The thing has generated some worthwhile results, but now its sucking resources out of other projects like returning to the Moon. Its orbital inclination of about 50 degrees makes it useless as a staging platform for lunar missions, and the rocket fuel required to move it to an equatorial orbit would cost as much as a new space station. Therefore, we need a new space station in an equatorial orbit that could double as a staging platform for lunar missions as well as a platform for further research into the long-term biological effects of space flight.

On the other hand, the high orbital inclination of the ISS would make it an ideal site-seeing platform--the view from an equatorial orbit doesn't change much. Since we can't afford two space stations, and since we need a new one, the question is what to do with the old one. We could: (1) crash it into the ocean; (2) mothball it; (3) give it away to the firsts private venture that can reliably send manned craft to it without government subsidies.

Crashing it seems a waste, yet mothballing isn't really a long-term option, since the ISS requires periodic boosting to keep its orbit from decaying.

Thus, we should promote a private space race, the prize being the ISS itself, to the first company that can prove that it can reach the ISS, maintain it, and develop it into the world's first space hotel. The market value of trip there now is US$ 20 million. My WAG is that privatizing the ISS would lower the cost by at least 1 or 2 orders of magnitude.

to the Russians. they've always enjoyed that stuff more than us. I think if they can perfect the technology to build space based colonies we can get us to new locations.

Anyway, I've posted this in another thread, but IMO - and as difficult as it would be - set the thing down on the moon and have a prebuilt place for astronauts to go when they touchdown. It can accomodate 10 people or so for 6 months. That's plenty of time to get back and forth to the moon.

__________________
"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

Well, I guess you could say that the Russians were the first to use it for space tourism. Additionally, they could rightfully claim an equity stake in the limited partnership that owns the space station. So, maybe the US could give away its stake to private enterprise, while the Russians could retain their share of the ownership for their own ends.

As for moving the ISS to the Moon: it would be far cheaper to build a lunar station from scratch than to move the ISS. Besides, how would you land the thing in one piece?

maybe as many pieces at it took to get up there. it's already above the atmosphere, that's energy already spent, why do it again?

__________________
"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

Naive question: who's "we"?

__________________
"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

The space station isn't an American project. We don't "own" it to give it away in the first place, so you're already starting off with no ground to stand on. We did participate in its development and construction, but somewhere along the way, someone decided to cut costs by tapping the Russians for a good chunk of its heart and soul. There's no 'equity' to be given or taken. There are areas of operational responsibility, but the bottom line is, there aren't property lines in the airlock. The ISS is a gestalt whole entity in which both nations share responsibility.

Have you the slightest idea what would be required to even alter the station's orbit? Have you even thought through the implications of landing a space station designed without respect to up and down orientation on a planet, to say nothing of the fact that it was never designed to do anything other than sit in LEO?

__________________
The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

Who are you responding to? Warren Platts is not proposing to move ISS to the Moon - he is arguing against it. If you are going to question anyone's "planet of origin", it should be Crosscountry.

__________________
Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Edits made.

__________________
The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

hmmm..


I realize the work involved, but think about this. We'd have to lift anything off the earth to get it to the moon, and don't pretent that is some easy job. At the distance of the moon orbit direction makes little difference anyway in comparison to the total energy cost.




And the "we" is actually this: in 2009 we're, the USA, will discontinue servicing the ISS and leave it solely to the Russians and anybody else willing to help. We're giving it away. If the Russians wanted they could find a way to send a school bus sized space station to the moon and at least park it there, maybe even land it.

It's foreseeable that the USA won't be the first country to have a manned permanent lunar station.

__________________
"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

Says who?

__________________
The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

OK, the ISS does not belong to America, so America cannot give it away--all it can do is unilaterally withdraw support for it, thus leaving it to Russia, the only other stakeholder that can take care of it.

My point is this: the ISS is absolutely useless for direct support of manned space flight beyond LEO, yet we absolutely need a new space station in a low inclination orbit to serve as a way station to the Moon and points beyond. But the ISS is still a great place to visit, nonetheless, especially just because of its high inclination orbit.

It would be too politically incorrect for the US government to get into the space tourism business--but Russia has already shown its willingness, and Virgin Galactic just isn't ready yet. Besides, the suborbital flights proposed by Virgin Galactic for 200K $US are cheesy. Until you've been in orbit, you can't truthfully say you've been to space. On the other hand, 20M $US for a visit to the ISS as of now is crazily expensive.

So the question is: What if Russia mainly dedicated the ISS for space tourism? Could it at least break even?

The Soyuz craft holds three people. So what if just about every flight to the ISS consisted of 1 pilot and two space tourists? What would be the break even cost for a ticket?

So I haven't actually flown till I've been in a jumbojet? I haven't been underwater unless I've been on a nuclear submarine?

I find this line of reasoning flawed.

__________________
The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

Man, it's the difference between snorkeling and scuba diving. It's the difference between a cab and a stretched limo. It's the difference between a Schlitz and a Fat Tire. It's the difference between a Vespa and a Harley.

I can't explain it any better than that.

Style over substance, a passenger on a Virgin suborbital still gets into space. There is always a place for "entry level" experiences, unless you're a crass elitist.

__________________
The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

Since the amounts of bartering is unknown except by Nasa it would be difficult to know what modules or pieces are still solely owned but if they were there would be no nations capable of paying for them.

So far the ISS and partners share of funding to build the station has not been equitable.

Then that leaves disconnecting the pieces and evicting the partners from them or sinking what is the US parts towhich the US still owns to the depths of the oceans as they have always done with what they deem is of no value.

I do not favor any of these...

That's why I say just give away the US share to the Russians and the other partners. Now that it's up there, most of the heavy lifting has been done. Heck, the Russians have been carrying the place for the last few years anyway ever since the last shuttle burned up.

Then channel scarce US resources into a new, lean and mean space station in a low inclination orbit. Because, as I understand it, the lunar missions call for two launches each: one for the crew, and one for the lunar lander and the transorbit injection stage. Thus it is essential for there to be a safe, comfortable place for astronauts to hole up in for a few months, if necessary, in case of delays, catastrophic rocket failures, etc. Recall that even if the damage to the heat shield on the Columbia had been detected, the astronauts would still have been SOL because there was no way to dock with the ISS because of the ISS's high inclination orbit. They just didn't have enough fuel to cover the delta v. So we need a low inclination station just to serve as a life boat, if for nothing else. But there's no way that's going to happen as long as the US remains entangled with the ISS.

It would be cheaper and simpler to return the crew to Earth and re-launch them at a later date.

Anything that damaged the Orion's heat-shield would either have destroyed the service module (which protects the heat-shield whilst the SM is connected to the command module), or would have happened after the SM had been jettisoned. In either case, you wouldn't be able to get to the lifeboat!

how much is NASA spending a year on the ISS?

According to wikipedia.org the ISS is scheduled to be shut down in 2017 in any case, and that NASA is planning to spend about 27 to 28 billion $US between now and then that coud be saved if NASA bailed out now.

In its entirety? The reality of things is that even when stopping a project, a part of future costs still will need to be spent.

__________________
To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Development costs, construction costs (you know, you did actually design and build the pieces you decided not to use, and the people who performed these services DO expect a paycheck). Then comes storages, scrap and disposal costs when you decide not to use them.

Everything costs, so we might as well put'em to use since we've got'em.

__________________
The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

Well, in that case, why scrap the place in 2017? B-52's are still flying after 50 years. Shouldn't we then try to get at least 50 years out of the ISS?

But then again, the main problem with the ISS is its orbital inclination, which makes it very expensive to interface with other manned projects in space. So if we're going to have space stations at all, maybe it would be best to build a new one in a low inclination orbit. If that means oxygen will be sucked from the ISS program, then so be it.

The ISS can be visited by soyuz, proton, shuttle, CEV... what's the big deal with reachability?

The station isn't designed to stay up until 2050, so it would become dangerous and/or very expensive to maintain if you'd want to do that.

__________________
To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

I doubt that the engineers who designed the B-52 figured it would still be flying in 2007. Space is a corrosion free environment, and there's little strain in free fall, so metal fatigue shouldn't be a problem. The main things that would wear out would be pumps, fans, and gyroscopes that might not be too hard to replace.

As for reachability, from whatever latitude you launch from, if you head dead east, your orbital inclination will equal the latitude you launched from (correct me if I'm wrong). So, if you launch from 51 degrees N (or S) latitude, reaching the ISS is no big deal. But if you launch from a much lower latitude (like at Cape Canaveral), it takes a lot of extra fuel to change the orbital inclination. That's why the Columbia space shuttle could not have reached the ISS, even if they had known about the heat shield damage--they didn't have enough fuel on board.

I'd say 20 years is about as much as you'll get out of the ISS. Maybe less, since some parts can't be delivered by shuttle any longer. Stuff just doesn't last forever in a hostile environment.

The B-52 isn't a real great example, since the only original parts still flying on the oldest ones are the airframes. They've been stripped and refitted repeatedly in the course of their operational life. Something not so easily accomplished in space.

__________________
The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

But you do have the potential for interior corrosion, exterior heating and cooling cycles, and radiation.
Launching from latitude to an inclination, and changing from one orbit to another, are two entirely different animals. The Columbia was a matter of different orbits between HST and ISS. You can also argue the HST is in the wrong orbit.

And; I don't have the math handy, but launching due east at 51 degrees VS launching at some inclination at a lower altitude is not simple and straight forward. The higher the latitude, the less rotational assistance, so they have some offsetting properties.

__________________
Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Space on the other hand, has radiation, micrometeoroids, outgassing...

The gyroscopes can only be replaced by the space shuttle, to be retired in a few years time. I know that changing orbital inclination requires more fuel, but apparently the ISS orbit doesn't require too much fuel in nominal conditions, as all current relevant craft can reach the ISS, and so will Orion. When it's already in a different orbit, chances are very high it won't be able to reach a station no matter what orbit the station is placed in.

As for a new station on an energetically better latitude as a safe harbour for Orion moon flights: as explained, when something goes wrong and you can't just go back to earth, you're in a situation that doesn't allow for going to the station (see the heat shield explanation a few posts above this one).

__________________
To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.