Trump may end funding for ISS

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Mushtang said:
But again, what does it gain you to match velocities with something that's heading to Mars? Once you do that you're also going to be going to Mars even before you dock and move onto the Ferry. You won't save fuel, time, resources, or anything I can think of.
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The Cycler could be quite large by comparison to the vehicle in which you are arriving. Therefore the cycler could not only have more room, and lifeboats, but also sufficient shielding to protect you from cosmic rays, more robust communication equipment, life support, and all sorts of other things. Cargo resupply vehicles are not bound by annoying things like life support so they could launch most any time and ar regular intervals and take months to arrive with no problem so when humans arrived on the cycler they would find it fully fueled and supplied. Think of it as taking a motor launch from the dock to a cruise thip that was passing by off the coast. Yes, you have to match speed, but once there your trip will be safer and a LOT more comfortable.
 
It would be awesome if the space station could be acquired by a commercial non government organization. They government/ NASA should just be left with providing protection, and as a supervisory entity.


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A station should be viewed as a gas station in space providing a logistical resupply for helping to extend the range of manned and unmanned missions further out to the moon and beyond


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The Cycler could be set into rotation to provide artificial gravity. Large amounts of water could be used to provide radiation shielding. Electrolysis could be used to break down some of the water to make rocket proponents and oxygen for breathing.
 
markkoelsch said:
Just my opinion here. I think the ISS is not a great investment. What does it really accomplish? Sure, it is a place to go. Sure they run some experiments. Can these experiments be run in other ways cheaper?

I, in general, think that it accomplishes little compared to expense. I think the only good use would be to use it to build large craft in orbit, but alas it is not so equipped. I think it has largely served any real purpose it had.

Time to move on in my estimation. I think the objective should be a moon base as we have not done that yet.Rocketry Forum
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With the ISS, it's a matter of sunk costs and whether it's worthwhile possibly spending good money after bad. In other words, so much has been spent on it already that it would be a shame to just stop using it but, at the same time, is what we're getting from it worth the amount being spent to support it? I don't know. Somewhat like the SLS, it's hardware in search of a mission significant enough to justify its cost.
 
Again, politics aside, it looks likt Trump wants the ISS to become self-funding by becoming a commercial venture. I think I agree with this. It reduces the financial burden on the US, and allows it to keep operating. It's going to need to be replaced, but why not keep it going until we can better afford it. A counter argument might be that if we go down this path, we may *never* be able to afford to replace it.

Article in Sunday's WaPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...pace-station-into-a-commercially-run-venture/
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...pace-station-into-a-commercially-run-venture/
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The internal NASA document has scant details over how the privatization of the station would work. As it prepares a transition plan, the White House said it “will request market analysis and business plans from the commercial sector and solicit plans from commercial industry.”
...
It didn’t immediately propose what private enterprise might do with the station or what companies might take it over.
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I think I like it just about the way it is, for now.
 
Yeah, but they're still talking about 2025. The end has been discussed and planned before and then extended. I think that's already happened more than once. A lot can happen between now an then. Not the least of which will be two presidential elections.
 
If it’s a choice between the ISS and moving on to actual space exploration, like the moon, Mars, asteroids, etc. Then I’d enthusiastically say move on. But I think that’s probably a false choice.

The ISS is a pretty valuable asset. It has languished a bit since the shuttle retired, because it’s harder to keep it fully crewed and supplied. I feel like cheaper rockets like the Falcon 9 will make resupply easier. And when the commercial crew vehicles are finally available, it will be easier to maintain larger crews. I also think it would be possible to more cheaply grow the station by adding more modules with more affordable heavy lift rockets like the Falcon Heavy.

I doubt wheter commercial activities are going to going to be able to fund the ISS. The operating expense is pretty high for commercial activities to make up the difference. But if rides to space come down in price, you might have a lot more companies and countries willing to fund activities on the station.

Regarding boosting the ISS to lunar orbit, or a Mars-Earth cycler orbit — it’s not set up for that. It’s designed to operate in low earth orbit, and be within the protection of the Esrth’s magnetic field. The radiation environment outside that protective field would be too intense for it. We might want a lunar space station or a Mars cycler, but those should be built from scratch, not recycled from the ISS.
 
ThirstyBarbarian said:
If it’s a choice between the ISS and moving on to actual space exploration, like the moon, Mars, asteroids, etc. Then I’d enthusiastically say move on. But I think that’s probably a false choice.

The ISS is a pretty valuable asset. It has languished a bit since the shuttle retired, because it’s harder to keep it fully crewed and supplied. I feel like cheaper rockets like the Falcon 9 will make resupply easier. And when the commercial crew vehicles are finally available, it will be easier to maintain larger crews. I also think it would be possible to more cheaply grow the station by adding more modules with more affordable heavy lift rockets like the Falcon Heavy.

I doubt wheter commercial activities are going to going to be able to fund the ISS. The operating expense is pretty high for commercial activities to make up the difference. But if rides to space come down in price, you might have a lot more companies and countries willing to fund activities on the station.

Regarding boosting the ISS to lunar orbit, or a Mars-Earth cycler orbit — it’s not set up for that. It’s designed to operate in low earth orbit, and be within the protection of the Esrth’s magnetic field. The radiation environment outside that protective field would be too intense for it. We might want a lunar space station or a Mars cycler, but those should be built from scratch, not recycled from the ISS.
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I would think that the ISS could at least be boosted to a higher orbit (where the U.S. had wanted to build it in the first place) where it's orbit wouldn't degrade so quickly and less fuel would be needed.
 
Peartree said:
I would think that the ISS could at least be boosted to a higher orbit (where the U.S. had wanted to build it in the first place) where it's orbit wouldn't degrade so quickly and less fuel would be needed.
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Maybe so. I just know it's not suited to "deep space".
 
I WOULD NOT MIND SCRAPING THE ISS IN FAVOR IF WE RETURN TO THE MOON IN THE NEXT 5 YEARS TO BUILD A BASE AND THEN TO MARS 5-10 YEARS AFTER THAT. ITS A HEALTHY TRADE.
 
ColumbiaNX01 said:
I WOULD NOT MIND SCRAPING THE ISS IN FAVOR IF WE RETURN TO THE MOON IN THE NEXT 5 YEARS TO BUILD A BASE AND THEN TO MARS 5-10 YEARS AFTER THAT. ITS A HEALTHY TRADE.
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I’d make that trade too, but unfortunately, I don’t think that trade is actually on the table.

WHY THE ALL-CAPS?!?!?!
 
ThirstyBarbarian said:
I’d make that trade too, but unfortunately, I don’t think that trade is actually on the table.
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According to the dead trees on the kitchen counter, what's on the table right now is:
NASA gets a 1-2 year 5% bump in spending, then the budget goes back to a hair lower than it is now for the foreseeable future
ISS goes off the NASA dime in 2024 or 2025

That means no moon base. There is no way in hell that a moon base gets designed and built on that 5% spending bump for two years. After that, they're back to the current budget of launching SLS a couple of times a decade. Even if you take the $3-$4B that NASA spends on the ISS every year off the table, it's not going to build and resupply a moon base. Mars is totally unthinkable under the current budget.

So the current offer is no ISS, no moon base, and no Mars base. What a deal.
 
boatgeek said:
According to the dead trees on the kitchen counter, what's on the table right now is:
NASA gets a 1-2 year 5% bump in spending, then the budget goes back to a hair lower than it is now for the foreseeable future
ISS goes off the NASA dime in 2024 or 2025

That means no moon base. There is no way in hell that a moon base gets designed and built on that 5% spending bump for two years. After that, they're back to the current budget of launching SLS a couple of times a decade. Even if you take the $3-$4B that NASA spends on the ISS every year off the table, it's not going to build and resupply a moon base. Mars is totally unthinkable under the current budget.

So the current offer is no ISS, no moon base, and no Mars base. What a deal.
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That’s what I’m seeing too. The administration says it wants to go to the Moon, but there’s no money and no plan, so it’s not going to happen during this administration.
 
I am from Oklahoma. If Jim Bridinstine gets to become the Admin of NASA I will be encouraged. An outside person of the space program to be the lead of NASA is a good thing. Fresh face, fresh look. Doesn't have any buddies in the space program.
 
Peartree said:
I would think that the ISS could at least be boosted to a higher orbit (where the U.S. had wanted to build it in the first place) where it's orbit wouldn't degrade so quickly and less fuel would be needed.
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The devil is in the physics. To get this to a higher orbit requires a fair amount of additional velocity. It also requires the ability to guide it there. So, motors attached to the structure to accelerate it. Maneuvering thruster with enough capacity to guide it. Additional question- was the ISS structurally designed to be boosted in his manner?


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markkoelsch said:
Additional question- was the ISS structurally designed to be boosted in his manner?


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I would think that's a definite... maybe. Although i am sure someone here can give a better answer, ISS already has thrusters (or it uses thrusters on the Russian resupply rocket?) that are used regularly to boost it back into it's intended orbit as it regularly decays due to atmospheric drag. As I understand it, ISS is in a much lower orbit than NASA wanted because the Russians couldn't easily reach a higher orbit due to the latitude if their Cosmodrome, or something. Because of the lower orbit, it is at the high end of the upper atmosphere and its orbit decays more rapidly than anyone would like so it has to continually be boosted back up. That is why it's such a big deal if regular resupply launches don't happen, because a lot of the resupply mass is fuel. So yeah, I *think* it's possible, but again, it may not be practical for a lot of other reasons of which I am ignorant.
 
That is the thing. The motors it has can provide a little additional velocity to correct the orbit.

It orbits at about 250 miles in altitude.

I think I might have it backwards though. At a higher orbit I think you need less velocity to maintain orbit, but you still need additional velocity to gain the altitude initially.


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ThirstyBarbarian said:
That’s what I’m seeing too. The administration says it wants to go to the Moon, but there’s no money and no plan, so it’s not going to happen during this administration.
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No money and no plan now = not during the next administration either. I suppose there might be a landing in the next admin (probably only possible on a Falcon Heavy), but certainly no base.

ColumbiaNX01 said:
I am from Oklahoma. If Jim Bridinstine gets to become the Admin of NASA I will be encouraged. An outside person of the space program to be the lead of NASA is a good thing. Fresh face, fresh look. Doesn't have any buddies in the space program.
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Again, lots of grand schemes but if nobody is willing to put serious money behind them, we ain't going anywhere. At least until your favorite bugaboo SpaceX actually takes tickets for travel to Mars, which may or may not be in my lifetime.
 
Steven said:
I think it's fine that we begin de-cluttering the NASA vaults that have kept us prisoners for over 40 years in low earth orbit. NASA needs to pull their collective heads out of their @ss and become more aggressive in their approach to visiting other celestial bodies. After the first two or three shuttles were launched, I got bored already. The novelty wore off quick. NASA is fast closing in on being stagnant for almost half a century now. That's TOO long puttering around in low earth orbit.
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While I do agree NASA could have done more, "novelty" also means increased risks for the astronauts. One has to establish a realistic plan to get to another planet. We already know the result of over optimistic missions such as Mars One.
 
Don't you need ISS as a place to assemble the vehicles that will go on to the moon and Mars?

Perhaps Mr. Musk will pick it up for a song, add modules, and turn it into Hotel LEO?
 
sooner.boomer said:
Again, politics aside, it looks likt Trump wants the ISS to become self-funding by becoming a commercial venture. I think I agree with this.
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vai-private-enterprise-can-never-lead-a-space-frontier-its-30834676.png
 
ColumbiaNX01 said:
I am from Oklahoma. If Jim Bridinstine gets to become the Admin of NASA I will be encouraged. An outside person of the space program to be the lead of NASA is a good thing. Fresh face, fresh look. Doesn't have any buddies in the space program.
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LOL. The only problem is that Bridenstine would get run off this board in 30 seconds on general knowledge and understanding of the space program. An unqualified and incompetent idiot. Another of the C-minus students from junior high science class who sat in the back of the room wiping boogers in girls’ hair. His only mission is to strip it down and sell it off.
 
markkoelsch said:
That is the thing. The motors it has can provide a little additional velocity to correct the orbit.

It orbits at about 250 miles in altitude.

I think I might have it backwards though. At a higher orbit I think you need less velocity to maintain orbit, but you still need additional velocity to gain the altitude initially.


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You’re right. It depends on if you’re talking about angular velocity or linear velocity. It requires greater linear velocity to attain a higher orbit, and the result is lower angular velocity.


Steve Shannon
 
markkoelsch said:
That is the thing. The motors it has can provide a little additional velocity to correct the orbit.

It orbits at about 250 miles in altitude.

I think I might have it backwards though. At a higher orbit I think you need less velocity to maintain orbit, but you still need additional velocity to gain the altitude initially.


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Orbital mechanics are a little weird. Your tangential speed decreases with orbital radius, but you increase your tangential speed to go into a higher orbit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget

The ISS has propulsion (on the Zvezda module ). It also uses the engines on docked spacecraft to execute orbital corrections. Practical considerations (like getting enough fuel up to the motors as it moves into higher orbit) aside, there is no reason the ISS could not be made co-orbital with the moon, or even out to Earth-Moon L2. It would just take a really long time at low acceleration.
 
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JStarStar said:
LOL. The only problem is that Bridenstine would get run off this board in 30 seconds on general knowledge and understanding of the space program. An unqualified and incompetent idiot. Another of the C-minus students from junior high science class who sat in the back of the room wiping boogers in girls’ hair. His only mission is to strip it down and sell it off.
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What a terrible thing to say about the guy. Do you know him personally? I dont but I have no reason to say anything bad about the guy.

Its time to cancel the ISS and move on going back to the moon. Why cant they build a ISS to orbit the moon or base on the moon?
 

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