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The International Space Station has been continuously inhabited for over 20 years now, serving as a peaceful collaboration between space-faring nations. But it’s a machine, and it’s getting old. In addition, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made things complicated. What’s the future for the ISS?
Show Notes | Transcript
Show Notes
What’s Up: Possible Meteor Outburst on May 31 (CosmoQuest)
Leonid fireballs dazzle sky-watchers (NASA)
Perseid meteor shower: All you need to know in 2022 (EarthSky)
International Space Station (NASA)
Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (NASA)
Will Russia leave the International Space Station? Not likely (Space.com)
Space Shuttle (NASA)
Dragon (SpaceX)
Russian team back on Earth after filming first movie in space (BBC News)
Russian Space Agency Tweets a Bizarre Video Showing the Russian Modules Detaching From ISS (Universe Today)
Russian cosmonauts find new cracks in ISS module (Reuters)
Astronauts Plug Leak On The International Space Station With The Help Of Floating Tea Leaves (Forbes)
Mir Space Station (NASA)
Boeing: Starliner CST-100 Reusable Spacecraft Capsule (Boeing)
Sunk Cost Fallacy (Economics Help)
The Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer Mission (NICER) (NASA Goddard)
Gateway (NASA)
Starship (SpaceX)
Space Launch System (SLS) (NASA)
Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) (NASA)
NASA Artemis (NASA)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
U.S. FAA delays SpaceX final environmental decision to June 13 (Reuters)
Russia will pull out of the International Space Station, space agency chief confirms (Live Science)
Russia Casts Doubt on Future Participation in International Space Station (Wall Street Journal)
VIDEO: The Future Of The International Space Station In Question (NBC News)
Head of Russia’s space program says sanctions could imperil future of space station (PBS Newshour)
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine jeopardizes the future of the International Space Station (PBS Newshour)
Transcript
(This is an automatically generated transcript)
Fraser Cain [00:01:34] Astronomy Cast. Episode 645 The Future of the International Space Station. Welcome to Astronomy Cast, our weekly fact space journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I’m Fraser Cain, I’m the publisher of Universe Today, and I’ve been a space and astronomy journalist for over 20 years. With me, as always, is Doctor Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the director of Cosmic Quest. Hey, how are you doing?
Pamela Gay [00:01:59] I’m doing well. How are you doing, Fraser?
Fraser Cain [00:02:02] Good. Very good. So how did your Tau Hercules experience go?
Pamela Gay [00:02:09] I got to see them. It was complicated by lightning bugs that created sheer chaos. Because it was sometimes hard to figure out. Was that a meteor or a lightning bug? But but we saw them, and at peak, we were seeing 1 to 3 per five minutes, which is pretty good. They were a lot fainter than the Leonids back in 1998, and that made me sad. But, I went camping at a dark site and I have no regrets. And somewhere in southern Illinois is a raccoon that stole an entire bratwurst.
Fraser Cain [00:02:48] And it’s gone, you raccoon. Yeah, we were clouded and rained out, so no luck. But there’s a few sucker holes, which I. But it also was dark. It gets dark very late here in the summer now, like, not until almost 11:00. And so, you know, it’s like a tiny little gaps in the cloud, but we couldn’t really see anything. And we were like. And I and I wasn’t seeing people freaking out on Twitter about it being a full on storm. So we we called it. But hopefully the Perseus will, will better entertain us.
Pamela Gay [00:03:21] There’s sadly too much moon. Too much moon.
Fraser Cain [00:03:24] Oh, is it about 11 year old? Well, yeah.
Pamela Gay [00:03:26] I have no idea. I may still go camping. May still go camping.
Fraser Cain [00:03:30] Speaking of things that you can see in the sky, the International Space Station has been continuously inhabited for over 20 years now, serving as a peaceful collaboration between space faring nations. But it’s a machine and it’s getting old. In addition, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made things complicated. What is the future for the ISS?
Pamela Gay [00:03:52] Yeah.
Fraser Cain [00:03:53] Where do we start? Okay, well, so let’s just talk about the sort of the history, a little bit of the history of the International Space Station. How did we get where we are today?
Pamela Gay [00:04:02] The International Space Station is more than just a collaboration between Russia and America. It is also done in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency, as well as Jaxa and of course, the European Space Agency. And between these five partners, we have not only built the largest thing to ever be created in low-Earth orbit, but have also begun to do some pretty exciting science in recent years and have created a platform for commercial endeavors ranging from the creation of movies to, well, Bigelow testing out one of their inflatable habitats that May 1st day go into a commercial space station.
Fraser Cain [00:04:50] So you’ve got all of this collaboration, and in more recent times, we’re seeing more of an acknowledgment and an integration of, I guess, commercial elements. Yeah, we saw the Axiom Space, the first for space tourists. Axiom space is going to be of building their own module to attach to the to the space station. So what what role is this playing in the future of the station?
Pamela Gay [00:05:19] It’s it’s going to be interesting. So commercial space is new but space tourism isn’t. It’s kind of been around as long as the International Space Station has been around. If you have enough money and you pay it to the Russians, they will happily fly you to outer space. What is new right now is there are commercial space companies here in the United States that are willing to also launch, you know, NASA was never willing to take that risk. And so as early as 2021, we had hints from Roscosmos that they were considering departing the International Space Station in 2024 when the current treaty ends. At the same time, other partners, including the Europeans, well, everyone. European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency, Jaxa, NASA, ESA, they all would like to see the International Space Station continue on until at least 2028 and preferably 2030. To make that happen, we have to find a way to fill the vacuum that hopefully won’t be literally made by the departure of Russia from the collaboration. And what makes this interesting is, Rogozin, the the director of Roscosmos, made the threat early in the Russian-Ukrainian war that they would just drop the International Space Station on the world and who would save the International Space Station? And Elon Musk was very, very quick to say space acts. Yeah, yeah. And and what this points to is a recognition that we don’t want to allow a gap in our capacity to have humans in space. That kind of a gap is very hard to really overcome. As we experienced in the gap between the space shuttle and Crew Dragon finally being certified. At the same time, you have commercial purpose now being shown for things like the International Space Station with the axiom mission with the movie was getting filmed there with all these, well, not necessarily scientific purposes that are getting helped. If they find a way to do it, then we could have a space station that goes on to 2030. The catch is that Russia has said that they would really like to develop either a national space station or a space station in collaboration with China, and they have literally threatened to take their toys and go home. By which I mean dis attaching their modules from the space station and flying off with them.
Fraser Cain [00:08:16] Right.
Pamela Gay [00:08:17] And this first module is the one that’s used to keep the ice in orbit.
Fraser Cain [00:08:23] All right. Before the break, we were talking about the the threats made by Rogozin, for the future of the ice. And, and he shared on Twitter this just insane video of of the cosmonauts, celebrating and then disconnecting them, their portion of the station, and then it just flying free to orbit the Earth on its own. Is that realistic? Could they detach and have a functioning space station?
Pamela Gay [00:08:56] It’s unclear. And the reason it’s unclear is the Russian modules. Some of them are quite old. They’re starting to show signs of their age. There have been cracks that had to be repaired. Air leaks and removing something from the International Space Station is not the most gentle of processes. So in theory, sure, they could do a whole lot of spacewalking and a whole lot of turning of wrenches, essentially, and this attach. But the question is, would what they have be able to survive the stress of the removal? Would they be able to launch new, solar panels that would be able to provide the kinds of power they need? And that’s a whole lot of ifs. It’s kind of like saying, let’s go take this engine out of an antique car and try and build a new car around this ancient engine instead of, well, starting with a new engine and an old shell.
Fraser Cain [00:10:11] And at a time when Russia is experiencing all kinds of embargoes on their ride, their high tech gear, they’re going to need to be able to launch rockets. They’re going to need to be able to get parts, say, for solar panels, things like that. We know that their oxygen, their carbon dioxide scrubbers are problematic. They’ve been having problems with their toilets. So and then that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, every single piece of machinery inside that station is undergoing wear and tear. We saw what happened with Mir. Yes. In the end of its life, that space station, although it was doing some great science, was being held together with duct tape and baling wire and, and and they’ve made the final decision that it’s time to dunk that station into the ocean. And the edge of their portion of the International Space Station is roughly the same age as Mir was when they decided it was time to to end its life. So. So I wonder, you know, and I’m sure somewhere people at NASA are seriously looking at it from their perspective. What if and as you said, you’ve got the Zvezda module that has propellants on board to help do station keeping, but also it’s the progress spacecraft that dock with the module that really provide the large amount of of the station keeping. So does does NASA have plans for doing station keeping if they can’t have the thrusters and the the Russian spacecraft to supply it?
Pamela Gay [00:11:42] This is a bit problematic. Some of the capsules that we’ve flown on Atlas rockets have the ability to do station keeping. The problem is, the rockets were relying on a combination of parts made in Russia and Ukraine. None of which we can get right now.
Fraser Cain [00:12:01] Right. Okay. So all right, the Starliner was the is the Boeing spacecraft. And this was recently tested. And it was able to dock with the space station. And this is the the other the redundancy for the United States to be able to launch astronauts. You got space and you got the Starliner. And the Starliner does have that boost capability, while the Crew Dragon doesn’t. But but it’s launching on Russian with on an Atlas rocket with Russian engines.
Pamela Gay [00:12:29] Yeah. But.
Fraser Cain [00:12:32] Right.
Pamela Gay [00:12:32] So so that’s slightly problematic. Yeah. Now the, the one limiting factor on the, space-x Dragon capsule is not being able to be used for lift is simply that their engines don’t have the maneuverability that is needed. And this is the kind of thing that can be fixed. And one of the questions that’s being asked is, is it faster to start figuring out how to reconfigure some of the US capsules to fly on Falcon, or is it faster to reconfigure the Dragon capsules to have the maneuverability of their engines that’s needed? And and I think in the next year or so, we’re probably going to be seeing some interesting awards being made to try and sort out my question. Now, the other side of this starts to become. Well. What are we dealing with in terms of sunk cost fallacy? We are spending a whole lot of money to try and maintain something that is beyond its life expectancy. That is likened to living in a boys locker room. And and parts are falling apart. It is finally just starting to do amazing science with things like the nicer instrument that’s on board and stuff like that. But at the same time, is it better to keep struggling to keep the same technology going? Or do we take and use it to rapid fire prototype things like the Bigelow inflatable module, the Axiom Technologies, and recognize that Russia doesn’t have to go it alone, and is making googly eyes at that Chinese space station. And China and Russia are still very close collaborators on a variety of different things. And it is not impossible to imagine that Russia departs the International Space Station in 2024, in such a way that we lose the International Space Station, and we right now are at that terrible point of not knowing what’s going to happen. So what future do you prepare for? No i.s.s. in 2024. So rapid fire prototyping needed. I that has to be boosted by U.S. technology, in which case a different form of rapid prototyping is needed. What do we do? We don’t know.
Fraser Cain [00:15:25] All right. So let’s explore some timelines then. Because you threw there all it’s a mess you think is the is the simple way to describe this. So let’s let’s let’s do the first let’s do the best possible timeline. What what would you in your mind would be the best possible version of the future of the International Space Station.
Pamela Gay [00:15:47] The best possible version of the future is all of the modules currently there are allowed to stay put. Stay put. there may need to be change of ownership. Would they stay put? And we keep the International Space Station going until 2030, when hopefully the deep space gateway is put in place and we start to see commercial endeavors in low Earth orbit. That timeline is one that I think is extraordinarily tight. It’s scarily tight.
Fraser Cain [00:16:24] Right. But but we’ve got, we’ve got the International Space Station until 2030. We’ve got the Lunar Gateway coming online. So we’ve got this platform that’s close to the moon. You’ve got commercial space stations plural maybe that are being launched, which NASA can then just buy. Storage space time shares use those for the scientific experiments and so in theory dramatically decrease their budget for for doing the kinds of experiments that they want to do, but still be able to fill out the science that they were doing, that they were that they were planning. The, the space station, I guess after 2030, what what would happen to the station? The station then?
Pamela Gay [00:17:08] Well, it’s going to be crashed into the Pacific Ocean as all good large mass space objects are. I that was always its end game. It can’t be boosted into a stable orbit. I hear folks talk periodically about let’s boost Hubble up into a parking orbit so that it can essentially be a museum item. And in space. It’s there is no possible way of that happening. It’s going to get dropped through the atmosphere. It is going to disintegrate in an almost amazing fireball, and some chunks will probably hit the ocean and hopefully not hit Australia.
Fraser Cain [00:17:48] Right. Yeah. They’ll, they’ll they’ll fire the rockets to bring it down into the spaceship graveyard in the Pacific Ocean. Just what happened with Mir and lots of other stations?
Pamela Gay [00:17:58] Yeah.
Fraser Cain [00:17:59] Parts of the station can be detached, like the the Axiom Space when they do their module. That could be detached with some of the newer modules of the station as well. So there’s still be some portion, there will still be a space station, just not the same size and shape up there. Okay. Well that sounds that sounds fine in that. Well, I mean like like it sounds heartbreaking to say goodbye to the International Space Station and your incentives, but what about the science? But then I, as I said, like there will be.
Pamela Gay [00:18:33] Places.
Fraser Cain [00:18:33] There will be new places. Yeah, exactly. The wee places to do the science of. Don’t worry. And then NASA can focus on the stuff that we want NASA to focus on. The solar system.
Pamela Gay [00:18:43] Hurtling.
Fraser Cain [00:18:44] Through the cosmos. That’s what we want. All right. So that’s the best possible timeline. So let’s talk about the worst possible timeline.
Pamela Gay [00:18:53] So the worst possible timeline is, Russia departs in 2024. They take their toys with them, and the rest of the world is left going. We don’t have working components to keep a stable platform in space. In that case, I think there’s going to be a whole lot of head scratching and scrambling. And right now, we have two giant question marks. And when I say giant, I mean many story high, heavy lift question marks. Right.
Fraser Cain [00:19:31] Starship sized question marks.
Pamela Gay [00:19:35] Yeah. So we have.
Fraser Cain [00:19:36] Celeste sized question marks.
Pamela Gay [00:19:38] Right. So, last night they took the, Artemus, S-Class out of the Vehicle Assembly Building, the VAB. They drove it out to the launch pad. And, part of our last episode of this season is going to be asking the question, did it launch? And and we are at this point where Artemus is Schrodinger’s rocket. Is it going to work? And even if it works, is Congress going to buy into what is the most expensive launch vehicle ever created?
Fraser Cain [00:20:18] Yes.
Pamela Gay [00:20:19] At the same time we have Starship under development down at Boca Chica. They’ve started building, launch facilities in Cape Canaveral as well. And the question becomes there, are they going to get the FAA and the environmental studies cleared to allow them to even try doing test?
Fraser Cain [00:20:40] And that doesn’t seem too far away now, like I’ve heard mid-June, those clearances should be had.
Pamela Gay [00:20:47] Yes. But are they going to be a yes or no? That’s a question.
Fraser Cain [00:20:50] Sure, sure. Yeah. But, but and at the same time, you know, all this additional time Starship is needed because it. Yeah, it wasn’t ready now and and who knows if it’s going to be ready even after the FAA clears it for launch.
Pamela Gay [00:21:05] They are testing engines like crazy people right now.
Fraser Cain [00:21:09] Yeah. So maybe by the year before we go into hiatus, we will be able to give you an answer on what happened with Starship and SLES. My gut says we won’t for either one.
Pamela Gay [00:21:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and so here we are without the knowledge of what kind of heavy lift capacity is the country going to have? We can’t say what is possible for a new space station. Yeah. Yesterday there was a release of basically the starships Pez dispenser where they showed it, just basically unloading satellite after satellite after satellite in the most insane kind of way. If we are able to essentially launch multistory buildings all at once into space, our capacity to put things easily into low-Earth orbit makes the idea of a new space station. Yeah, of course we’re going to have a new space.
Fraser Cain [00:22:10] Station, but even if Starship flies, we are years from it being a dependable launch vehicle that’s capable of launching modules designed to fit inside Starship, etc., etc. so it does not save you from a space station that is losing altitude without a way to boost itself back up.
Pamela Gay [00:22:33] No, this is true, but I think the boosting it back up problem is much more readily solvable. And if we know we will have a heavy lift vehicle, then we know we can build things that require a heavy lift vehicle. We are stuck using the the existing fleet of rockets that we have.
Fraser Cain [00:22:59] Yeah. So axiom is the one that is building the the inflatable space station that’s going to be attached to the space station, and that’s going to be the commercial module that then parts of the station will probably be detached with it, and that will serve as the new thing. So I guess what I’m hearing is the Russians will detach their station.
Pamela Gay [00:23:22] Hopefully not. But they could.
Fraser Cain [00:23:23] And they probably won’t be able to maintain it. And so it will crash and they’ll have to crash it into the ocean. Yeah, the US won’t have what they need, and they’ll probably have to crash their portion into the ocean. And so in the worst possible timeline in just a couple of years from now, we could see the space station be broken up. And then all the parts crashed into the ocean.
Pamela Gay [00:23:46] And axiom, which is not Bigelow, despite being called Bigelow repeatedly throughout this podcast. I am so sorry, axiom. They they are in some ways our final hope. You are our final hope. Axiom says the robot hologram.
Fraser Cain [00:24:05] Right? Well, you know what? We’re gonna just have to wait and see what happens. My guess this is just. My guess is that the Russians don’t take their toys and go home. They stick with it. They continue to do their part, even despite the the situation in Ukraine and the. And, you know, they’re able to maintain their professionalism and, and the whole station sort of stumbles through till about 2028 and then it and then it does come down.
Pamela Gay [00:24:39] So so here I’m going to disagree with you. I agree they aren’t going to take their toys and go home. I do think that we’ve been hearing the 2024 date from them long enough that 2024, they’re going to start working with the Chinese space station. I really think they’re just going to switch their allegiances. And and I hate to use the word allegiance, but because China isn’t allowed to be part of any collaborations with NASA, per congressional rules. Yeah, it’s it really is a us or them kind of international situation.
Fraser Cain [00:25:19] And China has been inviting lots of their nations to participate in their space station and have signed up lots of partners. But it’s not like they can detach the Russian modules and, and then link them up with the Chinese space station. It’s a completely different orbit.
Pamela Gay [00:25:35] Correct.
Fraser Cain [00:25:36] So so they would just be detaching their station and either trying to figure out a way to keep it going or crash it, and then they would have to launch modules that they’ve been building for the I.s.s.. There’s like one science module left, I think, and, and maybe launch that and dock that with the Chinese space station. So they’re going to have to spin up essentially from scratch again. And my feeling is, is that they can’t get their capabilities just been going downhill year after year after year.
Pamela Gay [00:26:05] I think they’re just going to basically walk out on the ice in 2024. Drop the keys out the window and say good luck folks. And then work on building new things with China. And
Fraser Cain [00:26:22] And I think my feeling is that they can’t build new things at this point. They are. Yeah. That, that they are both sort of starved for equipment and starved for people starved for money. Their capability as a spacefaring civilization has been on the decline for 20 years. And it’s true. And so I can’t imagine like, China is way beyond them at this point. So I can’t imagine that they’ll get to a place where they’ll be able to bring a lot useful to the table. But we will see. I guess we can mark this date and then see which of these timelines end up. Correct.
Pamela Gay [00:27:04] 2024 is is right around the corner, and we will be here to report on whatever the heck happens when it happens.
Fraser Cain [00:27:14] Thank you, Pamela.
Pamela Gay [00:27:16] And thank you, Fraser. And thank you to all the amazing folks out there on Patreon that allow us to have editors that make us sound so much smarter. On days like this, when I rename Axiom Bigelow over and over. Thank you so much for being out there, out there helping us with your donations through Patreon this week. I would like to specifically thank Helga Bjork, Tim Thomas, Abstract Mountain Goat, Jordan, Young, Bird Gowan, Steven White, Kevin Lyle, Jeanette Wenk, Bora Andre Loves Funk, Andrew Lester, Venkat Venkatesh, Chari, Brian Cagle, David Trog, the Giant, nothing of Aurora, lifer, David, Gerald Schweitzer, Will Hamilton, Buzz parsec, Ronald McCoy. J-f. Shout, KOCO’s Voice, Sheriff William Kraus, Laura Kettle, Sen, Robert Plasma, Jack Mudge, Les Howard, Joe. Holstein, Gordon doers, Frank, trippin, Alexis, Adam, a nice brown neuter dude Richard Drum, William Baker, zero, chill, Wanderer, M 101 and Felix Goot. Thank you all so much. You make the science flow.
Fraser Cain [00:28:40] Thanks everyone and we’ll see you next week.
Pamela Gay [00:28:42] Buh bye. Astronomy cast is a joint product of the Universe Today and the Planetary Science Institute. Astronomy cast is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license. So love it, share it, and remix it, but please credit it to our hosts, Fraser Cain and Doctor Pamela Gay. You can get more information on today’s show topic on our website. Astronomy. Cars.com. This episode was brought to you thanks to our generous patrons on Patreon. If you want to help keep the show going, please consider joining our community at Patreon.com Slash Astronomy Cast. Not only do you help us pay our producers a fair wage, you will also get special access to content right in your inbox and invites to online events. We are so grateful to all of you who have joined our Patreon community already. Anyways, keep looking up. This has been Astronomy Cast.