# Russia to sink International Space Station in 2020



## GAP (28 Jul 2011)

Russia to sink International Space Station in 2020
Article Link

The Associated Press

Date: Wednesday Jul. 27, 2011 4:08 PM ET

MOSCOW — A top Russian space official says his agency plans to sink the mammoth International Space Station in 2020.

Deputy head of Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos Vitaly Davydov said Wednesday that the station "cannot be left in orbit" after it stops operation.

He said in a web-posted statement that the station will have to be de-orbited in a "planned crash so that there is no space junk left behind."

The colossal station is the biggest orbiting outpost ever built and can sometimes be seen from the Earth with the naked eye. It now consists of more than a dozen modules built by the U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency.
end


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## Colin Parkinson (28 Jul 2011)

Wonder if they could hook a supply rocket to it and push it out of orbit?


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## vonGarvin (28 Jul 2011)

Colin P said:
			
		

> Wonder if they could hook a supply rocket to it and push it out of orbit?


If I recall my childhood obsession with the space race correctly, escape velocity from the Earth's Orbit is seven miles per second.  And that just puts the "thing" into orbit around the sun.  Much easier to slow it a tad, forcing it down, than to speed it up dramatically, just to have it remain trapped by the sun's orbit.


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## Shadowolf (28 Jul 2011)

Put it on the moon!


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## GAP (28 Jul 2011)

Why not remotely put it in orbit around the moon....until we need it..


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## vonGarvin (28 Jul 2011)

GAP said:
			
		

> Why not remotely put it in orbit around the moon....until we need it..


We would have to still "escape" earth velocity in order to get to the moon.  Then it would have to be trapped.  Just put it in a trojan orbit around the sun, maybe.  And then pull it back in when we're done.  That would probably be easier.


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## Fishbone Jones (28 Jul 2011)

Technoviking said:
			
		

> We would have to still "escape" earth velocity in order to get to the moon.  Then it would have to be trapped.  Just put it in a trojan orbit around the sun, maybe.  And then pull it back in when we're done.  That would probably be easier.



Sure, and next time it comes around, it'll be full of Daleks and 'You...will...be...exterminated'


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## Kirkhill (28 Jul 2011)

Lagrange is your friend.....



> The Earth–Moon L1 allows comparatively easy access to lunar and earth orbits with minimal change in velocity and has this as an advantage to position a half-way manned space station intended to help transport cargo and personnel to the Moon and back.





> L1
> 
> The L1 point lies on the line defined by the two large masses M1 and M2, and between them. It is the most intuitively understood of the Lagrangian points: the one where the gravitational attraction of M2 partially cancels M1 gravitational attraction. It is the only L-point which exists in non-rotating systems.









Note that the image shows the Lagrange points for the Sun-Earth System - but the equivalent points exist for the Earth-Moon systems.

Thank you Arthur C. Clarke (Fall of Moondust)


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## Good2Golf (28 Jul 2011)

Whatever is done, I'm sure it's best to leave it to the Russians, they're experienced at this kind of stuff*.  

Mind you, the West also conducted an analysis of dealing with such situations should they occur again (somewhat tongue-in-cheek anecdote here).


Cheers
G2G


* Cosmos 954


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## 57Chevy (28 Jul 2011)

GAP said:
			
		

> can sometimes be seen from the Earth with the naked eye.



 8)
international space station locator 
http://www.pbs.org/spacestation/seedo/locator.htm

They have wallpaper too  ;D


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## vonGarvin (28 Jul 2011)

Kirkhill said:
			
		

> Lagrange is your friend.....


In Sir Arthur C. Clarke's "2010: Odyssey Two", it was noted that Dr. David Bowman, Captain of the Discovery 1, parked the Discovery at the Lagrange position between Jupiter and Io or Europa.  I can't remember which.


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## Lowlander (28 Jul 2011)

So what's going to be replaceing it?


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## HavokFour (28 Jul 2011)

Seems like a huge waste of money after all these years to just crash it. Let's hope someone plans to make a moon base in the near future.


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## Lowlander (28 Jul 2011)

Well you never know I saw in the news about a month ago that really smart people somewhere had learned how to contain anti-matter, and with the way things have been going with the Navy getting new Joint Support Ships, Artic Patrol Ships, etc, the Navy may end up with a starship before any of those other projects.

I can see it now:   HMCS Enterprise (NCC-1701-eh)


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## GAP (29 Jul 2011)

Hey!! Here's where we could put it!!!

Trojan asteroid seen in Earth's orbit by Wise telescope

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News Article Link
 28 July 2011 Last updated at 04:57 ET

Astronomers have detected an asteroid not far from Earth, moving in the same orbit around the Sun.

The 200-300m-wide rock sits in front of our planet at a gravitational "sweet spot", and poses no danger.

Its position in the sky makes it a so-called Trojan asteroid - a type previously detected only at Jupiter, Neptune and Mars.

2010 TK7, as it is known, was found by Nasa's Wise telescope. The discovery is reported in this week's Nature journal.

It is a fascinating observation because the relative stability and proximity of Trojans would make possible targets for astronaut missions when we eventually go beyond the space station.

2010 TK7 is probably not the rock of choice, simply because it travels too far above and below the plane of Earth's orbit, which would require a lot of fuel to reach it.

Nonetheless, its detection means it is highly likely there are other, more suitable Trojans out there waiting to be found.

The difficulty is the viewing geometry that puts any Trojan, from the perspective of an Earth-based telescope, in bright skies.
More on link


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## vonGarvin (29 Jul 2011)

GAP said:
			
		

> Hey!! Here's where we could put it!!!
> 
> Trojan asteroid seen in Earth's orbit by Wise telescope
> 
> ...



*clears throat*.  Did you see this:



			
				Technoviking said:
			
		

> We would have to still "escape" earth velocity in order to get to the moon.  Then it would have to be trapped.  Just put it in a trojan orbit around the sun, maybe.  And then pull it back in when we're done.  That would probably be easier.



 8)


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## GAP (29 Jul 2011)

But....but....it was such a new idea for me.....please..... ;D


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## GR66 (29 Jul 2011)

GAP said:
			
		

> Russia to sink International Space Station in 2020
> Article Link
> 
> The Associated Press
> ...



Just curious...why do the Russians get to decide what happens to the INTERNATIONAL Space Station?

Maybe Virgin Galactic could use it as a hotel supporting its space tourism.  Perhaps run by the Hilton chain since their family already has a Space Cadet!


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## Oldgateboatdriver (29 Jul 2011)

First of all, the Russians do not "call the shots", but they are a full member of the conglomerate made up of the NASA, CSA (Canada), ESA (European Space Agency), JSA (Japan) and the Russian space organization. So, they get a say.

And they are correct that  the station cannot be left in orbit: First of all, the station is in (very) low earth orbit and, as such, feels air friction and is slowing down all the time (thus losing altitude). As a result, small burst of correcting/re-accelerating power is applied to the station when it is visited by the shuttles or Soyouz's capsules. Thus, something will have to be done with the station when the program is over so it does not come down on peoples head or remains for awhile as space junk in the way of anything else that flies.

The station is too big to be pushed up into high altitude (geosync or past that). Older people may recall that the whole third stage rocket of  the Saturn V booster was required just to let the LM, the Apollo capsule and the command module escape from earth's gravity. The space station is at least a hundred times bigger.

You can't "blow it up" so it falls back in small pieces that will disintegrate on re-entry , because that would likely take years and years to occur and in the meantime, you will have compounded the space junk problem.  So the only logical solution is to use small rockets to bring it down in a controlled way into a largely uninhabited area, such as the middle of the Pacific or Indian oceans, as was done with Salyout and Spacelab before.


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## Oldgateboatdriver (29 Jul 2011)

Additional on our friend Lagrange here:

While the various illustrations nicely show a Lagrange point between the Earth and the Moon, that point is constantly moving since the Moon revolves around the Earth in roughly 28 days. Therefore, to remain at the Lagrange point, you have to travel along with it staying on the "orbit" that would be described by the the integration of all the discreet Lagrange points. As this is an orbit that is about 7/9th of the distance from Earth to the Moon, you can see that once at the Lagrange point, you would have to travel at a tremendous speed to maintain yourself there - and that is discounting the fact that while supposedly at a neutral point between Earth and Moon and thus unaffected by them, you would still feel the constantly varying gravitational effects  on you of the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, you name it (General Relativity: everything effects everything else, all the time). Thus, you need some type of fuel and manoeuvring rockets capability to maintain yourself at Lagrange for a certain amount of time: "parking" there and staying there forever are not an option.

Those are the vagaries of space navigation.


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## vonGarvin (29 Jul 2011)

Oldgateboatdriver said:
			
		

> *The station is too big to be pushed up into high altitude* (geosync or past that). Older people may recall that the whole third stage rocket of  the Saturn V booster was required just to let the LM, the Apollo capsule and the command module escape from earth's gravity. The space station is at least a hundred times bigger.


Not necessarily true.  Recall that the Saturn V was being pushed away from earth from a velocity of zero, and all that power was needed to overcome the intertia, which also included the mass of the rocket itself. 
I hate referring to Wikipedia, but:


> The first stage burned for about 2 minutes and 41 seconds, lifting the rocket to an altitude of 42 miles (68 km) and a speed of 6,164 miles per hour (9,920 km/h) and burning 2,000,000 kilograms (4,400,000 lb) of propellant.


And I know, that's just getting it started.  It then wasn't even in orbit.  


> After S-IC separation, the S-II second stage burned for 6 minutes and propelled the craft to 109 miles (176 km) and 15,647 mph (25,182 km/h– 7.00 km/s), close to orbital velocity.


Two stages, velocity more easily understood in km/s vice km/h, but not quite in orbit.

The ISS is already in orbit, and it doesn't need to go to escape velocity, but yes, it would be a monumental task to get it to geosynchronous orbit.  That or the Lagrange point between here and the moon, _if that's practicable at all._  (having read your post about "our friend" just now)

 The advantage of putting something "up higher" is that there is already plenty of velocity, and using that velocity


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## Oldgateboatdriver (29 Jul 2011)

Just so we understand the lingo Technoviking: Nothing that is in orbit has reached "escape velocity". Escape velocity is the speed you need to achieve so that you leave Earth's orbit and travel away from Earth at such speed that its gravity will not bring you back into orbit around Earth. 

In the Apollo flight, stage I and II rockets got the rest of the spacecraft at almost Earth orbit. Stage III was used for a short time (about 1/4 of its total burn time) to put itself and the LM/Command/Service modules into Earth orbit. At this point, its just like the I.S.S.

The crew then went through a couple of orbits while they  and flight control went through their checklists to make sure everything was ok and to position themselves right for translunar insertion. 

They then ignited Stage III rocket again to burn the last 3/4 of its fuel. This is the acceleration that took the LM/Command/Service modules to escape velocity. But escape was achieved only because at the other end, the Moon's own gravity would pull the whole thing to itself. As soon as stage III rocket was discarded, the Earth's gravity started to slow the "Lunar train" down and it got very slow (in space relative terms) by the time it got close enough to the Moon to start being pulled more powerfully by it than by the earth. In fact, had there been no Moon, Apollo would not have had enough velocity to escape Earth. It would have slowed down to a relative speed of zero and then started to fall back down to Earth.

That is why the various probes we send out towards the other planets and even out of the Solar system are much smaller and sometimes require much greater speeds as they leave earth's orbit.


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## vonGarvin (29 Jul 2011)

Yep, I understand what you mean by "escape velocity".  I just mean pushing this thing into a higher orbit is all, still within the clutches of Mother Terra.  And I remember enough from my youth that it was a laborious process, in that whatever was done on one side of the orbit, the effect was seen on the other side.  And I do understand that it's much simpler to slow the thing down "a tad", thus bringing the far side of its trajectory around the earth into the earth itself, than it is to keep that thing "up there".


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## Michael OLeary (29 Jul 2011)

Can't we just sublet it through Craigslist? TV can be a Slum Spacelord.    ;D


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## PMedMoe (29 Jul 2011)

Michael O'Leary said:
			
		

> Can't we just sublet it through Craigslist? TV can be a Slum Spacelord Space Slumlord.    ;D



Fixed that for you.


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## opp550 (29 Jul 2011)

Knowing that these are Russians, I'm surprised that their solution wasn't simply nuke it.


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## Colin Parkinson (29 Jul 2011)

Considering the cost to get it up there, I wonder if the cost of pushing it further out might pay off later as a source of materials for a later station?

I also wonder about having a "space tug" that could be sent up and remain in space and refueled there, docked to a station and used to collect old satellites and other tasks. Not having to re-enter the atmosphere removes a lot of requirements and a modular design would be needed to replace components as required.

With the continuing advances in 3D printing, It's possible that in the near future it will be better to manufacture components in space then ship them up, in which case you will need a source of raw materials and portion  of a space station designed for repair and manufacture. This in turn changes the dynamic of space exploration as currently done from an elite group to a more "blue collar" type of crew.


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## vonGarvin (29 Jul 2011)

Part of the problem of pushing it up higher is that it's not as simple as it may seem.  Consider its structure:







Pushing it in the middle, for example, would have to be rather gentle, because it would cause extreme stress on the parts away from the middle.  If more than one booster were afixed to it, they would have to be very carefully synchronised.  I imagine that it's fairly brittle, relatively speaking, and any attempt to move it would require the utmost care.  

Having said that, if all you want to do is to drop it in the ocean, well, who cares about the stress, so long as it doesn't rip apart into hundreds of "bits".


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## a_majoor (30 Jul 2011)

Several possible solutions exist if someone is willing to pay:

1. Send a ship like Soyuz or the upcoming SpaceX Dragon to dock with the ISS and provide a prolonged engine burn to place it in a higher orbit. This relatively simple and will extend the orbital life for a decade or so.

2. Send up an ion engine like the one used to propel the "Dawn" spacecraft to the asteroid Vesta. The ISS has some honking solar panels to provide power, and ion engines are good at providing long term thrust to boost the ISS to whatever orbit is desired. This is a bit more complex, but uses already developed technology.

3. Send up a nuclear thermal engine and boost the ISS to anyplace you like. NERVA was demonstrated in the 1960's and a flight ready article was actually assembled before the program was shut down. A NERVA type engine was revived in the 1980's under the designation TIMBERWIND as part of the SDI program, and it is quite possible that the program is still running quietly under some "Black" designation since nuclear thermal engines are quite small and powerful, and conceptually simple to boot. This would make the ISS a 800 ton interplanetary spaceship capable of going to Mars. The complexity level would be quite high (you would need to launch a radiation shield, the tankage and then the engine on three separate rockets due to the size and mass), but the end result would be the most versatile.

4. Sell the ISS to the Chinese or Indians. They are developing space technology comparable to early Soyuz/Apollo missions, which is quite capable of docking with the ISS and keeping it in orbit

5. Sell the ISS to private firms like Bigalow or SpaceX. SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Dragon space capsule are more than capable of reaching the ISS, delivering consumables and keeping the station in orbit. SpacX's cost structure potentially allows universities or aerospace corporations to buy flights to orbit. Bigalow is developing next generation space habs larger than the current ones attached to the ISS, that company could provide "hotel" like services for users willing to rent space for experiments or other activities (space tourism?).


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## Sgt Pearce (30 Jul 2011)

hey guys I'm just wondering, now dont get mad as this may seem video gamish, but why not use it to make a space dock? i mean really, if you ever looked over for example the In amber Clad or the Dawn, (halo) ships their design is rather simple and in such so are much of the weapon systems, not only that but if you made it a dock you could produce Ships not shuttles and in turn possably end this so called economy crisis as well as their tonnage is great enough to anything, would it not be easier to lift to geo sinc with a few of the NASA Shuttles and or some rockets on the sides to eliminate much of the stress? and one in Geo sinc, you have a dock to start building a Dry dock for Ships, as mentioned in a previous post, their is a Trojan asteroid just hanging, their are your materials could we not between the amount of crap floating around and this asteroid and the moon its self not start a Ship building program in space? i mean the nuclear reactors would be hard to get up their, how ever someone mentions a particle engine or something of the sort, that could work to provide the power. I dint think it should be crashed, it should be re purposed or scrapped, this will be a big waist to simply crash it, i mean how much fuel and money was spent to get this up and done, make a Dock out of it or something, find a usefull purpose, we need to take the next step, the jump from shuttles to ships. 

To all who think my post is Gamerish, i just want you to think about were UAVs and other such cool things came from.


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## canada94 (30 Jul 2011)

Pte. Pearce said:
			
		

> hey guys I'm just wondering, now dont get mad as this may seem video gamish, but why not use it to make a space dock? i mean really, if you ever looked over for example the In amber Clad or the Dawn, (halo) ships their design is rather simple and in such so are much of the weapon systems, not only that but if you made it a dock you could produce Ships not shuttles and in turn possably end this so called economy crisis as well as their tonnage is great enough to anything, would it not be easier to lift to geo sinc with a few of the NASA Shuttles and or some rockets on the sides to eliminate much of the stress? and one in Geo sinc, you have a dock to start building a Dry dock for Ships, as mentioned in a previous post, their is a Trojan asteroid just hanging, their are your materials could we not between the amount of crap floating around and this asteroid and the moon its self not start a Ship building program in space? i mean the nuclear reactors would be hard to get up their, how ever someone mentions a particle engine or something of the sort, that could work to provide the power. I dint think it should be crashed, it should be re purposed or scrapped, this will be a big waist to simply crash it, i mean how much fuel and money was spent to get this up and done, make a Dock out of it or something, find a usefull purpose, we need to take the next step, the jump from shuttles to ships.
> To all who think my post is Gamerish, i just want you to think about were UAVs and other such cool things came from.



I don't want to sound rude.. But I seriously did not understand a single thing you just typed. All I could get out of that was Halo? and the end to the worlds energy crisis?..


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## PMedMoe (30 Jul 2011)

Pte. Pearce said:
			
		

> hey guys I'm just wondering, now dont get mad as this may seem video gamish, but why not use it to make a space dock? i mean really, if you ever looked over for example the In amber Clad or the Dawn, (halo) ships their design is rather simple and in such so are much of the weapon systems, not only that but if you made it a dock you could produce Ships not shuttles and in turn possably end this so called economy crisis as well as their tonnage is great enough to anything, would it not be easier to lift to geo sinc with a few of the NASA Shuttles and or some rockets on the sides to eliminate much of the stress? and one in Geo sinc, you have a dock to start building a Dry dock for Ships, as mentioned in a previous post, their is a Trojan asteroid just hanging, their are your materials could we not between the amount of crap floating around and this asteroid and the moon its self not start a Ship building program in space? i mean the nuclear reactors would be hard to get up their, how ever someone mentions a particle engine or something of the sort, that could work to provide the power. I dint think it should be crashed, it should be re purposed or scrapped, this will be a big waist to simply crash it, i mean how much fuel and money was spent to get this up and done, make a Dock out of it or something, find a usefull purpose, we need to take the next step, the jump from shuttles to ships.
> 
> To all who think my post is Gamerish, i just want you to think about were UAVs and other such cool things came from.



I'm with canada94.  You _really_ need to use Spell Check.   :  And think about what you're trying to say.


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## Sgt Pearce (30 Jul 2011)

but i did use spell check that time, maybe its just my grammar that is crap... 

Edit: ill just sit quietly in the corner now  :-X  :-[ don't Mind me  :-\


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## canada94 (30 Jul 2011)

Pte. Pearce said:
			
		

> But  I did use spell check that time, maybe its just my grammer that is crap...



Stuff as simple as my edit (the yellow), will make your post much easier to read.


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## Sgt Pearce (30 Jul 2011)

canada94 said:
			
		

> Stuff as simple as my edit (the yellow), will make your post much easier to read.


Understood


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## canada94 (30 Jul 2011)

Pte. Pearce said:
			
		

> Understood



Hey! don't sit "in the corner" as long as we can understand what you are saying we will be happy! It's hard to communicate with something we cannot read. 

Trust me.. when I was a new member I went through similar problems, your mature about it as some people flip out when we tell them we can't understand what they are trying to say!


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## vonGarvin (30 Jul 2011)

Pte Pearce:
Did you mean to use it as an orbiting space dock?  That idea is common in many science fiction films and novels.  In 2001: A Space Odyssey, a space shuttle (operated by Pan Am) takes its special passenger to a space station





Then he goes into a purely "space" ship, not designed for earth travel.  





While the shuttle has clean lines and is aerodynamic, the lunar travel is done in an ungainly looking "thing" designed for zero and low gravity.

The USS Discovery One is even more "pure" in terms of being a deep space vessal, but I digress.




The problem with the ISS is that its orbit is very low.  It needs to be "nudged" up every once in a while.  If you see earlier posts, you will see the problem with pushing it into geosynchronous orbit.  And if it is that far up, it is a bit harder to reach than where it is now.


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## aesop081 (30 Jul 2011)

Pte. Pearce said:
			
		

> end this so called economy crisis



Humm.....what ?



> To all who think my post is Gamerish, i just want you to think about were UAVs and other such cool things came from.



They didn't come from Halo. The beginings of UAVs pre-dates video games.


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## a_majoor (30 Jul 2011)

The main problem with a "space dock" idea is there is no current technology for transferring fuel in zero gravity. Since most rockets use cryogenic (i.e. super cold) fuel and oxidizer, there is also the issue of thermal management of stored fuel over prolonged periods of time.

If the ISS or its sucessor(s) are to be useful they could serve as assembly platforms for deep space missions. Like TV pointed out, ships designed for space environments don't need to be streamlined or even very robust (the LEM which landed on the Moon had some panels slightly thicker than aluminum foil; think about that next time you watch "Apollo 13"), and some types of propulsion need very little reaction mass (which can be brought up in pre filled tanks) like the ion engine. Since the space station is in orbit you are already "halfway to anywhere"; the orbital velocity of the space platform is so great you only need to add a small amount of velocity to get to the moon or Near Earth Asteroids, and a modest amount more to go to Mars or Venus. Small rocket motors with modest amounts of power can be used for those sorts of missions (or even exotic solutions like solar sails). Reaching even farther, the movie "Deep Impact" had the ISS used to assemble an "ORION" nuclear spaceship to intercept a comet. Since that sort of ORION is driven by the plasma produced by nuclear explosions, you certainly don't want to launch directly from Earth...


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## Sgt Pearce (30 Jul 2011)

No that would be rather horrible to try and launch from earth, but you do understand what i am trying to say with using it as a dock or to simply re-use it in some other function, why crash it, in 20 years were going to want to do this all again and be looking back on history saying to our selves "Shiz, we should have just nudged her a bit higher up." its really just going to become a waist of resources to crash this large station.


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## aesop081 (30 Jul 2011)

Pte. Pearce said:
			
		

> in 20 years were going to want to do this all again and be looking back on history saying to our selves "Shiz, we should have just nudged her a bit higher up."



In 20 years the ISS is not likely to suit our needs and the technology it uses is likely to be so obsolete as to be a hinderance.


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## Gimpy (30 Jul 2011)

If in 20 years our brightest minds are using words like "shiz" we are in serious trouble.


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## aesop081 (30 Jul 2011)

Gimpy said:
			
		

> If in 20 years our brightest minds are using words like "shiz" we are in serious trouble.



You probably should start preparing yourself.


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## Sgt Pearce (31 Jul 2011)

In relation to word Shiz, i wish only to express the word that otherwise is not, and may not be user friendly towards younger minds viewing the site.


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## canada94 (31 Jul 2011)

Pte. Pearce said:
			
		

> In relation to word Shiz, i wish only to express the word that otherwise is not, and may not be user friendly towards younger minds viewing the site.



How thoughtful


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## a_majoor (31 Jul 2011)

The relative age of the ISS really won't be much of an issue; we routinely use and reuse structures and equipment long after its theoretical design life (think of unit armouries here on Earth). The prime factor of interest for the ISS is location, if we are routinely going to and from the ISS there is no reason upgraded modules and new technology cannot be brought up as well, at a far lower cost than to build an entirely new ISS.

Even if it is deemed obsolete because of some unanticipated technological breakthrough, other nations or organizations like China, India or an Aerospace company might still find it worthwhile to purchase the ISS outright and use it for their own purposes. (In the movie "Until the End of the World", one of the lead characters gets a job with an NGO monitoring global pollution from a space station, an interesting bit of speculation).


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## a_majoor (31 Aug 2011)

The ISS issue might be settled by factors outsi9de of our control:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5grHmgulYouN4SjPtHeQ-BgKyEUJQ?docId=CNG.9e34c99182f5659a398b65217766ca17.b31



> *NASA fears leaving space station unmanned*
> By Jean-Louis Santini (AFP) – 19 hours ago
> 
> WASHINGTON — The possible first-ever evacuation of the International Space Station, if a Russian spacecraft is not launched in November, would risk the loss of the orbiting lab, a NASA official has warned.
> ...


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## a_majoor (30 Sep 2011)

SpaceX is developing a booster capable of placing large payloads into orbit. While not officially a "heavy lift" booster, the ability to put @ 50 tons into orbit is greater than the Space Shuttle and the prices SpaceX quotes is far lower.

This company could probably send large payloads of fuel or a booster rocket to keep the ISS from re entering the atmosphere, or cheaply build a much bigger successor station with large hab and science modules:

http://blog.nss.org/?p=3080&cpage=1



> *The SpaceX Falcon Heavy Booster: Why Is It Important?*
> 
> by John K. Strickland, Jr.
> 
> ...


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## HavokFour (3 Oct 2011)

Still waiting patiently for my beloved moon base to be built...


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## vonGarvin (4 Oct 2011)




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## FlyingDutchman (4 Oct 2011)

HavokFour said:
			
		

> Still waiting patiently for my beloved moon base to be built...


Yeah, when do we get to go on moon vacations?


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## GAP (4 Oct 2011)

FlyingDutchman said:
			
		

> Yeah, when do we get to go on moon vacations?



They're waiting for approval as a HLTA location.....but the milage is a killer


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