Nasa contracts to bring the ISS down

[Suff]

Nasa has issues a contract for just under $1bn for the design and build of a spacecraft which will be used by Nasa to deorbit the ISS in a safe way and burn it up over the Pacific ocean on the way in.

Queue the people who want to keep it as a museum or a scientific study hall in space complaining that nobody is trying to keep it.

Should be pretty spectacular when it eventually goes in. Perhaps someone will put internet linked cameras up there to follow it in and record it in all it's glory as it burns up?

[Workingman]

The ISS is a joint venture between NASA, CSA (Canadian Space Agency), (ESA) European Space Agency, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and the State Space Corporation Roscosmos and many others. It had to end sometime so de-orbiting it safely is a must.

I do not really care who does it so long as it is safe.

My interest is now on what comes next. Will it be a HUGE station or a number of smaller ones each doing dedicated experiments but inter-connected; astronauts shuttling from one to another?

[Suff]

I guess it depends on the launch capabilities.

Vulcan, New Glenn and Falcon Heavy can put up fairly large modules, but not the size the shuttle could push up there.

Starship has a cargo bay with a volume only slightly smaller than the entire ISS volume, so there is at least one customer who has bid for a launch with Starship to deploy a station complete with no further assembly required. However in this mould several of these could be configured into one HUGE station.

SLS could also launch truly massive structures but at one launch every two years and $2bn to $4bn per launch, it is unlikely we'll ever see it do anything other than Artemis.

Everything that happens next will depend on volume of launch space per launch and cost per kg to space. If the first is very large and the second is very small, then we'll see truly massive structures in space soon.

[Workingman]

Personally I would like to see a HUGE space station, with satellites. The technology is almost there. Some experiments need to be isolated, others need to be collaborative - same as on Earth. We have to work together.

SpaceX Starship, SS Enterprise / Voyager, Battlestar Galactica - I could not care less. Just get on and do it FFS - just do it collaboratively and safely.

[Suff]

SpaceX Starship, SS Enterprise / Voyager, Battlestar Galactica - I could not care less. Just get on and do it FFS - just do it collaboratively and safely.

Oh I agree totally but you are talking new space as opposed to old space. Did you see what the latest drivel was coming out of ESA?

"Starship will not be a threat because we only launch small stuff and we decided to launch small stuff because we don't launch very much."

Then we wonder why it only took 50 years to get back to the moon. It is almost enough to make you cry.

[Workingman]

I tend to think (know) that in the meantime we looked to other things - Mars, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, asteroids and comets. There are lots of possibilities out there.

China, India and Japan are doing the Moon and are sharing their knowledge; let them get on with it. Mars looks to be the big one for the others, at present.

The next ISS, in whatever form, is going to need co-operation between space agencies, governments and private companies. We are going to have to work together, as it, and its research programmes, are beyond any single one. Building it could be the easy part.

Things have changed over 50 years. NASA and Roscomos are not the only ones with seats at the table any more. It's a bigger and rounder table. More will want seats in the future.

[Suff]

Things have changed over 50 years. NASA and Roscomos are not the only ones with seats at the table any more. It's a bigger and rounder table. More will want seats in the future.

And not just nations. Private companies too.