Preserving the ISS as a space museum?

[FishInferno]

I know, I know. Russia will take away their modules and all that, but the thought still occurred to me: What if, after the ISS program has expired, we keep it in orbit as a "museum" of sorts. It could be used in the future as a way to educate people about the shuttle era and the history of the ISS. Here are my thoughts:

You could dock a Bigelow Module to Zvezda as a "lobby" where incoming tourists dock (if Russia takes away their modules, you could attach the Bigelow module somewhere else). There could be a few "exhibits" in this area as well. Then, people could go on tours of the station and be educated about the shuttle era of space travel since (hopefully) by that point space travel will be a regular thing and people won't think much of taking a vacation to space. This museum would probably not be fitted as a full-scale space hotel, so maybe tourists could undock from the main station and rendezvous with the ISS for a day of their vacation.

A similar idea could probably be applied to the Apollo landing sites, if a Moon vacation is ever a thing.

I understand that there are probably several things wrong with this idea:P

[cpast]

For one, the ISS orbit needs correction several times a year. You cannot just keep it in orbit indefinitely; regular resupply is needed (it has onboard boost capability, but limited fuel), and that's expensive. Tourist missions could provide boost, but you'd need to keep it in orbit until that becomes much more generally accessible (space tourism likely needs to fall in price by several orders of magnitude to fill this on any sort of ongoing basis; tourism is not a good source of income for extremely high-ticket things), which will take many, many years, if it ever happens (which I remain profoundly unconvinced it ever will). Someone has to pay to keep it in orbit until then; who will?

[FishInferno]

You could boost it to a higher orbit? and if a space hotel (in this case a Bigelow station) was at relativity the same altitude as the ISS, wouldn't it also need a boost?

[Panzerbeard]

For one, the ISS orbit needs correction several times a year. You cannot just keep it in orbit indefinitely; regular resupply is needed (it has onboard boost capability, but limited fuel), and that's expensive. Tourist missions could provide boost, but you'd need to keep it in orbit until that becomes much more generally accessible (space tourism likely needs to fall in price by several orders of magnitude to fill this on any sort of ongoing basis; tourism is not a good source of income for extremely high-ticket things), which will take many, many years, if it ever happens (which I remain profoundly unconvinced it ever will). Someone has to pay to keep it in orbit until then; who will?

Could it perhaps be boosted to a higher orbit where, presumably, far fewer orbital corrections will be needed? Although there's then the cost and viability of doing that in the first place, plus it'd make resupplying/visiting it more expensive too, so maybe that'd just be counterproductive. I'll admit I don't know the first thing about space economics.

[cpast]

That takes over 100 m/s of delta-V to get to 600 km (the threshold after which it won't reliably decay after at most 25 years), which is very, very expensive on something as big as the ISS. It would be extremely expensive to boost it, for what is honestly not a whole lot of gain (if you charge enough to visit to pay for the boost cost plus interest, you will not get enough visitors to ever pay it off).

[Iskierka]

Being at lower altitude also gives it greater passive attitude control, as to a limited extent its solar panels act as wings to unwind CMGs. If you boost it to non-decaying altitude, you'll find aerodynamic control authority is lost, and so it'll simply instead use fuel to avoid tumbling out of control due to gravity gradient effects, which are not significantly weaker. It may require less, but it will still require maintenance no matter what you do with it - a space station can't simply be mothballed, so for the ISS to be kept for use, it kind-of needs to be kept in-use, unless some very generous billionaire wants to try keep it around for a bit.

This is of course, all assuming that you have a usable station after the Russians take their modules. Only the Russian sections were generally built with independent control - and they may have taken a significant portion of the required systems. The US sections may be simply dead in space without their counterparts - they almost certainly will be unless a space tug goes up to reassemble the remaining pieces into a mini-ISS.

[EzinX]

That takes over 100 m/s of delta-V to get to 600 km (the threshold after which it won't reliably decay after at most 25 years), which is very, very expensive on something as big as the ISS. It would be extremely expensive to boost it, for what is honestly not a whole lot of gain (if you charge enough to visit to pay for the boost cost plus interest, you will not get enough visitors to ever pay it off).

450,000 kilogram station. 225 ISP for a monopropellant thruster. 20,000 kg of propellant needed. Assuming a mass ratio of 75%, then 26600 kg of spacecraft loaded down with propellant is needed. That's 2 falcon 9 1.1 launches. Expensive, but not out of the question to save something that cost many, many times that to build.

Space station was 100+ billion. Falcon 9 launches are 61 million each.

[Kibble]

It would cost exactly as much to maintain Space Station as a tourist facility as to maintain it during current nominal operations. But for historical purposes, I wish we could clean the whole thing out, vent the gases, and boost it to a very high graveyard orbit. Depending on the altitude it could stay as a monument to the insatiable spirit of Homo Sapiens for thousands of years.

[Bill Phil]

It would cost exactly as much to maintain Space Station as a tourist facility as to maintain it during current nominal operations. But for historical purposes, I wish we could clean the whole thing out, vent the gases, and boost it to a very high graveyard orbit. Depending on the altitude it could stay as a monument to the insatiable spirit of Homo Sapiens for thousands of years.

Actually, if most systems are shut down, then it could be a little less.

[Nibb31]

They will shut it down because it will reach its end of life. By definition, that means that it can't be used any more. Systems will be breaking down, solar panels will no longer be producing enough power, fluids will need changing, systems will need replacing, structural parts will be stressed out, there might be leaks, insulation and paint will be flaking and peeling off... Like an old car, you can theoretically keep it running forever, but there comes a point when it is no longer economical to keep on maintaining it and it is cheaper to get rid of it and buy a new one.

By the time it reaches end-of-life, the ISS will need new solar panels, new CMGs, replacing valves, seals and filters, probably fluid lines as well. Its systems will be obsolete with no spare parts available. And a lot of that work has to be done by EVA. Maintaining it after "end-of-life" is going to cost as much as a new station. It's pointless.

As for leaving it up at a high orbit forever, powered down and vented, with no attitude control or active debris avoidance, it will eventually tumble, get MMOD hits, and break up into a cloud of debris, which is bound to become a hasard for future missions.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Nibb31

[Yukon0009]

As for attitude control, how bout Ion?

[vger]

Only way I see something like this working is if we built a larger more advanced station. You know... "a space dock." ISS could easily be stored in there and people could visit it.

But...no. Not happening.

[peadar1987]

It's easy enough to stop it tumbling in a higher orbit, just slap a long tether and a counterweight on it, and it will align with the gravity gradient. The other problems are far more significant.

[EzinX]

What value does the worn out hulk of it have? It isn't the first space station. We don't need it for the knowledge - the reams of mission documentation and detailed drawings of how every piece was made sort of give us that knowledge.

I kind of have to agree, it's not valuable to keep it running if it's going to cost the kinds of numbers mentioned here. Better to use the knowledge gained by building and running it to design new and upgraded versions of the equipment it used and launch new stations.

[Whirligig Girl]

It would cost exactly as much to maintain Space Station as a tourist facility as to maintain it during current nominal operations. But for historical purposes, I wish we could clean the whole thing out, vent the gases, and boost it to a very high graveyard orbit. Depending on the altitude it could stay as a monument to the insatiable spirit of Homo Sapiens for thousands of years.

You usually don't even boost LEO objects into graveyard orbits. Graveyard orbits are reserved for MEO, GSO, and HEO. You would essentially need to boost it in the same manner as boosting it to the Moon to get it to the graveyard orbit, a project which would be as expensive as, well, building a space station around the moon

Anyway, even if it's not practical, it's certainly a very nice idea, and is going on my list of science fiction ideas.

Edited March 11, 2015 by GregroxMun

[EzinX]

You usually don't even boost LEO objects into graveyard orbits. Graveyard orbits are reserved for MEO, GSO, and HEO. You would essentially need to boost it in the same manner as boosting it to the Moon to get it to the graveyard orbit, a project which would be as expensive as, well, building a space station around the moon

You're a little confusing here. What exactly stops you from loading the station up with a lot of storable propellant and burning a set of thrusters prograde for many hours?

Eventually your orbit will be high enough that the station won't be coming down because it is high enough that atmospheric drag is no longer significant. Another user estimated the dV at 100 m/s : how much do you think it is? This is a simple problem we know has a solution, the question is how much fuel would it take?

[Nibb31]

As for attitude control, how bout Ion?

Ion thrusters need a lot of power. The power output of the solar arrays is going to degrade after nearly 25 years in space. If you want it to stay up there for a long time, you're going to need to refill the Xenon tanks from time to time. And you are going to need ground resources to monitor and control the station. All that for a outdated worn-out wreck. There really is no point.

You're a little confusing here. What exactly stops you from loading the station up with a lot of storable propellant and burning a set of thrusters prograde for many hours?

Eventually your orbit will be high enough that the station won't be coming down because it is high enough that atmospheric drag is no longer significant. Another user estimated the dV at 100 m/s : how much do you think it is? This is a simple problem we know has a solution, the question is how much fuel would it take?

Remember that the ISS is 400mT. A controlled deorbit burn would be done by a Progress after letting the station decay for a while. Reboosting to a few thousand km would require the equivalent of quite a few Progress burns. So how do you justify the cost of several Progress launches?

[Kibble]

What value does the worn out hulk of it have?

The same value as the worn-out hulk of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the worn-out hulk of Stonehenge, or any other monument. Its visually impressive, and a good example of what can be done with international cooperation. In thousands of years people will look in the sky and wonder how and why we built it. Back when we didn't even have the capability to ISRU even basic stuff like water!

You usually don't even boost LEO objects into graveyard orbits. Graveyard orbits are reserved for MEO, GSO, and HEO.

I meant that as a metaphor - just boost it to a semi major axis of a couple thousand kilometers.

EDIT: added below

Reboosting to a few thousand km would require the equivalent of quite a few Progress burns. So how do you justify the cost of several Progress launches?

You don't have to use Progress - Soyuz can launch a full Fregat stage with a probe on top to dock where Progress does. Depending on how high you want it to be, it might take a few Fregats, but its still a lot better.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Kibble

[Nibb31]

The same value as the worn-out hulk of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the worn-out hulk of Stonehenge, or any other monument. Its visually impressive, and a good example of what can be done with international cooperation. In thousands of years people will look in the sky and wonder how and why we built it. Back when we didn't even have the capability to ISRU even basic stuff like water!

What makes you think that it will survive in one piece for thousands of years? After breaking into pieces and flaking away into a cloud of broken parts, leaked pollution and degraded material, it will just be a navigational hazard, an annoyance, like an old shipwreck in the entrance of an estuary.

You don't have to use Progress - Soyuz can launch a full Fregat stage with a probe on top to dock where Progress does. Depending on how high you want it to be, it might take a few Fregats, but its still a lot better.

Since when does Fregat have a docking probe and automatic rendez-vous systems? You would have to redesign a whole new specialized vehicle and it still needs a Soyuz to launch on, so there are no big savings there.

[Kibble]

What makes you think that it will survive in one piece for thousands of years? After breaking into pieces and flaking away into a cloud of broken parts, leaked pollution and degraded material, it will just be a navigational hazard, an annoyance, like an old shipwreck in the entrance of an estuary.

MEO is big and empty, cause there's not much reason to go there. The only orbital debris would come from satellites in highly eccentric orbits. Most highly eccentric orbits are Molniya satellites, but they're inclined several degrees wrt Space Station's orbital plane. It would also be well below the altitude of those navigation satellite constellations like GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo.

Since when does Fregat have a docking probe and automatic rendez-vous systems? You would have to redesign a whole new specialized vehicle

Fregat has thrusters for all degrees of freedom, and you don't need to "redesign" anything! Just put a payload on top consisting of avionics equipment and a docking probe. Fregat is made to have payload attached.

it still needs a Soyuz to launch on, so there are no big savings there.

The point was you can do it in less Soyuz launches, maybe even just one or two.

[PB666]

I know, I know. Russia will take away their modules and all that, but the thought still occurred to me: What if, after the ISS program has expired, we keep it in orbit as a "museum" of sorts. It could be used in the future as a way to educate people about the shuttle era and the history of the ISS. Here are my thoughts:

No. Land it on Phobos. Turn it into the restaurant at the end of the Universe, send the menu to the aliens on Ceres.

[AngelLestat]

I dont see much point to keep it in orbit once its duty is over. Of course all venting and with systems shutdown.

But for the attitude control, there is a way to avoid the iss fall without spent any proppelent.

Electrodynamics tether.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrodynamic_tether

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19980223479.pdf

It works as power source and propulsion method, it use the same atmosphere particles at that height to push against and earth´s magnetic field to get the energy from.

It require 1 launch, and you avoid to place the space station in another which was not the original.

[Kibble]

Actually since it has that big long Truss, it might stabilize itself with the gravity gradient.

[vger]

Electrodynamics tether.

If that could work, we should've done it already, and save ourselves a lot of time and energy with making constant course corrections.

[tater]

Museum? No. If any components can be retasked? Sure. Heck, I'm fine with giving it away to a private entity providing they are responsible for maintaining orbit, or deorbiting it properly when done (as long as it is a US company). I wonder if any parts would be suitable for the hub of a cislunar facility?