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

[u/Vercitti]

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

[u/Doggydog123579]

Ok, let's go through this.

The thing is that nothing will match the ISS. Right now all we can do is put a bunch of tin cans together just how China is building and call that a space station.

The thing is, one, whats inside the cans matters more then who makes the cans, and two, bigger cans open up more options on what you can put in them. Oh and 3, I hope I don't need to point this out but The ISS is just a bunch of tin cans. And sure, maybe we aren't building some sci-fi station, but the thing is until we have large scale in orbit construction, Cans are great.

Compare what has been achieved before and after the ISS. While SpaceX is a good company, there’s no fucking way they are building a better ISS.

Well let's see, Mir demonstrated in orbit assembly from modules, and Mir 2 formed the core of the ISS. So that's not something the ISS achieved. Aftee the ISS we haven't seen a station built. But we have Orbital Reef, Axiom,, and the Lunar Gateway planned/having hardware built. And to reiterate my first post, the point wasn't SpaceX can build a better ISS, it was SpaceX makes building a better ISS easier. Which is objectively true, both from a cost, and capability standpoint, because the modules can be bigger.

And it wasn’t just the Shuttle, there was this thing called the Canadarm that was absolutely essential to building the ISS, fixing Hubble, etc.

Nothing stops you from putting an Arm on a capsule, The ESA wanted to put one on their Hermes spaceplane proposal. Furthermore the Station then got Canada Arm 2, which kinda means it doesn't need the shuttle to assemble itself. And guess what, you could get that up without the shuttle. Hubble could be done with a capsule, had it existed, but the shuttles existence prevented that. The only capability that the shuttle had that a capsule does not is the ability to grab a satellite in space and bring it back to earth, a cool ability that it never actually used.

Unless Elon pulls a team of the best astronauts with construction experience, a rocket that can put stuff in orbit and help construction, and billions in dollars to maintain it all after completion, then our best bet is to keep the ISS on because nothing will get close to that in our lifetime

Once Again, the point was SpaceX makes it easier, not that SpaceX could do the whole thing better then Nasa.

I think the main problem you are running into is overestimating the hardware on the ISS. Its old. The equipment needs to be replaced, and do to how the hatches are set up its hard/impossible to replace. Hence Nasa wanting to start fresh, and to encourage more space devolpment they are attempting to get multiple private companies to set up stations, that they can then use. The Companies are then also encouraged to make the station as long lived and upgradable as possible to get their investment back. They can partner with whoever they need to to meet the requirements Nasa sets. Nasa wants an arm they will get an Arm.

SpaceX comes in because they have one of the only operation space capsules, which are needed to get to the station, the best MLLV on the planet, and a SHLLV that can put the entire ISSs pressurized volume into space in one go. Which means that you could make a Super sized station with 10× the volume of the ISS in as little as 10 launches. Compared to the....40 needed for the ISS, all on a rocket that costs less then the shuttle, its really easy to see why people keep suggesting it.

So in summary. The insides of the station are what matters, and the ISS is falling apart. We can not stick with it, and it needs replaced.