Minmus Taster Posted Friday at 01:15 PM Share Posted Friday at 01:15 PM Pft, sure, like NASA hasn't been gutted enough already. Elon has everything he needs for Mars, but come on, it's never been about what he needs per say Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted Friday at 02:54 PM Share Posted Friday at 02:54 PM (edited) 1 hour ago, Minmus Taster said: Pft, sure, like NASA hasn't been gutted enough already. Elon has everything he needs for Mars, but come on, it's never been about what he needs per say NASA wastes tons of money (I'm looking at you, SLS, Gateway, etc). ISS costs ~$3B a year, and a lot of that actually goes to SpaceX since they do all the NASA crew and most of the cargo (think it was $1.7B of services last year). We know it's going away in 2030 anyway, so every year we knock off that we can apply ~$3B to something else. We have some private stations being worked on, plus the Gateway hab (which is a useless thing, IMO). Those could be accelerated. We need to move the TRL on ECLSS to be able to cope with longer missions—like Mars. SpaceX specifically needs to do this both for HLS, and for Mars. Testing HLS ECLSS would be best done in LEO—something they could actually do pretty soon. Fly a crew Starship into a decently high orbit, then send crew with Dragon. Such a mission replaces ISS is 1 launch, and doesn't rely on the old ECLSS on ISS, but can be a purpose-built new system using whatever NASA has learned over the time they have operated ISS. NASA is presumably helping SpaceX with this WRT the HLS anyway. Work on HLS ECLSS is part of the existing fixed price contract anyway, so no new money. As soon as that is on orbit, ISS is obviated. We keep people in LEO while testing brand new ECLSS. Instead of retrofitting improvements, just launch another one, possibly a test HLS vehicle. Edited Friday at 02:55 PM by tater Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted Friday at 11:02 PM Share Posted Friday at 11:02 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terwin Posted Friday at 11:56 PM Share Posted Friday at 11:56 PM Is there any indication that the ISS retirement schedule has changed in any way in the last several months? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted yesterday at 12:47 AM Share Posted yesterday at 12:47 AM 46 minutes ago, Terwin said: Is there any indication that the ISS retirement schedule has changed in any way in the last several months? Not that I have heard of. We will see if there are any priority changes. The current countdown is 5 years. No idea how far along the deorbit vehicle is, plus I have to imagine the Russians need to agree on any timeline regardless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darthgently Posted yesterday at 12:50 AM Share Posted yesterday at 12:50 AM 51 minutes ago, Terwin said: Is there any indication that the ISS retirement schedule has changed in any way in the last several months? Um, sort of, but not officially? I advise stocking up on popcorn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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