International Space Station to be 'sunk' after 2020 - Yahoo! News i am okay with retiring the space station after 20 years. but instead of trashing the ocean, why not use the infinite space outside earh's orbit? use this as a way of exploring long distance travel (unmanned) by pushing out of orbit, using limited thruster burns and guide it on a path either out of the Milky way (a la Voyager) or hell, just aim it at the sun in the world's biggest game of darts. it will eliminate junk, teach us something as it leaves, and we don't even risk the chance of it landing in Australia. just a thought.
And then once it settles, the ISS becomes the International Sea Station becoming the prototype for SeaLab.
what? they wanna take it down already? seems like kind of a waste of time to even build it, only to leave it up there for 20 years
The thruster burns just wouldn't be powerful enough to remove the station completely from Earth's gravitational pull. Most of the probes we've sent into the far reaches of the solar system have made use of either high powered rockets, or have used the gravity of larger planets like Jupiter to slingshot the probes and conserve power. Neither would be an option for the ISS. What's really crazy is, it's entirely likely that our presence in space will be non-existent for a number of years after the ISS is taken out of orbit.
Maybe they all know that the aliens are coming and we're doomed anyway. No manned shuttles from NASA? No ISS? Kinda like they KNOW we won't be needing that stuff much longer
You wouldn't keep a car in heavy use for 20 years, would you? Why should a precision piece of experimental equipment in a pretty harsh environment last longer than that? Once it gets beyond its estimated operational life, the ISS could simply have too much of a risk of maintenance or safety issues. It sucks, but it's probably better to be safe than sorry. I don't think its a waste though, since the ISS has provided a ton of information about humans living in space, as well as dozens of experimental projects and technological advancements related to the station itself. It also acted as a powerful symbol of international cooperation in human space research. This. It would take too much energy to escape its orbit, whereas a little nudge towards earth will destabilize its orbit enough to send it into the ocean like has been done with many satellites and space stations before. Trying to send it out into space could cause more problems down the line, especially if it breaks up or is struck by meteorites, etc. The ISS wasn't built to... travel, so it may not be physically possible to move it.
Would be better to use it for the Mars mission. Like having it as living quarters for the astronauts before they leave for Mars. Giving Nasa notes on how to ensure survival for that long in space before we go.
The car example really isn't a good comparison. Twenty years is a pretty arbitrary number. There are 40-year-old DC-9's still in regular passenger service at Northwest/Delta. Every machine has an expected life limit, but many times, the engineers have used a conservative design, and the life can be extended if the machine has been properly maintained. . The ISS still has at least 9 years left in orbit. I'm sure that as 2020 draws nearer, NASA will reevaluate its condition for a possible life extension. That is, if there is still funding, but that's another issue.
Not to diminish the dangers of space junk, but dumping the entire station in the ocean sounds hazardous. I'd think they would try to salvage some parts.
I totally support this, but with no real planned mars missions on the horizon, they may not want to keep the ISS going in the meantime. Again, sad, but arguably necessary from a safety/economic standpoint. I imagine maintenance is a lot more difficult on the ISS than a craft on earth, which can be placed in a hangar or drydock or what-have-you while you disassemble and work on it. Hasn't caused too much trouble when they did it with Skylab and MIR, though the ISS is bigger, I think. A lot of it burns up during re-entry, IIRC. They'll probably gut it for useful or hazardous parts before they decommission it though.
I'm telling you, had they made a live action movie, Leslie Nielson would of been perfect for Captain Murphy... RIP Leslie and Harry Goz(VA of Murphy).
I guess i was using the Michael Bay, Armageddeon Method of solving problems in space. i had this notion that with a rocket burn and using the space station's zooming around the earth that if it slid out just enough, it would be just shot out like a slingshot toward X on the star charts. i am glad i don't work at NASA. (hate slide rulers and math, lol.) but i want us to have a permanent presence in the sky above; i want kids to see shiny things up there and actually ask me, "is that a star or our space station?" and maybe hear someone ask, "when do i get to go, too?" as for the ISS-reef, can't we make those with retired ships? what belongs on the sea, belongs to the sea. just an idea.
well, actually why not, although on our side, try and bring it down as easy as possible hopefully not destroying all of it and have the materials there in the future for maybe constructing a functional emergency living space, even if its a small one.
As the ISS burns up in the atmosphere, it would return precious materials/elements to the planet that would otherwise be lost if we just junked it into deep outer space.
Hahah, you don't have to look too far into this. I was just trying to make a bad Transformers/Power Rangers reference. However, really do think it'd make for a nice musiem if it could be preserved, especially for the future moon dwellers.
It took a lot of thrust to keep the Lunar Modules from Apollo to keep from breaking themselves upon landing on the Moon, and they were designed for that. The ISS isn't designed in any way shape or manner to be landed on a surface. Too many connections between sections to even come close to thinking about it reasonably.