Continued...
ISS has been a "dog and pony show" from then on... US science objectives, both on SSF and its successor ISS, have been continually downsized from the very beginning. In the wake of the Columbia disaster and the decision to retire the shuttles at the end of the ISS construction phase (which began in 1998 with the launch of the Russian Zarya module aboard Proton and the linking up of the US "Unity" node launched by Shuttle, and was deemed "complete" 13 years later with the last shuttle flight in 2011, after it became clear the shuttle program limitations and funding problems would leave a number of planned-for modules "in the parking lot"). The SSF and ISS were designed around the shuttle's capabilities, with the intention of the shuttle being the (sole) launch, construction, crew rotation, and resupply vehicle. With the Russian agreement to come on board the ISS program, they brought their Progress resupply vehicle capabilities in with their part of the program. Shuttle was to be the main construction, crew rotation, and resupply capability for the US/IP (international partners, in this case the Japanese and Europeans, specifically) part of the program. In the wake of Columbia, however, the additional services of resupply vehicles from the EU and Japan, the ATV and HTV respectively, launching aboard their Ariane V and H-IIA vehicles, respectively, became extremely important to the continuation of the ISS, with shuttle's lifetime dwindling and being mostly dedicated to finishing construction of ISS. The Russian Progress capabilities also became far more important, as did the Russian crew launch and return capabilities-- the US efforts to develop a "crew return vehicle" (CRV) "lifeboat" for ISS had been canceled years before, and nothing had really replaced it. To provide additional supply services in the wind-down and subsequent to the retirement of shuttle, NASA got approval for the COTS program, which helped bootstrap efforts for commercial space providers to provide an independent COMMERCIAL resupply capability outside NASA, which has come down to Orbital Science Corporation's Antares rocket and Cygnus resupply vehicle, and the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule.
Originally, the US planned to have a minimal stand-down post shuttle-retirement until it began launching its own astronaut crews to ISS aboard the Orion spacecraft, launched by the Ares I rocket. As the Constellation Program jumped off the tracks and development of Ares I became more and more problematical and expensive and the schedule overruns became obvious, and Orion became mired in much the same difficulties (many of which were induced by problems with Ares I), and the costs of Orion flights ballooned to the point it was obvious that it would be too expensive for crew rotation and "lifeboat" capabilities for ISS, and with the subsequent cancellation of the Constellation Program, ISS crew rotation fell "indefinitely" upon the shoulders of the Russian partners and their Soyuz vehicles. The US began a halfhearted (and perpetually underfunded by Congress, who wants to reward their political pork-barrel lobbying big-aerospace contractor buddies, not upstarts like SpaceX and others) program to develop commercial crew capabilities for launching astronauts to ISS, much like the commercial resupply contracts. These efforts are still ongoing-- neither NASA nor their masters in Congress seem to put much priority on the program, or else they'd have funded the thing at the higher levels the Administration has proposed funding it at pretty much all along. Constellation, before it was canceled, had originally proposed having the capability to send astronauts aboard Orion to ISS by 2014. By the time it was canceled in 2010, that had slipped to 2017 at the earliest, more likely 2018. Currently, Commercial Crew program plans state they should be able to send astronauts to ISS by 2017. That remains to be seen however... even the COTS program experienced delays in the beginnings of operations past the original planned-for dates.
The COTS program itself isn't immune from Russian involvement, either. While the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is powered by SpaceX's US designed and built Merlin rocket engines, the Orbital Sciences (OSC) Antares rocket launching their Cygnus spacecraft is powered by refurbished, modernized versions of the Soviet NK-33 kerosene rocket engines originally built for their massive failed N-1 moon rocket program in the late 60's/early 70's. Rights to these engines were bought by OSC and Aerojet, which will be producing the engines for OSC as renamed "AJ-500" engines, with a possible upgrade engine planned as the "AJ-1000" having higher thrust. The OSC rocket is also a "one trick pony" in that it's designed very much around meeting the specific requirements of the COTS contract, and ill-suited to other uses... it uses a pair of the NK-33 derivative kerosene engines on the first stage, a solid propellant upper stage built by ATK (which is highly inefficient from a performance standpoint-- solid propellants with their extreme weight, heavy casings (dry weight), and low-specific impulse propellants are exactly the opposite of what you want for optimized performance of a rocket upper stage-- minimum dry weight possible and highest ISP performance from the propellants possible, which is why hydrogen is the propellant of choice for upper stages). Also, the Cygnus is essentially a pressurized tin-can, designed to deliver cargo to the station and then burn up in the atmosphere, where the SpaceX Dragon is designed to reenter and be recovered and eventually for reuse. Dragon and Soyuz are the ONLY vehicles capable of returning anything from ISS to the ground, and space is extremely limited on Soyuz due to crew requirements. Everything else is designed to burn up upon reentry (Cygnus, Progress, ATV, and HTV).
ISS originally was planned to have a crew of 7 astronauts working on the station, with periodic visits by shuttles expanding that to 14 during the shuttle's roughly 2 week stay at the station. With the cancellation of the US CRV "lifeboat" for ISS, and subsequent retirement of shuttle, the ISS crew capability has dwindled to three. It was hoped that Orion would allow for 6 astronauts on ISS, staying docked to ISS to provide a lifeboat capability, but Orion's problems and expense have ruled it out of the ISS program altogether. Most of the astronaut's time aboard ISS now is spent maintaining the station and servicing its systems, with maybe a couple or three hours a day actually dedicated to scientific experimentation, and most of that is tending experiments that, for the most part, COULD have been designed to operate remotely or autonomously on unmanned spacecraft. Very little research is actually conducted that absolutely REQUIRES the presence or participation of humans in-situ, of all the research that is conducted aboard ISS. Much of the research being conducted is specifically aimed at "health effects of long-term human exposure to the microgravity space environment" and such, which the Russians have been conducting more or less continuously since the early 1970's... (Of course the US space medical establishment within NASA has pretty much totally dismissed the value of this Soviet "research" due to the antiquated and Byzantine and haphazard way in which the Soviets and Russians have conducted their medical research; their materials and methods usually "contaminated the data" to the point of rendering the data and findings worthless to US scientific interests and purposes).
The ISS program seems now, just like shuttle before it, to have become the "main driver" of the US space program, and its "main reason for existence". NASA's former Administrator during the Constellation Program, Mike Griffin, had planned for NASA to end its involvement in the ISS program after 2016, in order to free up funding currently tied up sustaining the ISS program for development of the Ares V and other "exploration systems" that would be required for the return to the "Moon, Mars, and Beyond" called for in Bush II's VSE... The outcry from the "international partners" (IP's) at these US "unilateral" plans to pull out of ISS in the mid-teens caused Congress to shoot down those plans, rendering the Constellation Program completely untenable anyway. The US space program has now become "trapped" in the ISS program-- it's become the "main reason for existence" of the entire US manned space program-- much like the shuttle was before it. ISS was designed around shuttle, in fact to REQUIRE the shuttle to launch its modules and help construct it at the very least, in large part to give the shuttle program "something to do" and require it be maintained to perform its essential functions for ISS. The two became entwined and co-dependent. Just as NASA became totally dependent on keeping the shuttle going, to keep the workforce and contractors and others with a vested interest in the 'status quo' happy, even though the shuttle had basically outlived its usefulness and should have been replaced (although designing ISS to REQUIRE shuttle for construction gave it a "requirement" to exist throughout the rest of the 90's and the first decade of the 2000's, and would have continued to do so until at least 2020, per the NASA plans in place before Columbia essentially "forced" Shuttle's retirement in 2011). In the same manner, ISS now holds the US program hostage... there are too many "vested interests" in the US, and especially in the IP's programs, all of which want the ISS to continue to "keep the gravy train rolling" and "get the most out of their 'investment' in ISS" to allow it to be shut down. Likewise, the US has NEVER had the money to develop a new "replacement" program for an existing one (properly) while conducting operations of the existing program... Shuttle wasn't begun in earnest until the Apollo missions were largely paid for and complete, and the hardware bought and paid for and put into storage for the remaining Apollo missions (the Skylab flights and ASTP), and during the Shuttle era a LONG chain of canceled programs designed to replace or augment Shuttle litter the roadsides of its history... So it is with ISS... Just as we could not afford to design and build a replacement for the Shuttle so long as shuttle was flying (Ares I threw another log onto that fire), neither can we afford to "do" anything in space *BUT* ISS so long as the ISS program is still operating. That was a fundamental requirement of the Constellation "pay as you go" program, and it still remains so today. ISS absorbs about $300 million a year in operations (IIRC-- been awhile since I read that) and that's money that's NOT available for "exploration" missions, hardware or module development, rocket stage development, etc., all of which is REQUIRED before we can do any MEANINGFUL exploration missions beyond either 1) test flights or 2) ridiculous stunts (like this 'asteroid retrieval mission' nonsense).
It's just that simple. We can EITHER have an exploration program, or an ISS program-- NOT BOTH. Because of the vested interests here and abroad, ISS is likely to become just like shuttle-- the "program du jour", for all intents, *permanently*, until its abandonment is *FORCED* by outside influences... Remember the Russians continued Mir far beyond the point where it really made any sense to do so, because of "national pride". ISS has soaked up well over $100 billion dollars in US space program funding since its inception... likely to be well over $200 billion before it ends. That "sunk cost" argument will likely keep it alive and going well beyond the point where it is actually of ANY scientific or experiential value to the US OR the IP's, simply due to "program inertia", again, just like shuttle. Had Columbia not disintegrated over Texas on reentry in early 2003, and had no other shuttle been lost subsequently to that (highly likely one would have-- it was just a matter of time), NASA would STILL be operating shuttles with NO plans to retire them or replace them til at least 2020... those were the EXISTING plans prior to the Columbia disaster... Similarly, we see the same pattern being repeated again and again with ISS... first ISS was to be retired in 2020, recently it was extended to 2024, and serious talk is already afoot to continue it to 2028-- at least, until this recent Russian proclamations of their intent to "pull out of ISS" in 2020...
Actually, that's probably the BEST thing that could happen. By 2020, ISS will have been in orbit, at least the Russian modules and "Unity", for *TWENTY-TWO YEARS*... Mir was first launched in 1986, and was falling apart by 2000 when it was deorbited-- a mere FOURTEEN YEARS after it was launched. Granted, "lessons learned" were applied and improvements made on Zarya and Zvezda, but still NOTHING LASTS FOREVER. Basically, by the time of the Shuttle/Mir program, the Mir was experiencing so many maintenance problems and breakdowns that MOST ALL of the Russian crew's time was spent just keeping the thing operational and habitable, and somewhat safe. Even the US "guest astronauts" were called upon to assist in maintenance operations, which caused considerable friction on the part of some of the US astronauts, who felt they were there for their OWN research programs, not to help the Russians keep the thing from falling apart. At SOME POINT, ISS is going to become the EXACT SAME WAY-- systems will grow old, start to fade, failures will become more commonplace and more severe, repairs required more frequently and become more complex, and habitability and safety will erode as capabilities and time dwindle. Most of the time of the three-astronaut crew will be taken up just keeping the station operable and somewhat safe and habitable-- precious little to virtually NO time will remain for conducting experiments or research beyond "man-tended" projects operating mostly autonomously, or requiring only infrequent periodic observations or participation. Heck, there's precious little time for research as it is-- IIRC it stands somewhere at about 15% of the actual work time on the station currently, and that's WITHOUT age-related station system failures and issues to deal with!
The other issue is, basically, the Russian proclamations are right... If the Russians pulled out of the ISS program tomorrow, and declared their intention to 'jettison' the remaining ISS "IP" modules (including the US modules) from "their" space station, they could, and we couldn't really do ANYTHING about it. The Russian modules CAN operate independently, and provide a core capability for a new space station to be constructed from additional modules launched by the Russians, Chinese, Europeans, Japanese, India, etc... if they so chose. Heck I could see negotiations with the Europeans and Japanese to keep their modules "attached" the "new Russian station" and merely jettison the US components, and the Russians offering a deal to the Chinese to dock their "Tiangong" ("Heavenly Palace") space station (or a successor to it) to the Russian modules to form an "ISS 2", freezing the US out... Heck even invite India to send up a module-- they've stated their intention to pursue manned spaceflight. Our modules are COMPETELY RELIANT upon the Russian modules for essential services-- the reverse is NOT true... the Russian modules CAN operate independently-- ours CANNOT. The US would have NO choice except abandon our US modules in orbit, left to tumble without power and eventually fall into an uncontrolled reentry and burn up somewhere on Earth... We cannot even maneuver or stabilize our modules without the Russian modules. We would have to power down our systems (since we rely on the station being stable to point the solar arrays at the Sun) and shut them down (which both the US and Russia maintain independent control over the systems in their modules, and we wouldn't simply "abandon them to the Russians" if they refused to launch any more of our astronauts... Perhaps our modules could be put in some sort of "deep hibernation" mode and then "cut loose" from ISS, and with a crash program, some sort of capability developed to create a "service module" for our part of ISS to dock with it and keep it alive until we could reconstitute it into a US station, or even an "international station" if the Europeans and Japanese wanted to continue their cooperation. It's basically a longshot, though... NASA doesn't do ANYTHING quickly anymore, and within months or possibly even weeks, the US segments of the station could prove irretrievably damaged due to cold, lack of power, lack of essential services, or tumbling out of control in an increasingly unstable and lowering orbit due to air drag, culminating in uncontrolled reentry.
THAT is the sad state we find ourselves in and will continue to find ourselves hostage to... what's that old saying?? "A capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with"... Very fitting...
Personally, I hope the Russians DO pull out of ISS in 2020... by that point, ISS will be 22 years old. Any real scientific contribution it will have made will have been realized by that point, if it ever will at all. It will be getting "long in the tooth" by that point, and if it's continued to 2024 or 2028 or 2030, at that point it will be either 26, 30, or 32 years old, respectively, and will be SURELY suffering the effects of old age ravaging its systems, and will be LONG past any point of real scientific contribution WORTH THE EXPENSE OF MAINTAINING IT... it will also become more expensive to maintain as these inevitable failures mount, hastening the day it made more sense to decommission it and deorbit it than to continue operating it, though without some outside influence, it will continue FAR, FAR beyond that point! In all likelihood, it will require some *outside* event to FORCE ISS to be decommissioned and deorbited... either getting holed by space junk, some sort of serious accident or serious system failure, or some serious political falling-out causing the withdrawal of the Russians or the US... It's unlikely that, barring any of those situations, that ISS will end "of it's own accord"-- Remember that even though the Russians were already hip-deep in ISS, they STILL argued to keep Mir alive and in orbit, even proposing moving it to ISS and joining it up with ISS... that national pride thing at work... even though Mir was FAR beyond the point of being "scientifically valuable" in terms of the maintenance costs to sustain the station and the program... (Plus, the US INSISTED that the Russians deorbit Mir; they saw it as a strong distraction and "money sink" from the ISS program (money which at that point was largely flowing from the US into the Russian space program to fund their "contribution" to the ISS-- the Russians couldn't even meet their own "obligations" to ISS development and deployment, instead relying on US cash infusions to fund their own funding shortfalls while they still spent part of the precious little money they did have on the aging Mir... The US also felt at that point that Mir would be more of a liability to ISS than an asset, given its safety and maintenance issues, and adding another bunch of Russian modules would make it more of "Russian" space station, than an "International" one, and make the US contribution look smaller, and argue for more "Russian control" over the station, something the US didn't want to happen...)
TBC... OL JR
