How Long Would A Space Station Last?

[OddFunction]

Let's pretend the Kerbal Universe is real (with our laws of physics) for a second. We put a space station with all the necessities in orbit around Eve. Now, with no maintenance, how long would this station remain stable? Stable in this case would mean you are able to get on board and walk around without the thing disintegrating.

I'm sure the question sounds stupid at first glance.. but I'm more curious about the environmental effects. With no wind, water, or other abrasive substances I would think that the space station could remain in orbit almost indefinitely. Sure it would eventually run out of electricity and fuel (assuming it had to periodically correct its orbit) but the station itself I can imagine being in near-pristine condition... maybe minus some sun bleaching. Even decades or centuries later it should still be there. And additionally, shouldn't a space ship also be almost untouched after even decades of floating around in space? Or is there some force that would eventually return these vehicles to dust?

[Superfluous J]

Space is not empty.

Space near a planet has atoms of that planet's atmosphere surprisingly high up. The station will collide with these atoms and - eventually - slow down its orbit enough to enter the thicker atmosphere.

Space in general has all sorts of particles. Stars spit out a surprisingly large quantity of them, and then there's all the tiny dust particles and larger pebbles that can be flying by you at dozens of km/s. If a dust particle hits the right place, your station's toast. If a pebble hits the right section, your station's toast. If a rock hits your station at all... you guessed it. Toast.

Then there are gravitational perturbations. Gilly's pretty small so I'd guess that it wouldn't affect much, but in orbit around Kerbin the tugs of Mun and Minmus would play havoc with anything high enough to avoid atmospheric deceleration.

tl;dr, not long

[Stargate525]

tl;dr, not long

I see your not long and raise you a Vanguard 1. Nearly sixty years in orbit, most of that with no correction. Granted, it's smaller than a station, and I'm not sure how long the thing would still be useful (I imagine 60 years of space dust and such would cause at least one breach), but in orbit, probably several hundred years in a higher orbit.

[OddFunction]

Space is not empty.

Space near a planet has atoms of that planet's atmosphere surprisingly high up. The station will collide with these atoms and - eventually - slow down its orbit enough to enter the thicker atmosphere.

Space in general has all sorts of particles. Stars spit out a surprisingly large quantity of them, and then there's all the tiny dust particles and larger pebbles that can be flying by you at dozens of km/s. If a dust particle hits the right place, your station's toast. If a pebble hits the right section, your station's toast. If a rock hits your station at all... you guessed it. Toast.

Then there are gravitational perturbations. Gilly's pretty small so I'd guess that it wouldn't affect much, but in orbit around Kerbin the tugs of Mun and Minmus would play havoc with anything high enough to avoid atmospheric deceleration.

tl;dr, not long

So basically, without energy shields or some kind of 'bubble' its just a game of solar-roulette?

Interesting. I wonder what the worlds reaction will be then when and if we face something similar with the ISS.

I see your not long and raise you a Vanguard 1. Nearly sixty years in orbit, most of that with no correction. Granted, it's smaller than a station, and I'm not sure how long the thing would still be useful (I imagine 60 years of space dust and such would cause at least one breach), but in orbit, probably several hundred years in a higher orbit.

So if there was a large enough planet, and you were in a geo-stationairy orbit around it, you could possibly mitigate the atmospheric interference, but would still be subjected to the random-space-particles? If that's true, makes me think there would be a sweetspot somewhere.

Edited June 18, 2015 by OddFunction

[11of10]

http://www.spaceflight101.com/iss-calendar.html here, check out the calendar of ISS reboosts. It looses speed due to drag by it's large solar panels

Better, this: http://www.heavens-above.com/IssHeight.aspx

Edited June 18, 2015 by 11of10
More usefull link

[Superfluous J]

I see your not long and raise you a Vanguard 1. Nearly sixty years in orbit, most of that with no correction. Granted, it's smaller than a station, and I'm not sure how long the thing would still be useful (I imagine 60 years of space dust and such would cause at least one breach), but in orbit, probably several hundred years in a higher orbit.

I probably should have specified, "Not long" in interplanetary travel times. Though I will say I'm surprised that they expect it to stay up another 150 years or so.

[Stargate525]

I probably should have specified, "Not long" in interplanetary travel times. Though I will say I'm surprised that they expect it to stay up another 150 years or so.

Well yes, if we're talking scales of thousands of years, not long. And I imagine it would be even longer if it didn't skim in so close on its periapsis. The reason the ISS needs so many boosts is because it's at ~400 km up, which is well inside the thermosphere. The atmosphere there is still a gas. Above 500 or so km, you have an atmosphere of orbiting gas particles that don't collide enough to be an actual gas. Stick a station up there, and you could be there for thousands of years, I'm sure.

[baggers]

If you carefully set "on sleep" your space station:

- go to a stable and as empty and high as possible orbit protected by magnetosphere.

- pack the solar panel and battery.

- set some protective tarpaulin ^^

I bet it will last centuries with not real noticeable gear and can be awake.

[YNM]

Depends on height, power and fuel.

- They're basically pressure vessel. Any irreparable small breach and you're done with it.

- With their large size, many atoms will come in contact with it. So there goes atmospheric drag.

- Large size means more chance for meteoroid impact too.

- With a large power requirement (and PV panels), they're sometimes prone to static charge buildup - no charge dump, and the power would be off.

- I'm not sure but the YORP effect might cause them to rotate even faster. In millenia to come... it might goes RUD ?

[Nibb31]

Beyond drag issues, the limiting factor will be shelf life of components. Metal structural components, plastics and rubbers in covers and seals, filters, gasses, fluids and lubricants... All these things age and will end up failing. Solar panels have a working life of approximately 20 years. You couldn't leave a station powered-down and mothballed and expect it to power up with a breathable environment after several years. After a while, you will necessarily have leaks, The atmosphere would become unbreathable without proper filtering, polluted by leaking fluids, flaking paint and insulation, or bacteria. If the atmosphere leaks, any system that isn't vacuum hardened inside will be destroyed.

[A35K]

If the station will be in a relatively high orbit around Eve, (well above any gas particles), and due to the fact that Eve has a much larger gravity well than any other planet near it, shouldn't the station be stable for hundreds of years? The only thing that could affect it would be gravitational influence from the Sun, I suppose, but I'm pretty sure Gilly's gravitational pull is negligible.

[prophet_01]

Since the kerbal system is way smaller than ours and planets are a lot closer, I wonder how much influence the other planets gravity would have on such a station. Resonance effects would likely be a lot stronger.

Btw, do we know for a fact that eve has a magnetosphere?

[justidutch]

And who the heck is gonna keep doing the beer runs?

[ZetaX]

Granted, it's smaller than a station

Actually, larger means longer. Your slow-down-force is proportional to cross section (~r²), your mass to volume (~r³). So your acceleration is ~1/r.

[Stargate525]

Actually, larger means longer. Your slow-down-force is proportional to cross section (~r²), your mass to volume (~r³). So your acceleration is ~1/r.

Yeah, but what's the offset of a bigger cross-section for particles to impact?

[ZetaX]

Yeah, but what's the offset of a bigger cross-section for particles to impact?

What I wrote: ~r² on the force.

[Rune]

If you custom-designed a station specifically to last (high orbit, several layers of whipple shields and modular construction, some radiation shielding, etc), and safed it properly by liquefying/solidifying all fluids... You could get some pretty amazing dormant lives. But in the end radiation/micrometeorite damage will still happen, changing material properties and eroding the hull (think what happens to plastics after just a few years under the sun, they become brittle). Unless you find some way to not use them, rubber seals and lubricants will be the first things to go. Thermal cycles will still subject the metal structure to mechanical fatigue, even. So probably nowhere near centuries, without some amazing self-repair systems (as in, the ability to recycle and replace its parts over time).

Rune. It would still be a heck of a long time compared with Earth standards.

[lajoswinkler]

In higher orbits? Thousands of years. Higher? Millions.

[DoomtrainInc]

If you custom-designed a station specifically to last (high orbit, several layers of whipple shields and modular construction, some radiation shielding, etc), and safed it properly by liquefying/solidifying all fluids... You could get some pretty amazing dormant lives. But in the end radiation/micrometeorite damage will still happen, changing material properties and eroding the hull (think what happens to plastics after just a few years under the sun, they become brittle). Unless you find some way to not use them, rubber seals and lubricants will be the first things to go. Thermal cycles will still subject the metal structure to mechanical fatigue, even. So probably nowhere near centuries, without some amazing self-repair systems (as in, the ability to recycle and replace its parts over time).

Rune. It would still be a heck of a long time compared with Earth standards.

Couldn't you wrap the station in foil or something upon disembarking to protect against the sun? Micrometeors would still screw things up though.

[SelectHalfling0]

5th Horseman: dust is too small to critically damage anything in space (ISS for example only suffers from relatively minor dust-related issues compared to what could happen), but pebbles and rocks could definitely cause a problem. Granted, if left in space for hundreds of years dust would eat away at the exterior.

[Sampa]

I see your not long and raise you a Vanguard 1. Nearly sixty years in orbit, most of that with no correction. Granted, it's smaller than a station, and I'm not sure how long the thing would still be useful (I imagine 60 years of space dust and such would cause at least one breach), but in orbit, probably several hundred years in a higher orbit.

When he said not long, I think he meant in comparison to how long the universe has been around! with that in mind, the time between station launch to its eventual decay and reentry, would be a blink of an eye! so, I completely agree with Horseman in his statement that a station would not last long

[Requia]

Since the kerbal system is way smaller than ours and planets are a lot closer, I wonder how much influence the other planets gravity would have on such a station. Resonance effects would likely be a lot stronger.

Btw, do we know for a fact that eve has a magnetosphere?

Stuff is closer together but a lot lighter (you get normal surface gravity because of high density) so the gravity at range should be pretty minimal.

[Skyler4856]

It is a possibility that one makes use of solar pressure to correct the orbit.

One might also then be able to set up power generation from the solar sail; a reflective coating on the interior side focusing light on a thermocouple.

Edited June 28, 2015 by Skyler4856
English

[Newt]

==Mostly in response to Rune, I think the greater issue is not slow buildup of damage to the hull, far from it. Perhaps that would be an issue for trying to keep an intact interstellar spacecraft, but around a planet, in orbit, the greater danger is atmospheric drag. As was noted, the ISS must periodically boost itself lest it crash (they also orient the panels so as to minimize drag at 'night'), Skylab, also ultimatley was destroyed because it slowly lost energy to drag, falling closer to the surface until it was no longer in orbit.==I suppose that this would be a non-issue in high orbit, but for low orbit stations rocks and debris pose a danger like that of getting shot as you run out of the way of an oncoming train. Is it technically a danger? yes. But a larger, more definite one is more pressing to be dealt with.

[DerekL1963]

FWIW - when I was in the Navy, I encountered spares that had gone bad (insulation failing, capacitors failing, etc... etc...) that were as little as fifteen years old. Seriously, drag is easy enough to overcome (just put your orbit high enough) and damage from dust/pebbles/debris is (other than a 'golden bullet') only a worry on the time scale of centuries. Power, radiation damage to electronics, atmosphere control, degradation of plastics, etc... are much higher on the list.