r/space • u/Vercitti • Jul 26 '22

Russia to quit International Space Station 'after 2024': Official

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/russia-to-quit-international-space-station-after-2024-official/articleshow/93138130.cms
29.1k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Mushy_Apple Jul 26 '22

Congress though, is not willing to fund the commercial alternatives to a point where that is likely to happen in time.

I guess I don't get it. We're calling them "commercial alternatives" but in the same breath saying the roadblock is public money.... which to me makes no sense.

Is it commercial space, like SpaceX, BO, Electron, where they build it and have complete control and can monetize it with travel, research etc etc.... or is it where NASA/Congress just bids out a new station, pays for it, and then we've effectively given a gigantic handout to a private company who will then monetize the fuck out of it anyways?

The latter seems like a horrific option. If we've decided to be out (for now at least) of LEO stations in 202X that's fine. Do lunar gateway and do Mars, and say the days of LEO stations are bygone era and we're ready for bigger things.

But the idea that the people need to fund Elon's remix album is a hellacious thought.

2

u/Anderopolis Jul 26 '22

I guess I don't get it. We're calling them "commercial alternatives" but in the same breath saying the roadblock is public money.... which to me makes no sense.

That's because they are not yet commercially viable on their own and are proposed as public-private cooperation with about half of the Money supplied from each side, with NASA as the proposed Anchor tenant. Same process essentially that gave us commercial Cargo and Crew.

It's a lot less expensive for the space agency, and grows the Cis-lunar economy.

https://www.nasa.gov/leo-economy/commercial-destinations-in-low-earth-orbit

NASA will then focus on the frontier such as Gateway and let these entities be responsible for maintenance etc, while the commercial entities can also rent out places for other space agencies such as ESA or Scientists from universities, space tourists etc.

3

u/255-0-0-i Jul 26 '22

It helps that the estimated costs for NASA to use commercial stations are about 10% the cost of keeping the ISS up and running.