The iss decomissioning

[ultimatevirus]

So as many of you know, the iss wil probably be decomissioned after 2020. So what do you guys think wil happen after the iss has crashed into the ocean?

Personaly I hope that we are going to get some private space stations (boeing, space x, etc) as wel as a new moon program.

[Devo]

So as many of you know, the iss wil probably be decomissioned after 2020. So what do you guys think wil happen after the iss has crashed into the ocean?

Personaly I hope that we are going to get some private space stations (boeing, space x, etc) as wel as a new moon program.

I will be out in my boat to be honest. Time to invest in some deep sea diving gear

[Fox62]

I will be out in my boat to be honest. Time to invest in some deep sea diving gear

Good luck on finding anything much bigger than a pinhead. That's a several ton spacecraft coming down at reentry velocity into water. Unlike in Minecraft, falling into water from high up hurts like you just slammed into concrete.

[King Arthur]

Once the ISS gets decomissioned in 2020 (OPSEK is another story, but I suspect it'll get killed by Russia around the time of ISS decomissioning due to lack of funding), I don't see any successor or deriative/spinoff station (both government and commercial) ever getting into space again any time soon. We're already facing the very legitimate question of whether the ISS has been worth the money, let alone human presence in LEO, and if we cannot adequately justify the ISS then we most certainly cannot justify building more stations in LEO.

As a consequence of the ISS going out and no justifiable successive stations foreseeable, I also fully expect companies like SpaceX and Orbital Science to wimper and die out since the only reason they are doing great at the moment is because they are being asked to haul cargo (and possibly people) to the ISS and nothing more. Satelite contracts? ULA (Delta IV/Atlas V) and ESA (Ariane 5) have those markets locked down with an iron fist if you ask me.

[Spica]

When Skylab burned up in the mid 70s, it spread its debris over a VERY large area. In australia, the biggest piece that was found was a frayed fiberglass cylinder about 2 feet long and one foot wide. And Skylab was only ONE module.

Spica

[Moon Goddess]

Good luck on finding anything much bigger than a pinhead. That's a several ton spacecraft coming down at reentry velocity into water. Unlike in MinecraftNearly every book, movie, video game, and piece of pop culture in existence, falling into water from high up hurts like you just slammed into concrete.

Fixed that for you. It's irritating how common that lie is.

[Kimberly]

Once the ISS gets decomissioned in 2020 (OPSEK is another story, but I suspect it'll get killed by Russia around the time of ISS decomissioning due to lack of funding), I don't see any successor or deriative/spinoff station (both government and commercial) ever getting into space again any time soon. We're already facing the very legitimate question of whether the ISS has been worth the money, let alone human presence in LEO, and if we cannot adequately justify the ISS then we most certainly cannot justify building more stations in LEO.

As a consequence of the ISS going out and no justifiable successive stations foreseeable, I also fully expect companies like SpaceX and Orbital Science to wimper and die out since the only reason they are doing great at the moment is because they are being asked to haul cargo (and possibly people) to the ISS and nothing more. Satelite contracts? ULA (Delta IV/Atlas V) and ESA (Ariane 5) have those markets locked down with an iron fist if you ask me.

My, aren't you a negative nancy! Public funding for space travel is heavily dependent on how much the public and lawmakers are interested in it; many space ventures are not really expected to be "worth it" in any financial sense. With the right environment, the next president could call for a big funding boost for NASA (which would, admittedly, take a while to have repercussions) or we might see more of the same. Space exploration is, and ought to be, a very idealistic sector. That just doesn't work out very well at a time when so many people are gripped by cynicism.

[Mercy]

My, aren't you a negative nancy! Public funding for space travel is heavily dependent on how much the public and lawmakers are interested in it; many space ventures are not really expected to be "worth it" in any financial sense. With the right environment, the next president could call for a big funding boost for NASA (which would, admittedly, take a while to have repercussions) or we might see more of the same. Space exploration is, and ought to be, a very idealistic sector. That just doesn't work out very well at a time when so many people are gripped by cynicism.

There's a difference between being cynical/negative, and being correct.

There is currently not much point in space exploration right now.

Honestly, humans should get our **** together here before we even think about going to another planet.

[Eric S]

Honestly, humans should get our **** together here before we even think about going to another planet.

Not having our **** together is the human steady state. There will always be something wrong, so saying this is tantamount to saying never.

[King Arthur]

My, aren't you a negative nancy! Public funding for space travel is heavily dependent on how much the public and lawmakers are interested in it; many space ventures are not really expected to be "worth it" in any financial sense. With the right environment, the next president could call for a big funding boost for NASA (which would, admittedly, take a while to have repercussions) or we might see more of the same. Space exploration is, and ought to be, a very idealistic sector. That just doesn't work out very well at a time when so many people are gripped by cynicism.

The ISS has simply not managed to grab hold of peoples' hearts like other successful space projects have done. When NASA announced that they were cancelling the planned Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission following the Columbia disaster, which would have most certainly doomed the HST given the situation it was in, everyone everywhere caused an uproar that finally made NASA reconsider that decision which culminated in STS-125 by Space Shuttle EndeavourAtlantis. On the other hand, absolutely nobody seemed to care that the USA lost its only direct way of accessing the ISS with the retirement of the Space Shuttle, and I daresay if the ISS were to be decomissioned today not many people would care even then. So already the ISS has lost the battle of earning the attention and adoration of the public.

Don't get me wrong, I fully envision that certain forms of space exploration that have proven highly successful, such as space telescopes, interplanetary satelites, and extraterrestrial rovers (among other things) will continue and might even see funding boosts as they have always managed to capture the eyes and hearts of the public. The Great Observatories (Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra), Kaguya, Hayabusa, Curiosity, Spirit/Opportunity, Voyager, Pioneer, Kepler, New Horizons, the list of highly successful, adored, and respected space exploration missions and projects go on, but unfortunately the ISS is not one of them.

Edited August 22, 2013 by King Arthur
Correction on the space shuttle that flew STS-125.

[OrbitusII]

There's a difference between being cynical/negative, and being correct.

Yes, but you don't know you're correct. SpaceX and other companies could die out after the ISS is done, but it doesn't mean they have to. They could very well thrive after the ISS is done and dusted up in space!

Don't claim to be right when discussing something that no one knows that much about. It's another seven (7) years before the ISS is decommissioned- a lot could happen between now and then.

[King Arthur]

^ Just for sake of clarification, I've never said I was "right" (Mercy brought up the "correct/incorrect" thing, so bring that up with him), I only said that I expect SpaceX and co to go south once the ISS is gone, and I am completely open to being proven wrong on this count if it wasn't obvious.

Personally, I hope SpaceX and co will succeed as a commercial business and stay around for a long time since competition is a good thing, but as of right now one has to admit that they don't have much going for them at the moment besides their planned trips to the ISS. The current LEO delivery market is utterly dominated by the ULA and ESA, and other (government-backed!) space agencies like JAXA who have tried to make headway into this market have found the amount of entrenchment that ULA/ESA has built up to be quite the hurdle to overcome.

[Diche Bach]

Why burn it up? Why not put it up into a graveyard orbit? Is that just untenable from a propulsion standpoint?

Would make a great 'space archaeological' site for the future!

. . . snip . . .On the other hand, absolutely nobody seemed to care that the USA lost its only direct way of accessing the ISS with the retirement of the Space Shuttle, and I daresay if the ISS were to be decomissioned today not many people would care even then. So already the ISS has lost the battle of earning the attention and adoration of the public . . . snip . . ..

Sadly, it is not about the actual merits of these things from a scientific, economic or prosperity standpoint. It is I believe, all about the eye candy. Compare:

Sexy . . .

Very Sexy . . .

Mmmmm, mind-bogglingly sexy . . .

Sad to say (and no offense to the astronaut), but . . . not so sexy after all

Mmmm, just not enough 'skin' to be sexy enough to compete with colliding galaxy clusters 60 gabillion light years away . . .

Argh . . . (and again, NO offense meant to the astronaut or ISS, which I personally LOVE) . . . definitely NOT sexy

Edited August 22, 2013 by Diche Bach

[Kimberly]

On the other hand, absolutely nobody seemed to care that the USA lost its only direct way of accessing the ISS with the retirement of the Space Shuttle, and I daresay if the ISS were to be decomissioned today not many people would care even then. So already the ISS has lost the battle of earning the attention and adoration of the public.

I don't know what people you've been hanging around with, but personally I noticed widespread discontent with the retirement of the Space Shuttle before a replacement was available. I don't know to what extent that was polled, but "absolutely nobody" is excessively hyperbolic.

[Diche Bach]

I don't know what people you've been hanging around with, but personally I noticed widespread discontent with the retirement of the Space Shuttle before a replacement was available. I don't know to what extent that was polled, but "absolutely nobody" is excessively hyperbolic.

True. But I think his basic point is valid: when Hubble was gonna be left derelict, there was sufficient public uproar to convince NASA to breach their new policy of no shuttle missions except to the safe haven of ISS and instead do the one last repair mission.

In contrast, whatever public uproar there was about the retirement of the space shuttle did not convince NASA to go back on that decision.

It is no doubt wrong to say "nobody cared" but what he actually said was "nobody seemed to care," a shorthand way of saying "whatever public uproar there was was not sufficient to change NASA's decision like it had done for the HST abandonment."

These are apple to orange comparisons, but the point is valid I think: public opinion and public interest in these things are critical to the political process and managerial decisionmaking that makes it go round. It has always been the case and will likely always be the case given we live in a consumer driven world and that is unlikely to ever change.

[Moon Goddess]

@Diche Bach Let me preface this statement by pointing out that I am very lesbian to give gravity to the following.

Your failure to see the sexiness of Cmd. Hadfield is bordering on the offensive. Cmd. Hadfield is made of pure grade liquid sexiness with sprinkles of sexy and sexy whipcream. Being cool and awesome is always sexy.

Additionally Col. Coleman gets cool and awesome points on the sexy chart, (in addition to being quite cute). The same applies to Ms. Nyberg. Skin is not at all required for the sexy.

But really how can you not recognize the awesomeness of Cmd. Hadfield?!?! I'm honestly confused.

[sidew]

Next space station will be Chinese... they are planing for 2020. see this article on space.com about CSP (China Space Program): http://www.space.com/22474-china-space-program-empire.html

[Mercy]

Yes, but you don't know you're correct. SpaceX and other companies could die out after the ISS is done, but it doesn't mean they have to. They could very well thrive after the ISS is done and dusted up in space!

Don't claim to be right when discussing something that no one knows that much about. It's another seven (7) years before the ISS is decommissioned- a lot could happen between now and then.

There is no money to be made in space exploration, so it's HIGHLY unlikely SpaceX will continue without the ISS.

[Diche Bach]

@Diche Bach Let me preface this statement by pointing out that I am very lesbian to give gravity to the following.

Your failure to see the sexiness of Cmd. Hadfield is bordering on the offensive. Cmd. Hadfield is made of pure grade liquid sexiness with sprinkles of sexy and sexy whipcream. Being cool and awesome is always sexy.

Additionally Col. Coleman gets cool and awesome points on the sexy chart, (in addition to being quite cute). The same applies to Ms. Nyberg. Skin is not at all required for the sexy.

But really how can you not recognize the awesomeness of Cmd. Hadfield?!?! I'm honestly confused.

Me personally? They are all _totally_sexy to me! Even the mustache guy peeking out of the glory hole between the little baggies and stuff (Col. Coleman is it?): very sexy to me personally.

What I should have clarified is: not sexy in a broad mass appeal standpoint . . . or at least that is the HYPOTHESIS.

Seriously though, I do think King Arthur was hitting on _something_ here and I'll explain to you why. I am a bona fide sci fi geek from way back into the 1970s. In recent decades my 'involvement' with the space/sci-fi worlds has declined a bit, and as I've pointed out in some other threads, I haven't really watched TV or otherwise partaken in regular doses of mass media since the late 1980s.

Nonetheless, I could not escape exposure to Hubble and its amazing mindblowing images. Even before I bought this game and underwent a crash refresher course in Sci Fi Geek certification I was fully aware of what Hubble had shown us, the fact that it required a repair, and how clearly smitten humanity has been with what it has revealed about the Universe with astounding clarity. Not to say everyone understands what it all means, but images like that pique the imagination and anyone is likely to inquire 'what is that' and at least learn a bit. In sum, Hubble has been a smashing PR success; I think that must be abundantly clear. I think the same must be true with Curiousity.

In contrast, and sticking with my personal experience as a simple guide, I was basically only vaguely aware of an "International Space Station." Until a couple weeks ago, I did not know for sure when it was launched, whether it had already been decommissioned and burntup in the atmosphere, let alone that it has been up there pretty much continuously occupied with science teams for 12 years! You can chide me for being a malfeasant Sci Fi nerd that I didn't even know that ISS 'existed' until I got into KSP and looked it up on wiki. But what this suggests is that: if someone like me didn't even know it was still up there and had been continuously in operation for so long, most people in the world probably don't even know it exists. Everyone on the planet knows about Star Wars, Darth Vader, and the Hubble Deep Field.

Moreover, I think it is probably humanly impossible to look at most of the hubble images and not feel a stiring of curiousity and wonder. Looking at an astronaut, or worse a space station that looks more like deep freezer or the inside of a storage tank (the Russia part) or even worse, reading the esoteric details of some strange experiment they are doing on ISS is not likely to stir the same sort of universal wonder; at least not without substantial 're-branding' and/or marketing.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Diche Bach

[Moon Goddess]

Me personally? They are all _totally_sexy to me! Even the mustache guy peeking out of the glory hole between the little baggies and stuff (Col. Coleman is it?): very sexy to me personally.

Mustache Guy is Cmd. Chris Hadfield of Canadian Space Agency, (thus why I was pointing out the importance of my sexual orientation when calling him sexy) If you are not familiar with Cmd. Hadfield, I beg you, beg you to watch this

This got wide press and was "mass market sexy" as you put it

The brunette you pictured is Col. Catherine Coleman of NASA and the USAF (the one I refered to as being cute.) She was lead mission specialist for the launch of Chandra X-ray Observatory, one of the devices that captures wonderful images like the Hubble does (and not much longer in the case of the Hubble)

The blonde you pictured is Ms. Karen Nyberg of NASA. She is a mechanical engineer that has created thermal control systems to be used in future Lunar and Mars missions. She is currently in flight aboard the ISS and was one of two women (along with Wang Yaping of China) who was in space during the 50th anniversary of the first woman in space.

As for the rest of your post, I can't comment on too much, It's just a very different viewpoint to me. The hubble images I love! they are so beautiful, I have a poster of some. But at the same time they are less scienfically useful than infrared and X-ray images that don't look so pretty, and humans working in space gives a much more relatable thing to me. It's something that I could have done had my life been different, and that's awesome! I could never be a nebula. And research that we do on the ISS, will help with a future mars mission, and that will help with whatever mission we do after that and in the long run, it will help with how ever we travel to another star, be that 100 years away or 1000 years away or a million. Cuz we'll have to go someday or just let everything we have ever done, including those pretty pictures just be wiped away when the sun swallows us. I know we're no where close but everything we do up there, teaches us some little thing that gets us a nanometer closer. (well I'm not sure music videos do, but hey everyone has to have downtime)

[Diche Bach]

That is a delightful video, thanks for sharing

I didn't know that there had been any efforts to mass market ISS.

Just to clarify, I personally see the importance of the ISS and hope that it will be perpetuated beyond its decommissioning or even better expanded on and used as the basis for a lot more orbital human presence. I'm not trying to argue that ISS is in fact less worthy or meritorious than other unmanned space work.

I was just trying to point out one very important factor why some unmanned space stuff seems to garner more public love than others. The video you linked is brilliant, very well done and exemplifies this very point: dry, scientific details are not 'selling points' for public approval.

That is all I'm saying: HST has immediate curbside appeal because it has rendered mind-blowing visual images that are almost universally appealing to humans (even though the data it collects on other nonvisible wavelengths is in fact probably more important from a scientific standpoint). ISS requires a bit more 'marketing' for it to approach the inherent market appeal of a Hubble Deep Field Image.

Also, just to clarify, I'm not defending this unfortunate reality about what most people 'like' and approve of their governments spending money on. It is just a simple truth that eye-candy sells, particularly universally mind-blowing eye-candy.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Diche Bach

[Moon Goddess]

Well then I appologize about missing the intent of your posts. And I do agree that I wish people were more interested, but I do believe they are more interested than you believe.

That is a delightful video, thanks for sharing

I didn't know that there had been any efforts to mass market ISS.

I think the efforts to mass market the ISS have almost single handedly been Cmd. Hadfield, and he's doing a FANTASTIC job of it! Check out his series on how your five senses react to microgravity, sounds horrible and something I'd never heard from any astronaut before. I sometimes wonder though if his videos began just was a way of telling the world, look Canada has astronaut(s?) too.

[Vonar]

So as many of you know, the iss wil probably be decomissioned after 2020. So what do you guys think wil happen after the iss has crashed into the ocean?

Personaly I hope that we are going to get some private space stations (boeing, space x, etc) as wel as a new moon program.

Russia's considering a orbital assembly complex using some of the Russian orbital segments, there has also been some talk about a space station on the far side of the Moon however budget problems will plague both of those projects. China is planning their own space station since they've got the cold shoulder one too many times from America when it comes to space cooperation. There is a commercial station planed by Bigalow airspace using TransHab technologies. No news yet on a post-ISS American station however I am hoping that NASA will consider now that they finally have access to a heavy lift rocket building a orbital drydock for a Mars ship.

Looking forward to the post-2020 era the SLS and the Long March 10 will be two heavy lift rockets that are entering service around the 2020 timeframe owned by America, and China respectively. The Long March 10 will actually be more powerful then the first generation SLS system, and on par with the Saturn V. There is talk of a Energia II in Russia, but once again that depends on a larger budget for Russia's space program. A revived Energia program also depends on Ukraine for the zenit booster and Ukrainian-Russian relations are rocky at best these days.

NASA has on the drawing board plans to return to the Moon, but those are questionable at best with NASA's budget. I am betting that chances are NASA will rely on commercial clients to deliver cheap, affordable access to local space and use the Orion for deep space operations.

[Wait- Was That Important?]

I believe, for the sake of a LEO presence to serve as a waystation/ experimental fueling depot, NASA will either commission a station under contract with SpaceX or utilize the SLS to construct a station.

At the very least, it would constitute a large unmanned satellite with limited berthing space to serve as the easiest destination for LEO space travel, and a kind of "service platform". It could be more commercial-oriented than anything.

NASA is currently considering a station at the L3 Lagrangian Point using shelved ISS hardware. Now that would be a great successor to the ISS!

[Diche Bach]

Something in a LaGrange point would basically be "permanent" right?

I suppose it would probably still require adjustment burns for its exact position and orientation, but it would not be subject to drifting majorly 'off station' or having an orbit that would decay and lead to destruction of the vehicle?

Edit: hey "Wait" you meant the Earth-Moon L3 right? I'm actually only finding a description of an Earth-Sun L3 which is on the opposite side of the sun?

I'm guessing the Earth-Moon L3 is comparable but on the opposite side of the moon? or something else?

It would be really cool if these were in KSP somehow

Edited August 22, 2013 by Diche Bach