Russia To Sink International Space Station In 2020

MOSCOW — A Russian space official said Wednesday that once the mammoth International Space Station is no longer needed it will be sent into the Pacific Ocean.

It's a plan that's long been in the works and is a step to avoid the station becoming dangerous space junk. It was supposed to plunge into the ocean as early as 2015. The U.S. recently extended its life until at least 2020, and there's been talk of keeping it going even longer.

Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of the Russian space agency, said the orbiting outpost will be destroyed in a controlled descent to Earth "so that there is no space junk left behind."

Russia sank its Mir space station in the Pacific in 2001 after 15 years in operation. Skylab, America's first space station, fell from orbit in 1979 after six years in space.

The International Space Station is the biggest orbiting outpost ever built and can sometimes be seen from the Earth with the naked eye. It's now big enough for six residents.

It now consists of more than a dozen modules built by the U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency.

Comments

[david25luvit]

06:45 AM on 09/21/2011

It seems like an awful lot of money to waste....destroying the I.S.S. And while its true we don't need anymore space junk floating in space around earth...we don't need any more garbage in the oceans either. Let's not forget how the Chinese deliberately crashed two satellites together and created another 5-10,000 pieces of space junk

There must be a better way of getting rid of or refurbishing the orbiting station. If the US, Japan, and Europeans have modules...maybe they could take over responsibility of the space station? 2020 is only nine years away! Hopefully by then the USA will have a replacement for the Shuttle!

[j12elliott]

07:51 PM on 09/19/2011

The enormous investment in the space station should at least make it usefull untill 2030 or 2040 with upgrades.

[Ramkshrestha]

06:09 AM on 08/02/2011

They could have better and cheaper option by that time.

[Forester]

12:40 PM on 07/31/2011

A pointless and expensive political boondoggle that will now dump more trash into our oceans.

Obviously the "No Action" alternative (i.e., no boondoggle) was never considered politically acceptable.

The height of delusion and hubris is to pretend that there is a way to "escape" Earth with space travel after thoroughly trashing our own habitat. Just a little bit of galactic scale would make this obvious to even the most emotional fantasizer.

I challenge anyone here to offer up a valid cost/benefit analysis of this ridiculous waste of resources.

[Vuittondon13]

10:04 PM on 07/30/2011

What a waste LOL

[indogwetrust]

11:57 AM on 07/30/2011

This seems incredibly short sighted. We have an orbiting outpost! Let me repeat that. We have an orbiting outpost that took 14 years to build. Dumping it into the ocean makes no sense at all. We should build on it and improve it. Sure decommision pieces as they grow old but add new ones.

Its incredibly more expensive to start over.

It's like building a house. You don't burn it down because its already a few years old. You renovate, add to it. You already have the infrastructure in place.

[jt1980]

06:07 PM on 07/30/2011

Unfortunately the wear and tear on a spacecraft is much more extensive than the wear and tear on a typical house. A spacecraft is also more like a naval ship than a house. After extensive voyages, most ships are decommissioned and sent to the junkyard as it's economically no longer feasible to retool the ship anymore.

[mamacat]

06:57 AM on 08/02/2011

USS Missouri has been around since WW II, and it gets taken out of mothballs whenever a portable gun platform is needed.

B52s have been in operation for 50 years, and still getting repaired, and flown.

A few DC3s still around.

Seems to me the cost of keeping it in orbit and repaired might be a lot less than the cost of building a new one.

[palindrom]

12:13 PM on 07/31/2011

And what, exactly, are you going to do with the outpost in space, aside from having people live there and maintain it? It just goes around, and around, and around, only a few hundred miles up -- you could drive there in a day, if you could drive straight up.

[Maichel Boulis]

02:59 AM on 07/30/2011

good news.... but china's sapce station will go into orbit in 2020

http://www.bignewsarticles.com

[GaddafismyHero]

11:15 PM on 07/29/2011

Don't be Sad China's Space station will go into orbit in 2020.

[Craig 212]

11:52 AM on 07/31/2011

I guess it'll be up to China to further the species, then, since our only long-term chances of avoiding extinction are to take to the stars.

So much for the American legacy.

[palindrom]

12:14 PM on 07/31/2011

Low earth orbit is hardly 'the stars".

[Bob ONeal]

07:51 PM on 07/29/2011

I think there is something very wrong with de-orbiting what it cost $10,000/pound to put into orbit. At very least an Ion engin could be attached to the ISS to boost it into high Earth orbit, or to a stable orbit between Earth and Mars. It could be shut down cold and left to orbit as a Solar System artifact like so many other spent rocket boosters and dead interplanetary probes so that 1,000 years from now it could be studied as an antroplogical artifact of the first primitive human exploration of space. Why not? Let's leave something for furture generations like the Egyptians did with the pyramids. Dumping it in the Ocean is the least imaginative idea possible and not worthy of the human race that created such a marvelous machine.

[palindrom]

12:15 PM on 07/31/2011

Well, your plan would cost a fortune -- ion engines develop a few pounds of thrust, and the ISS is enormous -- and have essentially no immediate benefit.

[kndam72]

03:33 PM on 09/19/2011

all good ideas, and as to money, it is entirely relative as to what it would cost
I would put it on orbit around the moon

[Imzadi]

06:10 PM on 07/29/2011

I can't even begin to tell you how much this breaks my heart.

[Ian Matteson]

06:15 PM on 07/29/2011

Why? It's reached the end of its mission profile and operational lifespan. Maintaining it takes resources away from developing the next generation of station.

[ctubbs70]

03:55 PM on 07/29/2011

Doesn't seem like a big bang for the buck - don't know the exact cost - to me it seems like a short useful life for a project the magnitude of the ISS.

And, since the orbit around earth as already crammed with space junk (humans figured out a way to trash even space), polluting our oceans further sounds like the logical thing to do.

[InYourWorld]

04:59 PM on 07/29/2011

most of it would be burned in the atmosphere upon entry.

[Ian Matteson]

06:11 PM on 07/29/2011

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090029998_2009030907.pdf

Given its long list of accomplishments, its definitely a good bank for the buck. Its an experimental series of tin cans orbiting at 17,000 miles per hour. It wasn't designed to last forever, just long enough to learn what we needed from it.

[Arthur Brown]

03:50 PM on 07/29/2011

Misleading headline. It's not Russia's decision to make.

[mamacat]

07:02 AM on 08/02/2011

If Russia pulled out right now, it would create a lot of problems, since most of the transportation to and from the ISS is accomplished using Russian rockets and spacecraft.
Maybe, just maybe, in the near future there will be something practical available to replace the Russian space taxis.

[cynicalmatt]

11:29 AM on 07/29/2011

I would love to see it crash. When it happens I hope someone video tapes it.

[Jase Hawk]

11:27 AM on 07/29/2011

I hate to burst the bubble of those who dreamed of a Star Trek utopia in the future, but it was not and is not going to happen. NASA is a front in the first place, and they could trash it tomorrow and it will not make a difference.

[SavageLeto]

04:36 PM on 07/29/2011

Spoken like a true Luddite.

[Imzadi]

06:12 PM on 07/29/2011

I'm surprised you mastered the email machine.

[Lee Gifford]

10:28 AM on 07/29/2011

maybe instead of ending the shuttle program and only focusing on getting to mars... maybe we should focus on getting back to the moon and harvesting the resources their and building spacecraft on the moon where their is less gravity to deal with and we could possible make NASA have the potential to make a profit in the long term come up with better ideals to keep costs lower like a safer rocket instead of the shuttle (like the apollo missions) and then lets make a permanate base on the moon and use the moon resources to expand the base and build it bigger and bigger and we could create a entire city and would make the demand for space-cars and would really encourge us to develop our solar system.... althogh the greys probly dont like that ideal... to much space traffic and trash and crime would head their way haha

[SouthStJo]

02:58 PM on 07/29/2011

make it sound so easy....that less gravity is not going to make things more easy....considering you are talking about mining in a place that is covered in dust made out of tiny shards with sharp hooks which will be flying all over the place and no air buffering.

The technology to actually harvest resources on the moon, much less build 'moon cities", is a long way off right now

[Lee Gifford]

09:42 AM on 07/30/2011

"long way off" I would agree however the planning and building of the International Space Station took at least 10 years to build plus planning and many goverments to assist in building, researching, and putting into space, and maintaining its current usability.... 50 years ago if you were to tell an American that 50 years from now their would be a "hotel" in orbit... would they believe that such a thing would exist!... (I say hotel because of one of the three private space companies is planning on permitting people to have an extended stay once they are able to shuttle people back and forth... its possible to turn the moon into a city of life and have it be a hub for construction and building in space it has the resources to build we would need to plan and research and invest to get it going which may take 10 to 40 years before any construction on building a construction yard on the moon could start! we may be decades away but just like the ISS it takes time and planning and we should start on that instead of just playing with rocks.. (yes I know valuable research) while we could build a self sustaining city with our researchs playing with rocks at the same time...