Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Sunday, May 28, 2023

What will replace the International Space Station?

What will replace the International Space Station?

The International Space Station has been ever-present in our lives for more than two decades. What will happen when we lose it in 2031?

The space station is dead. Long live the space station. In eight years, the International Space Station (ISS) – a bastion of global collaboration and human ability – will end. But that dramatic finale doesn't need to be a sombre occasion. Instead, it could herald an exciting future of human spaceflight that will hopefully already be underway.

The ISS project began in 1998 with the launch of Russia's Zarya module, the first component of the station. It has seen dozens of countries work together to build the largest human-built construction in space. Most notably, it heralded a partnership between two embittered foes – the US and Russia – following the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union.

"It was absolutely huge," says Wendy Cobb, a space policy expert from the US Air Force's School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. "It's really this great story of post-Cold War cooperation. Russia's space industry was in dire straits. This was an opportunity for the United States and Russia to open up this new era of working together."

The result has been a giant space station that would encompass a football field and weighs more than 400 tonnes, orbiting our planet at 18,000mph (28,980km/h), at a cost of at least $150bn (£120bn). It has been continuously occupied since its first crew arrived in November 2000. However, the station's hardware is ageing, so in 2031 it will be de-orbited, brought back through Earth's atmosphere and crashed into the ocean.

Construction of the ISS began in 1998, with the Russian-built Zarya module being the first component


Thousands of scientific experiments have been conducted on the ISS, across both the US and Russian side of the station, and in European and Japanese-built modules that were also attached. Research has included investigating diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, studying new states of matter, and developing ways to grow food in space such as lettuce and radishes.

Living and working on the station "was a fantastic experience," says Frank de Winne, an astronaut with the European Space Agency who visited the station twice, in 2002 and 2009. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience, to work in an international partnership and move humanity forwards."

Not everyone agrees the station has been such a success. Lord Martin Rees, the UK's Astronomer Royal, says the price has been too high for the scientific return alone. "It's certainly not been worthwhile just for pure science," he says. He suggests nations should focus more on robotic missions, such as the wildly successful James Webb Space Telescope or ongoing missions to Mars. "Sending people to space is hugely expensive," he says. "I think the future of human spaceflight is for billionaires and adventurers."

We could not have skipped the space station – Frank de Winne


However, rather than research, some argue the station's main accomplishment was solidifying humanity as a space-faring species. Prior to its launch we had dipped our toes into long-duration spaceflight, with Russian cosmonauts spending upwards of a year on their Mir space station, but the ISS has been on another level, says Laura Forczyk, a space analyst at the US consulting firm Astralytical. "It changed our minds about what it means to be a space-faring civilisation," she says.

"We could not have skipped the space station," agrees de Winne. "There is so much that we have learned. It will be a sad day [when it is deorbited]."

Regardless, the end of the ISS will bring to an end an impressive display of human collaboration, one that has outlasted wars and conflicts on our planet. Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine has given the project its sternest test yet. While the collaboration has stood for the time being, such a partnership seems unlikely again in the near future. "The Russians are not going to be participating any longer," says Cathy Lewis, a space historian from the National Air and Space Museum in the US. "They've spoken about going their own way, and they will not be accepted given their invasion of Ukraine."

What will succeed the ISS is, however, already underway.

The money that Nasa saves from not having to pay for the ISS each year can go into other projects such as the Artemis programme


In Earth orbit, the hope is that new commercial space stations will take the place of the ISS. Nasa has already outsourced the transportation of humans to low Earth orbit to companies SpaceX and Boeing in the US. It has also begun awarding contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to companies to develop new space stations. These could become small research laboratories or destinations for space tourists, maintaining humanity's presence in orbit around our planet.

One of those companies, Axiom Space, has already been transporting paying astronauts on SpaceX rockets into orbit. In 2025, the company hopes to begin attaching modules to the ISS, which could eventually be detached to form its own station that could be rented out to paying customers. Not everyone is convinced by the idea. "I am really sceptical of the business cases there," says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard and Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in the US. "I'm just not convinced that you can run a profitable space station."

Nonetheless, Nasa and other ISS partners are eager to explore these opportunities. "We are very much in discussion with all these players," says Josef Aschbacher, the head of the European Space Agency (Esa). "We are very keen on finding a way to continue after the end of the ISS."

For Nasa, freeing up the $3bn (£2.4bn) spent on the ISS each year will allow the agency to pursue other human spaceflight goals, namely sending astronauts back to the Moon and, eventually, to Mars. The agency is now carrying out its Artemis program to return to the lunar surface. In 2024, four astronauts will fly around the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, with a return to the surface planned in 2025. "The station is expensive," says John Klein, a space policy expert at George Washington University in the US. "They're trying to move off with the Artemis programme."

Nasa also wants to build a new space station near the moon, known as the Lunar Gateway, with the help of international partners. Construction could begin later this decade. While it won't match the size of scale of the ISS, it could become a key part of future human spaceflight to the Moon and beyond, acting as an outpost for astronauts travelling to and from the Moon.

The ISS is the most expensive object humanity has ever produced – and few want to crash the entire thing into the ocean


Finally, there is the possibility that the ISS will not be completely destroyed. Some companies worry that deorbiting the entire station would be a waste, and that some of its modules and resources could be repurposed or reused in space. Nasa has not yet said it is open to such ideas, but it could change its mind as the deadline to deorbit the ISS approaches.

"Nobody who's involved in space that I've encountered really wants to just drop it in the ocean," says Gary Calnan, the CEO of CisLunar Industries in the US. In late 2022, CisLunar and several other companies presented a proposal to the White House to reuse aspects of the station, such as melting down some of its metal or repurposing some of its modules. Calnan says the White House was receptive. "They liked the idea," he says. "It fits with the politics of the current administration to reuse and have a circular economy."

One way or another, the ISS project will come to an end in 2031, whether that's in a fiery inferno or dismantling the station for other uses. In its place might be other smaller space stations ready and waiting to continue humanity's presence in Earth orbit, with astronauts further afield setting boots on the Moon. The ISS will leave behind an impressive legacy, but perhaps in the annals of history it will be just the beginning.

"It leaves behind this notion that despite our obsession with nationalism and borders, we are capable of cooperating," says Lewis. "We can do this. We can share in the riches."

Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
Close
0:00
0:00
Pfizer, the EU, and disappearing ink - Smoke, Mirrors, and the Billion-Dose Pfizer Vaccine Deal: EU's 'Open Secret
The Sussexes' Royal Rebound: Could Harry and Meghan Markle Return to the UK?
A provocative study suggests: Left-Wing Extremism and its Unsettling Connection to Psychopathy and Narcissism
France Arrests 10 on Suspicion of Failing to Respond in Time to Migrant Drowning
Neuralink Receives FDA Approval for First-in-Human Clinical Study
Is Saudi Arabia the holiest place in the world? Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions from "The Mount Sinai Stand" Discovered in Saudi Arabia
Ukrainian Intelligence Official Admits to Assassination Attempts on Putin
WATCH THIS: democracy in Russia is so bad!
Saudi Arabia and Canada Restore Diplomatic Relations
Bernard Arnault Loses $11.2 Billion in One Day as Investors Fear Slowdown in US Growth Will Reduce Demand for Luxury Products
Russian’s Wagner Group leader: “I am not a chef, I am a butcher. Russia is in danger of a revolution like in 1917.”
TikTok Sues Montana Over Law Banning the App
Ron DeSantis Jumps Into 2024 Presidential Race, Setting Up Showdown With Trump
Steve Jobs introducing Apple's iPhone, exactly 16 years ago.
Banking Behemoth vs Ex-Boss: The PMorgan-Epstein Entanglement
China overtakes Japan as world's top car exporter
Saudi Minister of Finance Mohammed Al-Jadaan on the importance of economic integration among Arab nations
Talks between US House Republicans and President Biden's Democratic administration on raising the federal government's $31.4tn debt ceiling have paused
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad received a warm welcome at an Arab summit in Jeddah
Biden Administration Eyeing High-Profile Visits to China: The Biden Administration is heating things up by looking into setting up a series of top-level visits to Beijing by top officials in the coming months
New evidence in special counsel probe may undercut Trump’s claim documents he took were automatically declassified
A French court of appeals confirmed former President Nicolas Sarkozy's three-year jail term for corruption and influence peddling
Debt Ceiling Crises Have Unleashed Political Chaos
Weibao Wang, a former software engineer at Apple, was charged with stealing trade secrets related to autonomous systems, including self-driving cars
Mobile phone giant Vodafone to cut 11,000 jobs globally over three years as new boss says its performance not good enough
Elon Musk compares George Soros to Magneto, the supervillain from the Marvel Comics series.
Warren Buffett Sells TSMC Shares Over Concerns About Taiwan's Stability
New Study Finds That Secondary Bacterial Pneumonia Is a Major Cause of Death in COVID-19 Patients Who Require Ventilator Assistance
Here are your top headlines for today, May 14, 2023
The official tapes of Trump's deposition in the E. Jean Carroll battery (rape) and defamation case have been released.
King Charles III being crowned.
Newly released video of Donald Trump’s rape trial deposition:
Video: Ukraine MP Punches Russian Representative At Global Meet
El Paso mayor has declared a state of emergency
Russia accused Ukraine of attacking the Kremlin with drones in an attempt to kill Putin
Dutch court orders man who fathered 550 kids to stop donating sperm
Kim Kardashian Lookalike Christina Ashten Dies Of Cardiac Arrest, Hours After Plastic Surgery
Samsung has banned employees from using generative AI services such as ChatGPT
'Godfather Of AI' Geoffrey Hinton Quits Google To Warn Of The Tech's Dangers
A Real woman
This Should Go Viral
Vermont Man Charged with Stalking After Secretly Tracking Woman with Apple AirTag
Elon Musk Statements About Tesla Autopilot Could Be 'Deepfakes,' Lawyers Claim. Judge Evette Pennypacker Does Not Understand How Far and Advanced This Technology Became
Ukraine More Prepared for Counterattack as Reinforcements Arrive
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Discuss Migration, Defence, and Ukraine
Tucker Carlson is back, soon!
China Unveils Construction Road Map for Lunar Research Station
AT&T's Successful Test of Satellite-Based Phone Call Raises Possibility of Widespread Coverage
CNN: "Joe Biden is asking for four more years — when 74% of Americans think the country is heading the wrong way“
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Cuts Short Live TV Interview Due to Health Issue
×