Somebody just buy it already. The big question that I don’t know if anyone knows the answer to is how much it would cost to maintain it if you have to keep paying Boeing for replacement parts. Or how much they’d cost to get from someone else, and if it could be done.
13 thoughts on “The ISS”
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I don’t think it would be possible to sell the whole thing outright. But I think it would be perfectly doable to either sell or lease portions of it. The question is would anyone be interested in it or not.
I like the idea that some private companies have been kicking around, putting up modules to test capabilities and expand working area with the idea of separating them later to form their own stations. An approach like China is using with their space telescope flying in relatively close proximity to their station could also be a good way to go when testing new modules.
Rand also talks about increasing the number of astronauts on ISS and with commercial crew and some new modules, this could work really well too.
As commercial capabilities expand, the ISS can be done away with.
Ideally, I’d like to see us use LEO as a staging ground for expansion with cis-lunar cyclers, cis-lunar tugs, and potentially Mars vehicles from cis-lunar space. We should occupy the shipping lanes with forts and ships to support our own interests and to profit off of other countries pursuing theirs.
I’d say give the thing to Boeing, lock, stock and barrel. They could manage it as needed, either run it or splash it. Boeing basically built the thing, so should be able to handle the maintenance, and I just bet they’d be able to “cut themselves a good deal” on spare parts. I’d suggest, though, that Boeing work out a way to do GNC (including orbit raising) w/o the cooperation of the Russians.
The Russians keep talking about separating the Zvezda and Zarya modules to form the core of a new Russian station, which would leave the rest of ISS without propulsive control and would force the other members to orbit a de-orbit module. But IMO parts is parts. Rather than de-orbit such a large and cumbersome object which presents its own unique challenges (but could probably be brought down safely after careful re-entry modelling) why not send up a module to put it into orbit at L4 or L5? Leave there for cannibalization later.
Good idea. Send up a suitable-scale solar electric propulsion module and a tank of xenon or argon to do the pushing and let it draw power from the station’s own solar arrays. SEP suitable for large applications has been on NASA’s to-do list for some time. NASA should certainly be able to “git ‘er done” in the 7 – 11 years before ISS is due to be retired.
Who has 3 to 4 billion to spend annually on maintenance?
Yours,
Tom
That’s a really good question. The article said a hefty chunk of that was just transportation to the station, i.e. Soyuz.
Suppose somebody does buy it. I’m not sure about the other maintenance (replace batteries?) costs, but the transportation costs should come down, yes?
For cargo, you’d have the capabilities of Dragon and Cygnus. You’d still have to work out a price, hopefully a little less in exchange for reviewing NASA’s quite stringent requirements. Or not, but at least those two, redundant choice would be available, plus possibly Sierra Nevada.
For crew, it’s not yet proven, but for the idea to have any merit at all, I would hope for both Crew Dragon and Starliner to be operational. Between them, they’d just have to be less than ~$80 million per person.
The value of the ISS is not $150 billion or $70b. The value is it’s replacement cost which 2 FH and 2 BA330 would cover… about half a billion to orbit.
Maintenance would be 4 F9 per year. What? Another half billion annually? That’s assuming a small maintenance crew rotated quarterly. However, 2 BA330 has life support for a dozen. That could be 9 customers a month paying $50m each (profit $30m ea.)
Income $30m x 9 x 12 = $3.24B.
Over $2b annual profit and every country in the world could have its own space program.
Also, if customer stay more than a month they could get a discount.
Robotguys 4 or 6 port docking collar allows them to expand to more BA330s to whatever the market will bear using just the same 3 person rotating crew, but with more customer scheduling options and more efficient use of Dragons.
The value is it’s replacement cost
No, cost is not value.
You are correct, but my point is still made.
Back in 2007, I had an idea to create a government for the ISS. It would have been a port authority type goverment, and it would be called International Space Station Authority. Or ISSA. Each country that is a member of the ISSA, would send one person that would vote for members, that would sit on the board of directors.
The ISSA would make money by charging docking fees, renting out connecting ports, and by having a lottery. One of the big lottery prizes would be a sub orbital spaceflight. The grand prize would be for a trip to the ISS.
No country would be able to remove their module, or modules from the ISS. Since no country would own the ISS. Instead it would be owned by the ISSA.
We could still do something like that. But call it the Space Economic Developement Authority. They would pay companies to build fuel depots, and space drydocks. The space drydocks would be used for building large spacecraft, and space habitats. They would also set up zoning rules for LEO, and Cislunar space.
There would be limits on the amount of payloads you can transport to Earth orbit, or to Cislunar space. For LEO, it would be 10,000 tons. For GEO, 50,000 tons. For L4, or L5, 10 million tons. The limits could be raised later for L4, and L5.
SEDA would make money by having a lottery, and by chaging fees for permits. SEDA would replace all rules, regulations, governing LEO, and Cislunar space.
Yeah, I don’t think there will be a buyer. No company will want the liability. No government will want the albatross. It will continue as an international flying pork barrel until it deorbits.