Drift it through space so if anything comes across it it will show a Map to earth In all honesty I don't want that thing in the Ocean.... 2019 I'm protesting who's with me ? When will they throw things at the sun for waste management ?
Taco Bell and the MIR station how could I ever forget? http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=4152
I am curious, though, what the life-limit is based upon. Due to the modular design, I would think that obsolete modules could be periodically replaced. I would think they could inspect the superstructure and continue to use the ISS indefinitely.
Would be funny, and not funny at the same time, if they missed the ocean, and it hit land. Plus, aren't the ocean freaked up enough without man-made space garbage?
Heh my grandfather was part of the Skylab project but had passed away a month after launch. Trader, John Edward - DoD 06/07/1973 Australia still wasn't too happy about the reentry. Including that 400$ littering fine haha
They should use it as living quarters for the Moon. DARE I SAY MOON PARTY!!!!!!!!!! Barts Moon Party from Outer Space (S15E04)‏ - YouTube
Yeah, sure, so if there IS other life out there, we can lead them to our home planet. Nevermind the fact they could potentially bring about an apocolypse originally predicted by every bad sci-fi alien invasion movie back in the 50's. Hell, we've already sent a ton of space probes with a lot of information about Earth and humanity on the golden discs. Throwing things into the sun isn't a viable option. The cost of making sure that crap actually GOT to the sun to burn up is far too much. Dumping the ISS into the ocean, or what's left of it after re-entry, is the much cheaper method. I think the issue here is that there's no real way to actually GET to the ISS. The Space Shuttle program is essentially done and we're piggybacking off Russian rockets for the only way to get to the station, and with gas prices rising there's no way we can keep on doing that. So, the problem is not so much that the ISS isn't serviceable, it's that there really isn't any plan to GET to the station to do any of the servicing. We're humans, screwing up nature is what we do best. Plumetting our space crap into the oceans is part of the job. [/sarcasm]
I would think that if a specific module is reaching the lifetime limit it would be those first core modules. To replace them you would have to disassemble the whole station to swap out parts. A risky and complex solution, especially without a place to park everything while you are tearing apart the thing. We have plenty of near future capabilities to get to the ISS with personnel and material. The price of gasoline has little to do with the problem, fossil fuels aren't used in the launching of space vehicles. They aren't energy potent enough.