Letting the ISS burn up......Why?

[Dfthu]

4 hours ago, Veeltch said:

In the Pacific probably. Where most of US spacecraft land (and sink).

Good luck with that. I can't imagine what kind of equipment could survive reentry and high-velocity impact with the ground and still be any useful/not look like a pancake.

I know it won't be usefull anymore but i'm pretty museums would want pieces of that debris. It was still part of a famous space station.

[Wjolcz]

32 minutes ago, Dfthu said:

I know it won't be usefull anymore but i'm pretty museums would want pieces of that debris. It was still part of a famous space station.

True. But they would look like burnt, metal pancakes.

[Diche Bach]

Fascinating thread. So basically, "we" have unintentionally polluted the near space around Earth with trash, and as yet there aren't even cohesive international agreements that prevent it from getting worse over time, and maybe even eventually culminating in the dreaded Kessler Syndrome. Typical human behavior . . .

While I agreed with the spirit of the OP, now that I've read a bit more about how troublesome this space debris is, and how satellites that have just been left up there derelict are a big source of the problem (even ones launched as recently as 2002, by parties as "responsible" and stringent as the ESA --> Envisat) I think someone needs to take responsibility and start cleaning up this mess, and enforcing international law that prevents the problem from getting worse.

In a world of warring factions, much easier to say than do, but I guess that explains the whole thing.

If ISS is not decommissioned responsibly, then the largest players in the satellite game are showing their hypocrisy if they expect other up-and-coming players to adhere to stringent rules about decommissioning.

Even once the ISS has burnt up, I reckon they will still have plenty of diagrams, models and such that can serve as "monuments" to the achievement, and a model in a museum, or for that matter a documentary, are much better these days at making an important historical event/object a permanent monument. We are on the verge of being able to represent some of humanities most famous historical monuments as "virtual realities" that anyone with the tech can "visit" right from the comfort of their own home.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Diche Bach
fix error

[Dfthu]

10 hours ago, Veeltch said:

True. But they would look like burnt, metal pancakes.

But it's something, it was still part of the ISS just different. 

[DDE]

There's one factor going for the "film it from inside" team. In addition to mini-reentry vehicles of the ATV and Progress, there's off-the-shelf technology for data salvaging in case of a violent reentry - with the USAAF and RVSN. From what I understand, they have the gear to recover flight data recorders from MIRVs.

On ‎11‎.‎06‎.‎2016 at 5:28 PM, Dfthu said:

I know it won't be usefull anymore but i'm pretty museums would want pieces of that debris. It was still part of a famous space station.

On ‎11‎.‎06‎.‎2016 at 6:02 PM, Veeltch said:

True. But they would look like burnt, metal pancakes.

On ‎12‎.‎06‎.‎2016 at 4:20 AM, Dfthu said:

But it's something, it was still part of the ISS just different. 

Well, the museums seemed to have quite enjoyed displaying pancaked pieces of Skylab.

On ‎03‎.‎04‎.‎2016 at 10:18 AM, Rath said:

But the ISS was built to keep the soviet scientists occupied so they wouldn't go build missiles, and much of the science that can be done with <1yr human flights is done.

Rath's been rolling around with this unsourced claim for quite a while. As if the same KBs design ICBMs and spacecraft... Also, they have been busy, look up Yars, Rubezh, Bulava and Sarmat.

[StarStreak2109]

Well, if any company goes for it, there might be future use for the ISS...

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/international-space-station-commercial-owner-nasa-to-sell/

 

[p1t1o]

On 4/3/2016 at 8:18 AM, Rath said:

But the ISS was built to keep the soviet scientists occupied so they wouldn't go build missiles, and much of the science that can be done with <1yr human flights is done.

 

On 7/14/2016 at 10:38 AM, DDE said:

Rath's been rolling around with this unsourced claim for quite a while. As if the same KBs design ICBMs and spacecraft... Also, they have been busy, look up Yars, Rubezh, Bulava and Sarmat.

 

Hehehe! Yes because the Soviet Union Existed when they built the ISS...and cosmonauts aren't launched on basically a super-advanced ICBM...and Russia isn't practically a world leader in missile technology already...And have soooo much trouble developing ICBMs...

[peadar1987]

3 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

 

 

Hehehe! Yes because the Soviet Union Existed when they built the ISS...and cosmonauts aren't launched on basically a super-advanced ICBM...and Russia isn't practically a world leader in missile technology already...And have soooo much trouble developing ICBMs...

Well... To play devil's advocate here, the problem wouldn't be with former Soviet scientists building more ICBMs for Russia, it would be that they would become unemployed due to the scaled-back post-Soviet space programme, and be forced to go and find alternative employment elsewhere. Like North Korea or Iran. It still doesn't really hold water though. There are cheaper ways of keeping rocket scientists occupied and employed than building the most expensive object ever to have existed!

[DDE]

17 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

and cosmonauts aren't launched on basically a super-advanced ICBM...

To be honest, the only thing common between an R-7 and a practical ICBM is that they are large rockets. Multiple core aspects of R-7 made it completely worthless as a weapon, from its strap-on "petals" of the first stage to its cryogenic propellants. From there on, the development branches began to split even further; unlike the US, Sergei Korolev essentially considered hypergolic boosters to be incompatible with manned spaceflight, and Soviet large-scale solid rocketry was a non-starter until the 1980s.

So in the end ICBM designers would have very little to contribute to manned spaceflight, and visa versa, because the technologies ended up being quite different.

[p1t1o]

34 minutes ago, peadar1987 said:

Well... To play devil's advocate here, the problem wouldn't be with former Soviet scientists building more ICBMs for Russia, it would be that they would become unemployed due to the scaled-back post-Soviet space programme, and be forced to go and find alternative employment elsewhere. Like North Korea or Iran. It still doesn't really hold water though. There are cheaper ways of keeping rocket scientists occupied and employed than building the most expensive object ever to have existed!

Good point, but as you say, it is still bunk, the US just hired the ones they didnt want anyone else to have, to work for them.

 

17 minutes ago, DDE said:

To be honest, the only thing common between an R-7 and a practical ICBM is that they are large rockets. Multiple core aspects of R-7 made it completely worthless as a weapon, from its strap-on "petals" of the first stage to its cryogenic propellants. From there on, the development branches began to split even further; unlike the US, Sergei Korolev essentially considered hypergolic boosters to be incompatible with manned spaceflight, and Soviet large-scale solid rocketry was a non-starter until the 1980s.

So in the end ICBM designers would have very little to contribute to manned spaceflight, and visa versa, because the technologies ended up being quite different.

Thats all well and good, but on the other hand, ALL manned spaceflight is derived from ICBM technologies...

[Nibb31]

2 hours ago, StarStreak2109 said:

Well, if any company goes for it, there might be future use for the ISS...

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/international-space-station-commercial-owner-nasa-to-sell/

 

It doesn't belong to NASA, so how could they sell it?

[p1t1o]

19 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

It doesn't belong to NASA, so how could they sell it?

If it "belongs" to anyone, its the person who can actually get there...and that would be the russians...

Ooh, quick question...are there locks on the doors? Seriously.

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, p1t1o said:

If it "belongs" to anyone, its the person who can actually get there...and that would be the russians...

It belongs, by international treaty, to the international partners who built it: NASA, Roskosmos, ESA and JAXA. Each agency could sell its own share (if their local legislation allowed them to, which it probably doesn't), but nobody can sell the entire ISS.

 

1 hour ago, p1t1o said:

Ooh, quick question...are there locks on the doors? Seriously.

There are no "locks", but there's no way you could dock to it without cooperation of the crew and mission control.

[Kryten]

6 hours ago, peadar1987 said:

Well... To play devil's advocate here, the problem wouldn't be with former Soviet scientists building more ICBMs for Russia, it would be that they would become unemployed due to the scaled-back post-Soviet space programme, and be forced to go and find alternative employment elsewhere. Like North Korea or Iran. It still doesn't really hold water though. There are cheaper ways of keeping rocket scientists occupied and employed than building the most expensive object ever to have existed!

There was a known case where several engineers from the Makayev design bureau were stopped from getting on a boat to Pyongyang; clearly Makayev-influenced designs have shown up there since so it appears some made it by an alternate route. That's going to be where the first half of that came from. Problem is, Makayev had no involvement with orbital LVs or spacecraft, only missiles. Same goes for almost all the soviet design bureaus; only Krunichev had significant overlap between missile and orbital technology.

[wumpus]

5 hours ago, p1t1o said:

If it "belongs" to anyone, its the person who can actually get there...and that would be the russians...

Ooh, quick question...are there locks on the doors? Seriously.

Supposedly the last mission to Skylab left it unlocked.  So presumably *that* one had locks.  But remember ISS has multiple hatches.

[Frozen_Heart]

I wonder if the MCT could land the ISS in sections? From what we know so far it has a massive cargo bay and can land a huge amount of cargo propulsivly.

Still don't think it will get built though...

[Matuchkin]

"It's not that we don't respect the ISS as a monument, or want to cut its service short. We just want to get back at Esperance, Australia, for the fine we were given for Skylab."

"You know, they force $400 from us, so we kickstart our orbital bombardment research program on them."

"In fact, the International Space Station was built entirely for this purpose. So will the next station. And the one after that. Let's just say we have blueprints."

 

- Charles Bolden, CEO of the National Aeronautical Space Administration.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Matuchkin

[NSEP]

*Cough* Orbit Decay *Cough*

[DDE]

1 hour ago, NSEP said:

*Cough* Orbit Decay *Cough*

*Cough cough* reboost via Progress tugs or the Zarya FGB's motors. With the former, we technically could keep it flying indefinitely.

Edited August 20, 2016 by DDE

[NSEP]

34 minutes ago, DDE said:

*Cough cough* reboost via Progress tugs or the Zarya FGB's motors. With the former, we technically could keep it flying indefinitely.

But it cant go on forever.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, NSEP said:

But it cant go on forever.

It can if you keep sending out ships that keep pushing it.

Note that I'm not saying anything about the condition of the station.

[Kryten]

That only works if you assume the docking ports will last forever.

[Motokid600]

If there's anything relatively worth bringing back from Space its Hubble. Let the station burn. Out with the old. In with the new.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Motokid600