Preserving the ISS as a space museum?

[AngelLestat]

It was done it already.

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

They just need a little more experience to avoid tether cuts due debris or maybe high electrical current.

As a new technology, the fact that we dont use them yet, it does not mean that it would not work.

Solar Sails for example.. They work... They can be very usefull. But it takes time and the ISS duty is not over yet.. So what is the rush?

[Nibb31]

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

Gravity gradient will be weak. All it needs is a fluid leak or an MMOD strike to pull it out of a stable attitude. With metal fatigue and aging mechanical connections, a tumbling motion could be catastrophic.

If you switch everything off maintain an atmosphere inside, then all sorts of fungus and bacteria are going to develop, making the place unfit for visiting. If you vent the atmosphere, you kill all the equipment inside. Anything made of plastic, rubber, or any other material that is not rated for vacuum is going to outgas, deteriorate, become brittle, porous, or crumbly. Paints will flake. Liquids and lubricants will evaporate. The result will be a cloud of crap particles and a lack of sealing that would take ages to repair and clean up if you ever want to repressurize it.

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).

NASA is doing exactly that. They are responsible for maintaining orbit, and when it's done for NASA, it's done for any other purpose. They are going to deorbit it properly.

I wonder if any parts would be suitable for the hub of a cislunar facility?

By 2024, some parts of the station will be over 25 years old. Have you ever tried fixing a 20 year-old computer or car or washing machine? Have you ever worked on renovating a 20 year-old electrical installation? Technology moves on, parts become harder to find. In most cases, you are better off starting from scratch.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Nibb31

[peadar1987]

Gravity gradient will be weak. All it needs is a fluid leak or an MMOD strike to pull it out of a stable attitude. With metal fatigue and aging mechanical connections, a tumbling motion could be catastrophic.

If you switch everything off maintain an atmosphere inside, then all sorts of fungus and bacteria are going to develop, making the place unfit for visiting. If you vent the atmosphere, you kill all the equipment inside. Anything made of plastic, rubber, or any other material that is not rated for vacuum is going to outgas, deteriorate, become brittle, porous, or crumbly. Paints will flake. Liquids and lubricants will evaporate. The result will be a cloud of crap particles and a lack of sealing that would take ages to repair and clean up if you ever want to repressurize it.

Or you fill it with argon or nitrogen.

[Kryten]

The cooling and power systems aren't very reliable and require large amounts of maintenance-neither would last long unattended.

[GreenWolf]

I have to ask, what exactly is there about the "shuttle era" this is worthy of being memorialized? The end of beyond LEO manned missions for half a century? The expensive deathtrap that was the shuttle? The 100 billion dollar political project that is the ISS? The only thing the shuttle era represents is human stupidity and failure. We have plenty of monuments to that already.

[PlonioFludrasco]

If the Space Shuttle was still a thing, it could have been disassembled and took back to Earth with it.

Can't see the point, but possible (AFAIK) if STS was still there.

Edited March 11, 2015 by PlonioFludrasco

[Nibb31]

I have to ask, what exactly is there about the "shuttle era" this is worthy of being memorialized? The end of beyond LEO manned missions for half a century? The expensive deathtrap that was the shuttle? The 100 billion dollar political project that is the ISS? The only thing the shuttle era represents is human stupidity and failure. We have plenty of monuments to that already.

Hey, just because it didn't live up to its promises doesn't mean that the Shuttle wasn't a great technical achievement. Hindsight is a great thing, but at the time, it did seem like a good idea.

I'm not one to usually defend the STS program, but I don't think it's fair to belittle the extraordinary people who designed, maintained, and flew it.

[GreenWolf]

Hey, just because it didn't live up to it promises doesn't mean that the Shuttle wasn't a great technical achievement. Hindsight is a great thing, but at the time, it did seem like a good idea.

I'm not one to usually defend the STS program, but I don't think it's fair to belittle the extraordinary people who designed, maintained, and flew it.

The original vision for the Space Transportation System was too ambitious. It was supposed to be launched at a rate of once a week, be completely reusable, and lower the cost of access to space. It was supposed to be able to carry large amounts of cargo into space, service satellites in orbit, carry a large crew into orbit, and return payload to Earth. The Department of Defense wanted it to be able to launch satellites into a polar orbit, NASA wanted it to be able to science, and Congress wanted it to be built by every aerospace contractor in the country.

In the end, it wasn't really reusable (the entire orbiter basically had to be rebuilt after each mission), it didn't launch once a week, it increased the cost of access to space, it couldn't launch to a polar orbit, it was too expensive to use for servicing satellites, its cargo capacity was mediocre, its was incredibly dangerous as a crew vehicle, it was rarely used to return payloads from orbit, and it only facilitated a minimal amount of scientific research. And eventually, all of the contractors were bought out or consolidated into Boeing and Lockheed Martin, who formed ULA.

So really, the shuttle failed to accomplish any of its intended goals. But at least it looked pretty.

[PB666]

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.

As a set for space si-fi movies, in space, lease it out!.

When the Cannae drive comes on line you can keep it stable indefinitely (snicker).

[AngelLestat]

As a set for space si-fi movies, in space, lease it out!.

When the Cannae drive comes on line you can keep it stable indefinitely (snicker).

It was test it in space like 20 times! In theory and practice, it work!!!!

Its even at sale as commercial addom to deorbit cubesats!!

http://www.tethers.com/Products.html

if you dont know the difference between cannae drives and this, then leave the science section or learn something about it.

[Dkmdlb]

I've been to the Tethers Unlimited plant. They've got some interesting stuff there, but I'm not sure who is paying for it!

[Beowolf]

Hey, just because it didn't live up to its promises doesn't mean that the Shuttle wasn't a great technical achievement. Hindsight is a great thing, but at the time, it did seem like a good idea.

I'm not one to usually defend the STS program, but I don't think it's fair to belittle the extraordinary people who designed, maintained, and flew it.

No prob. I'm happy to belittle them for you!

Hindsight, hell. You say "at the time, it did seem like a good idea", yet what I remember from when they were building the STS are many, many articles criticizing the design, and correctly predicting exactly how it would end up killing astronauts. Popular Science, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Washington Monthly , The Wall Street Journal, Forbes... all these and many more had articles with deadly criticism of the compromises STS made. I was only 21 when Columbia first flew and a complete space junkie, but even back then, I thought the shuttle was a lemon. Hell, even Hustler magazine ran an article about the shuttle's design problems!

We knew the historical reliability of solid fuel boosters, with the very best ones exploding 1% of the time. There wasn't a single reliability improvement in the shuttle SRBs that would change that. The articles predicted an SRB explosion every 50 shuttle flights. Challenger was flight 51. Gee, too bad there was no way to see that coming. We even had a Morton Thiokol engineer literally begging for the Challenger flight to be delayed until warmer weather, and he was overruled for political reasons by his management, because a cancellation now would make the whole program look bad. Hey, great call guys! You sure avoided that bullet.

And we fully knew in-advance those thermal tiles were too fragile to withstand routine minor debris collisions, like falling ice, during launch. You know, the kind of minor debris that's fallen off practically every cryogenic-fueled rocket ever? Plus we gained new routine debris, as the main tank insulation wasn't supposed to fall off but did. And NASA literally just decided to close their eyes and ignore that issue, despite internal complaints. What killed Columbia's astronauts again?

They predicted, with amazing accuracy, just how poorly "reusable" STS truly would be, how this design would raise rather than lower the cost/kg to orbit. It wasn't so much reusable as "rebuildable". Remember the part where NASA said they'd be able to launch shuttles weekly?

Those extraordinary people knew they were building the most expensive deathtrap in human history. Those extraordinary people removed the crew's ejection seats to save weight. Even better, that change was made in an attempt to meet the Air Force's needs for placing heavy spy satellites into polar orbits. The shuttle never did shave enough weight to do that job, but THEY NEVER PUT THE EJECTION SEATS BACK! As far as I'm concerned, whoever signed off on that change should have the names of the Challenger astronauts carved into his forehead, like the swastika in Inglorious Bastards.

Read through some of the internal NASA and contractor memos that were released from the Challenger investigation. It was common knowledge that what Congress funded (combining the NASA and Air Force requirements into one vehicle) was simply impossible. But NASA took the money and tried to do it anyway, with the math staring them right in the face saying people will die.

How you divide up the blame between Congress, NASA administration, contractor management, and engineers is a personal decision. Personally, I see plenty to condemn everyone. Engineers were worried enough that they supposedly talked about mass walkouts, but they never followed through. Don't ever think they didn't know. Yet they went along with it, because it was apparently more important to be team players and keep their awesome jobs than to keep the astronauts alive. So I get angry when people give the engineers a pass, like they were innocent in those deaths. They knew. They still did it, so they share responsibility.

If it was the first time we'd been through this crap, maybe I could be more forgiving. But the 1965 Apollo 1 fire was caused by the exact same kind of "just cross your fingers and it'll be okay" screwups and was only a decade before. NASA promised us they'd fixed the poor practices that caused the fire, and they lied. Their fix turned out to be a temporary patch that only lasted until the end of Apollo.

/end rant

[Kryten]

We knew the historical reliability of solid fuel boosters, with the very best ones exploding 1% of the time.

The GEM-40s on used on most Delta-II variants have flown ~1200 times. One has exploded. The calculation of that as a percentage is left as an exercise for the reader.

[Bill Phil]

The original vision for the Space Transportation System was too ambitious. It was supposed to be launched at a rate of once a week, be completely reusable, and lower the cost of access to space. It was supposed to be able to carry large amounts of cargo into space, service satellites in orbit, carry a large crew into orbit, and return payload to Earth. The Department of Defense wanted it to be able to launch satellites into a polar orbit, NASA wanted it to be able to science, and Congress wanted it to be built by every aerospace contractor in the country.

In the end, it wasn't really reusable (the entire orbiter basically had to be rebuilt after each mission), it didn't launch once a week, it increased the cost of access to space, it couldn't launch to a polar orbit, it was too expensive to use for servicing satellites, its cargo capacity was mediocre, its was incredibly dangerous as a crew vehicle, it was rarely used to return payloads from orbit, and it only facilitated a minimal amount of scientific research. And eventually, all of the contractors were bought out or consolidated into Boeing and Lockheed Martin, who formed ULA.

So really, the shuttle failed to accomplish any of its intended goals. But at least it looked pretty.

Not quite.

The original STS was a great plan. The only thing out of that plan that came to fruition was the reusable LEO vehicle, AKA The Shuttle Orbiter. Not to mention it was severely UNDERFUNDED.

[EzinX]

Not quite.

The original STS was a great plan. The only thing out of that plan that came to fruition was the reusable LEO vehicle, AKA The Shuttle Orbiter. Not to mention it was severely UNDERFUNDED.

Was it? As a KSP player, I look at these numbers :

Payload to LEO : 24,000 Kg

Orbiter Mass : 110,000 Kg

And I go : wat? You're spending the resources to orbit 110,000 Kg but only 24k is payload.

Soyuz :

Reentry module : 2480 Kg

Service and orbital modules : 3400 Kg.

And, with a Soyuz style plan, you also launch cargo rockets where 100% of the payload mass will be left in orbit.

The only thing you are "saving" with the space shuttle over disposable rockets is you get the engines back with less damage than letting them crash into the terrain at terminal velocity. The space shuttle throws away the fuel tank just like the rocket used to launch Soviet spacecraft...and the lower stage. (SRBs)

As it turns out, liquid hydrogen engines need a rebuild and heavy maintenance anyways. It would have probably been cheaper to have a factory take the debris from crashed booster stages, melt all the metal back to various plates and bars, and build a new engine that is simpler, one time use, and always brand new at launch.

[Bill Phil]

Was it? As a KSP player, I look at these numbers :

Payload to LEO : 24,000 Kg

Orbiter Mass : 110,000 Kg

And I go : wat? You're spending the resources to orbit 110,000 Kg but only 24k is payload.

Soyuz :

Reentry module : 2480 Kg

Service and orbital modules : 3400 Kg.

And, with a Soyuz style plan, you also launch cargo rockets where 100% of the payload mass will be left in orbit.

The only thing you are "saving" with the space shuttle over disposable rockets is you get the engines back with less damage than letting them crash into the terrain at terminal velocity. The space shuttle throws away the fuel tank just like the rocket used to launch Soviet spacecraft...and the lower stage. (SRBs)

As it turns out, liquid hydrogen engines need a rebuild and heavy maintenance anyways. It would have probably been cheaper to have a factory take the debris from crashed booster stages, melt all the metal back to various plates and bars, and build a new engine that is simpler, one time use, and always brand new at launch.

You misunderstand. The original STS is a whole system of space stations, tugs, craft and the like. Optimized for getting payload to other places.

[vger]

It was done it already.

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

They just need a little more experience to avoid tether cuts due debris or maybe high electrical current.

As a new technology, the fact that we dont use them yet, it does not mean that it would not work.

Solar Sails for example.. They work... They can be very usefull. But it takes time and the ISS duty is not over yet.. So what is the rush?

Might be a nice final experiment to try when/if the whole thing gets decommissioned.

It would make life simpler for pretty much everything that's up there. There's also that convenient anti-kessler concept, which we desperately need. Preferably now instead of a hundred years from now.

[GreenWolf]

You misunderstand. The original STS is a whole system of space stations, tugs, craft and the like. Optimized for getting payload to other places.

The original STS was what was too ambitious. There was no way that it could have ever gotten funding, and NASA knew it. So instead, they tried to get the shuttle to do everything. And it failed. Badly.

[Bill Phil]

The original STS was what was too ambitious. There was no way that it could have ever gotten funding, and NASA knew it. So instead, they tried to get the shuttle to do everything. And it failed. Badly.

It wasn't too ambitious. It was a plan to accomplish something. I admit, a 50 man station by 75 was a bit, poorly estimated.

Anyhow, the plan was made in 1969. A little bit before a hearing to figure out what to do after Apollo. Agnew was there... It wasn't funded, basically.

There were a few options:

Mars with Station with Shuttle

Station and a Shuttle

or just a Shuttle

The government chose just a shuttle. But the Shuttle was first and foremost a logistics vehicle. It didn't start doing logistics till halfway through its lifetime. That was the waste... Not to mention the USAF's design requirements...

[Kibble]

The original STS was what was too ambitious. There was no way that it could have ever gotten funding, and NASA knew it. So instead, they tried to get the shuttle to do everything. And it failed. Badly.

Space Shuttle actually does have a pretty good configuration for one particular task - the manual assembly of large multi-modular experimental piloted spacecraft. You launch a module, the OMS to rendezvous, the astronauts to assemble and pilot it, an airlock to EVA from, and a Canadarm to move around the modules and EVA on. Of course, starting in 1998 it was actually used for this to build USOS. It still would never need those big dumb wings though.

OTOH the huge black-zones where abort is impossible tempts fate in the most distressing ways. Plus having the heat shield completely exposed during all phases of the flight. I'm sure we're all familiar with the disastrous results of those two flaws.

EDIT: You should read The Space Shuttle Decision

[EzinX]

Space Shuttle actually does have a pretty good configuration for one particular task - the manual assembly of large multi-modular experimental piloted spacecraft. You launch a module, the OMS to rendezvous, the astronauts to assemble and pilot it, an airlock to EVA from, and a Canadarm to move around the modules and EVA on.

It's still garbage in terms of efficiently doing those tasks. You could use a B2 bomber to deliver letters, it just isn't an efficient use of resources.

Similarly, you could either :

1. Launch on a rocket a big arm to do orbital assembly with, as part of a utility module.

2. Launch a habitation module that provides a convenient place to do EVAs from and run the big arm

Once #1 and #2 have docked to themselves autonomously, controlled from the ground, you launch the astronauts in a space capsule just big enough to get them to the station and get them back down. You leave everything in orbit from that capsule you can when you depart the station, carrying just enough consumables to reenter (plus some reserve for an emergency I guess)

Or, you can launch the EVA gear, the arm, a bigass winged container with the capability of hauling big stuff down that you almost never use, a habitat suitable for staying weeks in orbit...every time. Then you pay to bring it back down again. Over and over.

[Bill Phil]

It's still garbage in terms of efficiently doing those tasks. You could use a B2 bomber to deliver letters, it just isn't an efficient use of resources.

Similarly, you could either :

1. Launch on a rocket a big arm to do orbital assembly with, as part of a utility module.

2. Launch a habitation module that provides a convenient place to do EVAs from and run the big arm

Once #1 and #2 have docked to themselves autonomously, controlled from the ground, you launch the astronauts in a space capsule just big enough to get them to the station and get them back down. You leave everything in orbit from that capsule you can when you depart the station, carrying just enough consumables to reenter (plus some reserve for an emergency I guess)

Or, you can launch the EVA gear, the arm, a bigass winged container with the capability of hauling big stuff down that you almost never use, a habitat suitable for staying weeks in orbit...every time. Then you pay to bring it back down again. Over and over.

For the purposes of station construction, a dedicated platform is ideal. Basically, the Orbiter minus the heatshield, wings, and engines (it keeps the OMS pods, but with about double the propellant). Probably could be launched with one SLS Block 1, and then you could ask SpaceX kindly for a Dragon Capsule (assuming this is the 2020s or something), or in the present, ask the Russians and pay them. Then you get a crew at the orbital assembly platform (OAP), which can put together a large station, EOR vehicle, or anything. The crew might birth a few modules per mission (with missions lasting a few months at most), and each module massing in at about 25 mT (DIVH range). Then, you could construct a Mir class station within a few years if you have large enough flight rates. You might then be able to use that Mir station as an Earth-Moon transport. Perhaps using small robot landers controlled by the crew on orbit? (Practicing for Mars, of course)

And when that first station is done, you can make another one. And another one. And if you keep building more OAPs, you could potentially have what amounts to a factory in space. Star Trek style.

[vger]

It's still garbage in terms of efficiently doing those tasks. You could use a B2 bomber to deliver letters, it just isn't an efficient use of resources.

The initial CONCEPT of the shuttle is still a cool idea and it's sad to think that it won't be pursued. Is it impossible? Who knows. But I think it's too soon to give up on it. But the next-gen "Space-plane" won't even get off the drawing board now. *sigh*

[B787_300]

It would never work. If the russians pull out they will remove their modules which removes boosting capabilities. Also the russian segment is essentially the back bone of the Station, the other segments wont work without the russians

[Alchemist]

Once, there was an attempt to preserve an old station in higher orbit and then return it to Earth with a spaceplane. The station was Salyut-7, the spaceplane was Buran. It ended with the station running out of fuel and falling into the atmosphere before Buran was even finished.