
New plan to defund space station opens up some surprising possibilities - gvb
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/iss-was-never-supposed-end-ncna848771
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maxxxxx
In the end the US has no clear space strategy and no goals. Every incoming
president declares a new program for PR purposes, doesn't fund it and forgets
about it then. I think best would be to fund NASA with a fixed amount and let
the scientists battle it out what to do. It makes me sad that Congress forces
NASA into silly projects like the SLS.

~~~
cydonian_monk
And that pattern is exactly the reason I’m in favor of restructuring NASA. Get
them out of the “big project to nowhere” business and make them a “science and
space traffic control” organization. Maybe even split those two operations off
to the FAA and the NSF (or other relevant agencies).

I like NASA, I love (most of) what they’ve done, but they’re increasingly just
an expensive political tool.

~~~
hinkley
The contractors who build our rockets our the same ones who build [our] war
machine. These projects have been, all the way back to Kennedy, about keeping
the military industrial complex in business.

Another route to go is not incompatible with SpaceX’s mission (I’m not
suggesting Musk will save us, just that he’s not as wrong as the feds).

Use space flight to prop up the industrial complex instead. We have converted
that to military in times of war before. We can do it again if we need to.
Stop indulging in war fantasies and get to the belts. Learn if it’s possible
to refine materials in low g. Start building things. Destinations.

~~~
pasabagi
I think it was a little bit more directed than that - a way to conduct
advanced ballistic missile research, and to show off how good your ballistic
missiles were, without looking too warlike.

Before the invention of the Minuteman, the space program was using the same
rockets as the ICBMs, I think.

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nickhalfasleep
In many ways the ISS is the victim of it's own stunning success.

Never before have kept habitation outside the earth for so long with so many
people, with international teamwork and no fatalities during construction or
maintenance. People have gotten used to this.

All the knowledge and experience of the many countries and companies involved
will go on to help every other space project.

~~~
Steltek
The cooperation factor shouldn't be understated. It's an amazing piece of
engineering _developed_ between many countries. Especially countries with a
turbulent relationship right now (US and Russia). It's like a UN that actually
works.

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imtringued
The ISS has reached the end of it's usefulness. The money is better spent on a
manned lunar orbital outpost. [1]

[1] [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-lunar-outpost-will-
exten...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-lunar-outpost-will-extend-human-
presence-in-deep-space)

~~~
nickik
The Luna outpost is an insane waste of money, especially considering they want
to build it with SLS and Orion.

There is no practical reason for a moon space station. It makes neither
scientific nor engineering sense.

If they want to do lunar exploration doing direct surface to surface is far
more efficient. SpaceX architecture is way, way cheaper then DSG and friends
and far better to support any form of lunar exploration.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
A lunar outpost is a good idea as a platform for staging deep space missions.
Launching from the Moon is much cheaper than launching from Earth (in terms of
delta-V) if you can build out in-situ fuel production, plus more novel launch
mechanisms like space elevators and mass drivers are more feasible on the Moon
than on Earth. The far side of the Moon is also an interesting platform for
astronomy. We'd also learn a lot about a Mars mission by being on the moon,
such as proving out safe long-term habitats at a distance where rescue
missions are feasible, studying the effects of low (rather than zero) gravity
in the long term, etc.

~~~
Retric
No it's _currently_ vastly more expensive in terms of delta-V because you need
to get the fuel to the moon at the cost of delta-V.

Saying we could mine the moon _at some point in the future_ is great, but why
not just move an comet into earth orbit and mine that. It's about as feasible
in theory, but does not require you to get out of the moon's gravity well.

PS: If you really want rail guns, you can also get free delta-v from solar
sails and use them maintain a launch platform's orbit.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
>why not just move an comet into earth orbit

This is probably substantially more difficult than establishing a moon colony
and mining there. Comets have lots of orbital speed you have to overcome, and
are generally pretty big.

Edit:

>PS: If you really want rail guns, you can also get free delta-v from solar
sails and use them maintain a launch platform's orbit.

Solar sails cannot maintain the orbit of an orbital rail gun launch platform
-_-

All of your ideas are more of a moonshot than an _actual_ moonshot.

~~~
Retric
Solar sails provide free delta v if you are already in orbit and willing to
wait. It's not useful for moving people around the solar system, but a rock
that takes 100 years to get somewhere is not a big deal. On that timescale
they can move literal mountains.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Free delta-V, yes, but not much - certainly not enough to maintain the orbit
of a mass driver.

~~~
Retric
As you just want station keeping you can ignore the mass of the sail and mass
driver, _all of the delta-v from the sail get 's transfers to what the mass
driver launches._ Thus you can actually use a fairly thick sail without issue.

The problem is because the station is staying still you are effectively
limited to the square root of a sails acceleration. Still ~7 newtons per km^2
adds up and you avoid the delta v deficit from being on the moon in the first
place.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
You don't just need station keeping. Every launch takes energy away from the
orbit of the launch platform. Consecutive launches basically _deorbit_ the
launch platform. To maintain the orbit, the solar sails must generate an equal
amount of orbital energy as the launch platform imparts upon vehicles
launched. In other words, you could just launch stuff with its own solar sail
to the same effect.

This happens on the moon, too, but the moon is basically a limitless supply of
orbital energy.

~~~
Retric
I think you misunderstood what I meant by station keeping. The sail is used to
return the platform to it's orbit after launch. You probably want something
else for normal station keeping.

Anyway, I was wrong about the square root thing. It's 1:1. A 1km2 sail
represents 7m/s/s for 1 kg of stuff. Normally the sail eats into that and you
quickly get far from the sun, but that's not the case here. Fire a 100kg
object at 20,000 m/s and a 10km/10km sail can return the station to orbit in
around 50 minutes.

Granted if you are in earth orbit it's a little more complex. But you probably
want to be in a fairly high orbit anyway to maximize delta v.

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lettergram
Link to actual budget:
[https://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html](https://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html)

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grondilu
> humanity’s only permanent outpost in space is an institution that needs to
> be protected.

Sounds almost like the definition of the White Elephant[1]. Costly, but
prestigious. Keeping it is unreasonable, getting rid of it is embarrassing.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant)

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sathackr
Why de-orbit? Why not use the same rockets to move it up into an orbit that
doesn't degrade as quickly and doesn't need to be maintained at regular
intervals.

A ton of money was spent launching and building it. Why not leave it for
potential future use?

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theandrewbailey
If no one's interested in it, it becomes space junk. It's a problem.[0] Don't
make more. You need to responsibly dispose of space junk, and the easiest way
is to incinerate it via atmospheric reentry.

If it doesn't have a controlled de-orbit, it will have an uncontrolled de-
orbit, potentially destroying something (or killing someone) when it reaches
ground.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris)

~~~
nickik
You could boost it in a specific orbit leave it. That what happens with many
satallites and is not consider space junk.

Putting stuff on specific orbits is exactly how we fight space junk.

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StellarTabi
I'd like to see more efforts targeting space mining and manufacturing.

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ggm
The main problem with the ISS is that the wrong budget is paying for it. It
should be in the arts and education sector, instead of NASA.

~~~
rtkwe
That's incredibly incorrect the ISS is first and foremost a US National Lab
where companies, universities and NASA itself can perform experiments on
zero/micro G.

~~~
ggm
It was a very troll-like comment. To be less troll-y, there has been a long
standing criticism in the science community about the cost:benefit side of
this. I love the ISS. seeing it pass has been a highspot for me in an
otherwise boring week, more than once. I went to every IMAX show I could about
it. Thats some amazing stuff up there.

I discount the 'research aimed to further space exploration by mankind' side,
as being self-serving. (but I totally agree NASA should pay for that, so I
guess I killed my own argument right there) it is true research and its good
science, and we need to know it, but I've always felt its a bit of a stretch
to justify the overall budget on this line. So I wind up asking myself what we
got from micro and zero gravity we couldn't have got other ways. The russians
got high quality crystals for their soviet chip farming back in the day on
their one. I think by the time ISS came along, that was less of an issue for
them.

A totally unscientific google search shows theres a small amount of rumbling
discontent under the covers. Even within NASA. It might reflect the long
standing 'sats are cheaper than humans' view about what to put in space, and
why.

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John_KZ
The ISS is in fact not very productive in terms of research, but it's running
costs are relatively small and if it gets shut down, the next space station
will cost incredible amounts of money, and it's possible that much of the
current technical expertise on the aerospace systems will be lost by then. I
think ISS's value is not on scientific experiments but as a training and
testing ground for the space industry. We could scale it down a bit, but imo
decommissioning the only manned human outpost in space is a mistake,
especially since there's zero realistic plans to replace it.

~~~
autokad
> "but it's running costs are relatively small" its my understanding that its
> not small. 92 billion over 19 years? also, if its so cheap, why doesn't
> other countries want to put up reasonable $$

~~~
John_KZ
It's budget has been less than $2B/year consistently for almost 2 decades.
That's pretty low for a space station. Other countries do put up according to
their budget, they don't all have a $19 _trillion_ GDP.

~~~
autokad
#1, who cares if its relatively low cost for a space station. it just matters
whether its costly or not, which it is. 2 billion is ~20% of nasa's budget.

> "It's budget has been less than $2B/year consistently for almost 2 decades."
> first off, that is just factually wrong. Nasa estimates in 2018, even 3-4
> bil is overly optimistic. but even if that were true, 2 billion 20 years ago
> is north of 3 billion in today's money.

