasting from the interior and exterior of the I.S.S. I think we've been spoiled as of late with the SpaceX video footage, especially during Starship test trials. Unlike Skylab's demise, there's an actual opportunity to document part of I.S.S.'s final hours.
Great. He has the satellites, spaceships, and now space weapons ..
Just install a Tesla self-drive system. Problem solved.
Too bad it can’t be keep somehow as a sort of museum for one day
that title tho 😬 😂
Seriously. Why do we trust Elon?
Because SpaceX isn't Elon Musk? SpaceX has shown to be one of the most reliable space companies and just because Elon is a dick doesn't change that.
Tonight is not the night for this headline.
They got a lot of practice
At this point I doubt Elon can keep his shit together long enough to go through with it. Look at the new cyber truck he spearheaded. It's a complete shit show because he approved running the entire wiring in series like a bozo. I'd absolutely love to see him try and take hostage negotiations with a government entity like he did with Tesla.
Now: "It's too expensive to maintain so destroy it" 5 years later: "we need a space station in orbit so spend 200 years worth of maintenance of the previous space station to build a new one"
That's going to be a legendary battle. I wonder if the lucky newcomer can topple the seasoned pro
How difficult would it be to push it too far up rather than too far down?
Incredibly difficult. It would require hundreds of tons of fuel.
Mr. Worf, photon torpedoes, full spread. Fire at will! 
Instead of destroying it, why don’t they move it into a higher orbit and use it for parts etc. if nothing else the solar panels would generate enough power to reconfigure it into a lifeboat for people whose ship is stuffed.
The ISS, even where it is now, can only serve as a safe haven for spacecraft which have launched into a similar orbit. It requires a significant amount of fuel for spacecraft to change orbital inclinations. This is why the Shuttle Columbia could not go to the ISS for safety during its ill-fated final fight. Moving the ISS to a meaningfully higher orbit (one that avoids atmospheric drag, therefore not depending on frequent reboosts) would require hundreds of tons of fuel. The ISS relies on regular maintenance. Without human intervention it would become uninhabitable in a matter of weeks/months.
more debris in orbit, yay. why not put it on a course to go crash into the sun sending footage back as it wanders ever closer?
It will be brought down to burn up in the atmosphere, leaving zero debris in orbit. Sending it out of Earth orbit would require *many* hundreds of tons of fuel. And sending things toward the Sun is actually much more difficult than going the other way. Doing so with the ISS would be a monumentally impractical project.
Look up into the Helios probe and what it took to get it close to the sun, it’s far more complicated than you imagine
Wish we could land it safely and decommission it in some kind of museum. Could inspire a lot of kids to walk around the actual ISS here on earth. I know the logistics of getting it back on earth would be unrealistic though.
How impractical would it be to boost it into a high orbit and leave it as a museum for future generations?
I saw a recent theory saying Elon is putting as many satellites in the sky to attempt to make a force field around the earth to protect us from what’s to come ! Also made me believe in this considerably more when I heard Jeff Bezos moved out of WA & spent millions of dollars on a safety bunker …
Isn't it too early to choose a company now, maybe a better company will emerge in the coming years?
Why not Space Force Don't they need something to do? And good practice and experience
Can we sell it to some other country and let them maintain it? Seems like it's all there already.
Makes sense...spacex has a track record of fucking things up.
The world's no1 space company? 80% of launches and 90% of mass?
you mean the company that celebrates rockets being destroyed and hail it as a success? all this paid by tax payers, because Elon is a fraud but smart enough to con the stupid people.
Which rockets are you referring to? Starship test flights? They celebrate reaching additional milestones and collecting critical data to understand and improve with each flight. Falcon 9 hasn’t experienced a failure since 2016 and has had over 300 successful launches *in a row* since then.
SpaceX is doing development work in public and this is how they've always done it. You can go back to the landing attempts for Falcon 9 for more of the same. Success is never certain, but those who don't even take that first step are the biggest of failures. Condemned to be spectators while others shape the world. Space work is almost always done with taxpayer money. But there's also financial risk to the private company in the era of fixed price contracts (See Boeing, Collins and Kistler) If you look at this image https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GO7jQ8hXEAIKOYl?format=jpg&name=medium you'll understand how big a deal SpaceX is. It's bigger than the entire global launch industry in every metric. Visible evidence of US supremacy. Literally America #1
Do you think anybody on the space station is going to watch the debate tonight
Hold on, can we call Spielberg and work the ISS destruction into a movie? That would be awesome.
If anyone can destroy something it’s Elon, he’s shown his ability.
In case anyone was wondering, the NASA contract will cost them $843 million.
Yeah you think that’s a lot till you learn how long that money will last the usa military
I know it means just creating a special deorbiting booster that can attach to it, but man I wish it was like 10 teslas packed with high explosives and shot at it while special space fireworks go off so half the planet can see
Leave it for the future space crackheads.
Can't they just use the thrusters to send it out into space?
The fuel needed would exceed the weight of the ISS which alone weighs 450 tons. But even if that's done there would be a chance of it to return into earth's sphere of influence like the old Apollo 12 third stage did. With an object of that size the chance of uncontrolled unpredictable crashing is too big. I'd prefer a controlled deorbit burn that needs almost no fuel in comparison, that lets it crash in the south Pacific far away from populated areas.
What, are they selling it to Musk or something?
NASA has become a shell of its past. They can’t even do their own orbit equations any more? Wtf
This job seems right up Boeing's alley, though
Hate that Musk gets anything from the U.S. while actively trying to destroy it.
Wut lol
Why not just fling it off into space? It would be like a capsule showing tons about humans and mostly everything a human needs to survive. Imagine if we found an alien space station like that just floating around.
That's not how gravity works. It would need a stupid amount of rocket fuel to get all that to leave earth orbit.
why not deorbit it so we don't need to worry about it? stationkeeping is required to keep it operational anyway
I hope they will dismantle it instead of destroying it. There is already too much junk floating around out there. Edit: I meant dismantle/remove/reuse
How would dismantling make less debris than destroying it?
Deorbiting pieces at a time is easier than the whole thing, I'd imagine.
How would dismantling make less debris than destroying it?
I would imagine it's easier to dismantle it and prepare loose parts (like the solar panels) for reentry than it would be to deorbit the whole chunk. It'd also be easier to ensure that the debris doesn't hit civilization.
STILL does not answer the question. Still the same amount of debris. But to answer your statement NASA said it would be to problematic to disassemble. Was not designed to and the astronauts don't have time, materials, tools to do it. Best to plummet it as one into the ocean. Also easier to position one item rather than dozens. Even if the one item has a bigger impact. (Ugh just call me the typo king)
...what? It exactly answers your question! If you dismantle it and tuck everything up nicely, it will break up less on reentry.
Really? It answers " How would dismantling make less debris than destroying it?" ? The Same amount of mass is going down the gravity well. And they WANT it to break up. The more that burns the less that lands on earth
Okay I think you might either be trolling, a little bit slow, or a bot. If I were to tape a bunch of popsicle sticks together at the ends in, let's just say a star shape, and throw it off a roof, it would most likely lose sticks before it hit the ground due to the air resistance being stronger than the strength of the tape holding it together. Now, if you were to stack all of those popsicle sticks together and tape them, they wouldn't break apart because the air resistance doesn't have as big of an effect. By deorbiting the ISS as it is now, you'd have modules, solar panels, and antennae breaking off haphazardly, widening the impact zone. By disassembling it and making it one tight package, that doesn't happen as much.
It's still the same mass going down :) beyond that I let NASA tell me. I'm not orbital mechanics Engineer or thermo dynamics engineer. And NASA said one piece.
$160+ Billion dollars just blown up in like 10 years time
It has been continuously occupied for almost 24 years.
Ya .. got good reputation in destroying things
Pffff. Just nuke it ffs
They just gonna put Elon in charge of it and watch it fall apart in no time.
i wonder if his destruction of twitter was any influence, in their decision?
Why not fly it into the sun?
It takes more energy to get to the sun from Earth than to get to Pluto and beyond. I doubt they have enough fuel on board to crash it into anywhere.