Two former space agency leaders called for the International Space Station to be preserved for future generations in an open letter published earlier this month. SpaceX is currently on the verge of abolish the station in 2030 in a controlled deorbit, a technical way of saying it will just happen crash the ISS into the ocean. NASA is paying Elon Musk’s private space company $843 million to carry out the tasks.
Former NASA Director Michael Griffin and former ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain believe the ISS should not be decommissioned because of the time and resources it would take. cast into its construction. The couple stated that the station cost $100 billion. Their open letter in Space News outlined their alternative:
As lifelong space professionals who have worked on the redesign, assembly and operations of the ISS from various positions at ESA and NASA, we fully share the goal of ending ISS operations by the end of the decade, but we believe that destroying it would be a pointless loss for the future. We propose instead to preserve the value of the ISS by placing it in a higher orbit, so that future generations can decide how best to use the 450 tonnes of hardware already in space. We believe that the ISS will provide the cheapest half kiloton of in-space resources that humanity will ever have access to.
More specifically, the idea would be to use SpaceX’s US Deorbit Vehicle to boost the ISS into a higher orbit. There’s no clear indication of what the station might be used for, but it wouldn’t be a decision of this generation to do so. NASA is moving forward with more ambitious goals for Gateway, the next space station. The new structure would orbit the moon and the Artemis program, NASA’s ongoing manned lunar exploration project.
The ISS may only have six years left to live, but they will not be without problems. There are two more astronauts currently stranded at the station in addition to the usual permanent contingent because Boeing’s newest spacecraft is riddled with bugs. The Starliner test crew will remain on the ISS until engineers on the ground analyze data, test fixes and are confident the craft can return safely to Earth.