Americans, Russians and spacefarers from other countries have been working together aboard the International Space Station for a quarter-century. But the ISS is nearing the end of its operational life. What’s next for the space station, and what comes after it retires?
Following the ISS retirement in 2030, NASA expects to see the construction of “one or more commercial space stations,” said The Verge. Each station will be run by a private company “for profit and part of a thriving space economy.” NASA astronauts will use these stations as a platform for their work and further exploration of space. Two companies, Blue Origin and Starlab Space, are creating their own designs, while another, Axiom Space, is building modules to “begin life” attached to the ISS. The goal is ambitious, but also a gamble. Industry leaders still don’t know “whether there’s money to be made or not” in space, said The Verge.
Why is the ISS being retired?
The station is “showing its age,” said Florida Today. A recent report from NASA’s inspector general questioned whether it would be “safe or even affordable to operate past 2030,” or even if it can last that long. There is an air leak in a Russian module on the station, and space suits aboard the station have been malfunctioning. So NASA is making plans to “deorbit” the station, contracting with SpaceX to build a vehicle that will bring the station “over a remote part of Earth” in 2031.
There is debate about whether that’s a wise plan. Critics say crashing the ISS into an isolated part of the Pacific Ocean “could end up polluting Earth’s air and water,” said Space.com. Others say the effects will be negligible: Dumping the 400-ton ISS will be a “very minor contributor to ocean pollution” compared to the shipping and cargo that already sinks every year, said Luciano Anselmo of the Space Flight Dynamics Laboratory. But others argue for boosting the ISS to a higher orbit, Kevin Holden Platt said at Forbes. Up there, it could serve as a museum for “astrophysicists, astronauts and space aficionados not yet born.”
What happens after the ISS retires?
Space stations have for more than 50 years “been the preserve of nation-states,” said The Telegraph. That’s largely been a question of capabilities: National governments alone possessed the “billions of dollars of investment” and capability to make “dozens of rocket launches” that building a station requires. No longer. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has helped bring down launch costs, and now private companies are raising “billions of dollars in an effort to build future hubs” in space. Some of the entrepreneurs have literally lofty goals. One day “there will be more people living off Earth than on Earth,” predicted Max Haot, CEO of Vast, which hopes to launch a small station this year.
NASA, meanwhile, is looking beyond Earth orbit to the “moon and beyond,” said Mashable. America’s space agency is aiming to build a “permanent lunar presence” that could serve as a launch point for humanity’s first trip to Mars.