International Space Station facing irreparable failures, Russia warns

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58408911

by ooboe • 5 years ago

15 12 5 years ago

ncmncm2• 5 years ago

I just hope that when the whole hab is scuttled and burns up or plunges into the ocean in a year or two, they will save out the new solar panels for another project.

ISS's reason to exist went away when the Shuttle was mothballed. The ISS was, in turn, the reason to keep flying the Shuttle. They tried to come up with a similar dodge for SLS, in the moon orbit base, but SpaceX pulled the rug out from under that. That would have been a boondoggle of dven more epic proportions than STS/ISS.

We still need to find a way to shut down the F-35 without needing to cancel all the subcontracts let for parts of it. Without saving those, it will never be allowed to die. (Using the afterburner destroys parts of the rear control surfaces, that have to be replaced at a cost of, what, tens? hundreds? of $thousands after the flight... if it lands.)

pope_meat• 5 years ago

"but Sir, the plane literally destroys itself when it's flying..."

"I said ship it!"

Luckily, no one is responsible if things go wrong!

avmich3• 5 years ago

ISS's reason to exist went away when the Shuttle was mothballed. The ISS was, in turn, the reason to keep flying the Shuttle.

This is a popular idea, but it can't really be proven. The decision to have ISS comes from many people and countries, and those people have different reasons - including, among others, employing Shuttle, former Soviet engineers and an accessible space outpost to conduct space experiments.

codewench• 5 years ago

I don't have evidence to prove it, but I was always pretty sure one of the main reasons was to keep Russian engineers working, and not selling their services to North Korea or Iran or something.

ncmncm2• 5 years ago

That there was nothing else for STS to do was demonstrated by it doing nothing else. And, the interaction of all experiments run there is limited to crew pushiing an "on" button, so the crew there is self-evidently superfluous, other than as cargo to carry up and back.

inshadows• 5 years ago

It may be our only refuge when Earth's going to be burning for thousands of years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveneves

Who needs government sponsored science? All hail the Musk!

bellyfullofbac• 5 years ago

If they replace all the parts, will we get a Space Ship (well, Station) of Theseus?

travisporter• 5 years ago

Roscosmos' Rogozin is rumored to be falling out of favor with Putin, and I see him as holding back US-Russian cooperation on ISS. Not sure why I'm bring this up other than wishing that cooperation would continue, but on the other hand being stuck in low earth orbit is also getting old.

datameta• 5 years ago

I would assume that Putin would prefer to see the ISS fail and have the Chinese-Russian cooperation efforts succeed. Is this not the case? What would suddenly disincentivize Rogozin from cooperating with NASA? I would certainly prefer to see more cooperation.

avmich3• 5 years ago

Remember, Russia still can send space tourists to ISS for very appreciated amounts of money, so dumping the station doesn't come easy.

vladTheInhaler• 5 years ago

As usual, it's difficult to take statements by Russian officials at face value. Russia has been demanding more funding for its continued participation, relief from sanctions etc. And meanwhile, their Nauka module threatened to spin the whole station apart last month. So is this intended to support their haggling efforts, or deflect blame for state of the station? I have no idea. But I wouldn't count on Russian officials for an unbiased technical analysis, that's for sure.

International Space Station facing irreparable failures, Russia warns

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