Posted on 07/27/2011 12:43:34 PM PDT by Red Badger
Russia and its partners plan to plunge the International Space Station (ISS) into the ocean at the end of its life cycle after 2020 so as not to leave space junk, its space agency said Wednesday.
"After it completes its existence, we will be forced to sink the ISS. It cannot be left in orbit, it's too complex, too heavy an object, it can leave behind lots of rubbish," said deputy head of Roskosmos space agency Vitaly Davydov.
"Right now we've agreed with our partners that the station will be used until approximately 2020," he said in comments released on Wednesday.
Space junk is becoming an increasingly serious headache.
A piece of space debris narrowly missed the space station last month in a rare incident that forced the six-member crew to scramble to their rescue craft.
The ISS, which orbits 350 kilometres (220 miles) above Earth, is a sophisticated platform for scientific experiments bringing together space agencies from Russia, the United States, Europe, Japan, and Canada.
Launched in 1998, the ISS was initially expected to remain in space for 15 years until an agreement was reached to keep it operating through 2020.
By going into a watery grave, the ISS will repeat the fate of its predecessor space station Mir, which Russia sank in the Pacific Ocean in 2001 after 15 years of service.
Moscow this month proclaimed the beginning of "the era of the Soyuz" after the US shuttle's last flight left the Russian system as the sole means for delivering astronauts to the ISS.
Russia is currently developing a new space ship to replace the Soyuz capsule which is single-use, except for the section in which spacemen return to Earth, said Davydov.
Tests of the ship will begin after 2015 and it will have "elements of multi-use whose level will be much higher than they are today," he said, adding that Russia will compete with the United States in building the new-generation ship.
"We'll race each other."
Davydov said it remains unclear what will come after the ISS and whether mankind will see the need for a replacement orbiting close to Earth.
"Lots of our tasks are still linked to circumterrestrial space," he said, while adding that a new space station could be used as a base for building complexes that will explore deeper into space.
"I cannot rule out that it will be used to put together, create the complexes that in the future will fly to the Moon and Mars," he said, stressing that "a serious exploration" could not be done without manned flights.
Rubbing salt in the wound. The One made us abandon space travel because it “offends” Him. We can’t do anything to stop them.
Yes.
Can’t they just shoot it out into space? Was a waste of time and money anyway—should have been stomping around on Mars by now.
No. A complete waste of money.
Too bad they are going to junk it in the first place, but why don’t they just push the thing into outer space instead of polluting the planet with it?
Too bad they are going to junk it in the first place, but why don’t they just push the thing into outer space instead of polluting the planet with it?
What a complete crock. Stop whining. It’s not becoming.
They don't.
“Launched in 1998, the ISS...”
Very misleading. The first piece went up in 1998; but, I remember touring NASA in 2000, and touring mock-ups of all the stuff that had yet to be launched.
Wikipedia says it is ‘expected to be finished in 2012’.
So literally this thing will spend 8 years in space as a completed component.
Instead, we threw trillions of dollars for the 'war on poverty' (based on our debt, I think poverty won).
What I can’t figure is they’ve spent billions and billions of dollars to haul all that mass off of earth and into orbit. Why just drop it back into the ocean? Why not boost it up into some parking orbit, where it will be out of the way and then it will be there if for nothing else, then spare parts for some future space station. Of course that sound too much like common sense, and nobody ever accused the powers that be of having that
Doing what?
What is its purpose?
Does it even have a purpose?...............
It would be insanely expensive to rocket-up the thing and give it enough velocity to kick it out into “space”, and even then it’s going to come back at some time. It’s cheap as hell to fire simple rockets to reduce the orbital velocity and bring it down.
Nothing wrong with the Russian plan, considering the ISS will be obsolete by 2020 (barring other changes). Skylab and Mir were both-deorbited successfully.
Buyer MUST arrange shipping and delivery..(G)
By then Bigelow Aerospace will have inflatable hotels orbiting the Earth lifted into place by the Falcon 9 rocket family care of SpaceX.
The reason you can’t boost it into earth-escaping flight/travel is a matter of pure economics. It would actually take A LOT (and we’re talking REALLY a lot) of fuel to boost its speed beyond the necessary amount to escape earth’s gravity.
On the other hand, it really only takes a small, calculated, well-timed nudge to bring it down in the South Pacific. It probably has the fuel on board as we speak to do that.
Well, thought it might be too much to send it out of orbit...shucks!
What does that mean?................
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