Russia to sink International Space Station in 2020

[vonGarvin]

The station is too big to be pushed up into high altitude (geosync or past that). Older people may recall that the whole third stage rocket of  the Saturn V booster was required just to let the LM, the Apollo capsule and the command module escape from earth's gravity. The space station is at least a hundred times bigger.

Not necessarily true.  Recall that the Saturn V was being pushed away from earth from a velocity of zero, and all that power was needed to overcome the intertia, which also included the mass of the rocket itself.
I hate referring to Wikipedia, but:

The first stage burned for about 2 minutes and 41 seconds, lifting the rocket to an altitude of 42 miles (68 km) and a speed of 6,164 miles per hour (9,920 km/h) and burning 2,000,000 kilograms (4,400,000 lb) of propellant.

And I know, that's just getting it started.  It then wasn't even in orbit. 

After S-IC separation, the S-II second stage burned for 6 minutes and propelled the craft to 109 miles (176 km) and 15,647 mph (25,182 km/h– 7.00 km/s), close to orbital velocity.

Two stages, velocity more easily understood in km/s vice km/h, but not quite in orbit.

The ISS is already in orbit, and it doesn't need to go to escape velocity, but yes, it would be a monumental task to get it to geosynchronous orbit.  That or the Lagrange point between here and the moon, if that's practicable at all.  (having read your post about "our friend" just now)

The advantage of putting something "up higher" is that there is already plenty of velocity, and using that velocity

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Just so we understand the lingo Technoviking: Nothing that is in orbit has reached "escape velocity". Escape velocity is the speed you need to achieve so that you leave Earth's orbit and travel away from Earth at such speed that its gravity will not bring you back into orbit around Earth.

In the Apollo flight, stage I and II rockets got the rest of the spacecraft at almost Earth orbit. Stage III was used for a short time (about 1/4 of its total burn time) to put itself and the LM/Command/Service modules into Earth orbit. At this point, its just like the I.S.S.

The crew then went through a couple of orbits while they  and flight control went through their checklists to make sure everything was ok and to position themselves right for translunar insertion.

They then ignited Stage III rocket again to burn the last 3/4 of its fuel. This is the acceleration that took the LM/Command/Service modules to escape velocity. But escape was achieved only because at the other end, the Moon's own gravity would pull the whole thing to itself. As soon as stage III rocket was discarded, the Earth's gravity started to slow the "Lunar train" down and it got very slow (in space relative terms) by the time it got close enough to the Moon to start being pulled more powerfully by it than by the earth. In fact, had there been no Moon, Apollo would not have had enough velocity to escape Earth. It would have slowed down to a relative speed of zero and then started to fall back down to Earth.

That is why the various probes we send out towards the other planets and even out of the Solar system are much smaller and sometimes require much greater speeds as they leave earth's orbit.

 

[vonGarvin]

Yep, I understand what you mean by "escape velocity".  I just mean pushing this thing into a higher orbit is all, still within the clutches of Mother Terra.  And I remember enough from my youth that it was a laborious process, in that whatever was done on one side of the orbit, the effect was seen on the other side.  And I do understand that it's much simpler to slow the thing down "a tad", thus bringing the far side of its trajectory around the earth into the earth itself, than it is to keep that thing "up there".

 

[Michael OLeary]

Can't we just sublet it through Craigslist? TV can be a Slum Spacelord.    ;D

 

[PMedMoe]

Can't we just sublet it through Craigslist? TV can be a Slum Spacelord Space Slumlord.    ;D

Fixed that for you. 

 

[opp550]

Knowing that these are Russians, I'm surprised that their solution wasn't simply nuke it.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Considering the cost to get it up there, I wonder if the cost of pushing it further out might pay off later as a source of materials for a later station?

I also wonder about having a "space tug" that could be sent up and remain in space and refueled there, docked to a station and used to collect old satellites and other tasks. Not having to re-enter the atmosphere removes a lot of requirements and a modular design would be needed to replace components as required.

With the continuing advances in 3D printing, It's possible that in the near future it will be better to manufacture components in space then ship them up, in which case you will need a source of raw materials and portion  of a space station designed for repair and manufacture. This in turn changes the dynamic of space exploration as currently done from an elite group to a more "blue collar" type of crew.

 

[vonGarvin]

Part of the problem of pushing it up higher is that it's not as simple as it may seem.  Consider its structure:

Pushing it in the middle, for example, would have to be rather gentle, because it would cause extreme stress on the parts away from the middle.  If more than one booster were afixed to it, they would have to be very carefully synchronised.  I imagine that it's fairly brittle, relatively speaking, and any attempt to move it would require the utmost care. 

Having said that, if all you want to do is to drop it in the ocean, well, who cares about the stress, so long as it doesn't rip apart into hundreds of "bits".

 

[a_majoor]

Several possible solutions exist if someone is willing to pay:

1. Send a ship like Soyuz or the upcoming SpaceX Dragon to dock with the ISS and provide a prolonged engine burn to place it in a higher orbit. This relatively simple and will extend the orbital life for a decade or so.

2. Send up an ion engine like the one used to propel the "Dawn" spacecraft to the asteroid Vesta. The ISS has some honking solar panels to provide power, and ion engines are good at providing long term thrust to boost the ISS to whatever orbit is desired. This is a bit more complex, but uses already developed technology.

3. Send up a nuclear thermal engine and boost the ISS to anyplace you like. NERVA was demonstrated in the 1960's and a flight ready article was actually assembled before the program was shut down. A NERVA type engine was revived in the 1980's under the designation TIMBERWIND as part of the SDI program, and it is quite possible that the program is still running quietly under some "Black" designation since nuclear thermal engines are quite small and powerful, and conceptually simple to boot. This would make the ISS a 800 ton interplanetary spaceship capable of going to Mars. The complexity level would be quite high (you would need to launch a radiation shield, the tankage and then the engine on three separate rockets due to the size and mass), but the end result would be the most versatile.

4. Sell the ISS to the Chinese or Indians. They are developing space technology comparable to early Soyuz/Apollo missions, which is quite capable of docking with the ISS and keeping it in orbit

5. Sell the ISS to private firms like Bigalow or SpaceX. SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Dragon space capsule are more than capable of reaching the ISS, delivering consumables and keeping the station in orbit. SpacX's cost structure potentially allows universities or aerospace corporations to buy flights to orbit. Bigalow is developing next generation space habs larger than the current ones attached to the ISS, that company could provide "hotel" like services for users willing to rent space for experiments or other activities (space tourism?).

 

[Sgt Pearce]

hey guys I'm just wondering, now dont get mad as this may seem video gamish, but why not use it to make a space dock? i mean really, if you ever looked over for example the In amber Clad or the Dawn, (halo) ships their design is rather simple and in such so are much of the weapon systems, not only that but if you made it a dock you could produce Ships not shuttles and in turn possably end this so called economy crisis as well as their tonnage is great enough to anything, would it not be easier to lift to geo sinc with a few of the NASA Shuttles and or some rockets on the sides to eliminate much of the stress? and one in Geo sinc, you have a dock to start building a Dry dock for Ships, as mentioned in a previous post, their is a Trojan asteroid just hanging, their are your materials could we not between the amount of crap floating around and this asteroid and the moon its self not start a Ship building program in space? i mean the nuclear reactors would be hard to get up their, how ever someone mentions a particle engine or something of the sort, that could work to provide the power. I dint think it should be crashed, it should be re purposed or scrapped, this will be a big waist to simply crash it, i mean how much fuel and money was spent to get this up and done, make a Dock out of it or something, find a usefull purpose, we need to take the next step, the jump from shuttles to ships.

To all who think my post is Gamerish, i just want you to think about were UAVs and other such cool things came from.

 

[canada94]

hey guys I'm just wondering, now dont get mad as this may seem video gamish, but why not use it to make a space dock? i mean really, if you ever looked over for example the In amber Clad or the Dawn, (halo) ships their design is rather simple and in such so are much of the weapon systems, not only that but if you made it a dock you could produce Ships not shuttles and in turn possably end this so called economy crisis as well as their tonnage is great enough to anything, would it not be easier to lift to geo sinc with a few of the NASA Shuttles and or some rockets on the sides to eliminate much of the stress? and one in Geo sinc, you have a dock to start building a Dry dock for Ships, as mentioned in a previous post, their is a Trojan asteroid just hanging, their are your materials could we not between the amount of crap floating around and this asteroid and the moon its self not start a Ship building program in space? i mean the nuclear reactors would be hard to get up their, how ever someone mentions a particle engine or something of the sort, that could work to provide the power. I dint think it should be crashed, it should be re purposed or scrapped, this will be a big waist to simply crash it, i mean how much fuel and money was spent to get this up and done, make a Dock out of it or something, find a usefull purpose, we need to take the next step, the jump from shuttles to ships.
To all who think my post is Gamerish, i just want you to think about were UAVs and other such cool things came from.

I don't want to sound rude.. But I seriously did not understand a single thing you just typed. All I could get out of that was Halo? and the end to the worlds energy crisis?..

 

[PMedMoe]

hey guys I'm just wondering, now dont get mad as this may seem video gamish, but why not use it to make a space dock? i mean really, if you ever looked over for example the In amber Clad or the Dawn, (halo) ships their design is rather simple and in such so are much of the weapon systems, not only that but if you made it a dock you could produce Ships not shuttles and in turn possably end this so called economy crisis as well as their tonnage is great enough to anything, would it not be easier to lift to geo sinc with a few of the NASA Shuttles and or some rockets on the sides to eliminate much of the stress? and one in Geo sinc, you have a dock to start building a Dry dock for Ships, as mentioned in a previous post, their is a Trojan asteroid just hanging, their are your materials could we not between the amount of crap floating around and this asteroid and the moon its self not start a Ship building program in space? i mean the nuclear reactors would be hard to get up their, how ever someone mentions a particle engine or something of the sort, that could work to provide the power. I dint think it should be crashed, it should be re purposed or scrapped, this will be a big waist to simply crash it, i mean how much fuel and money was spent to get this up and done, make a Dock out of it or something, find a usefull purpose, we need to take the next step, the jump from shuttles to ships.

To all who think my post is Gamerish, i just want you to think about were UAVs and other such cool things came from.

I'm with canada94.  You really need to use Spell Check.  :  And think about what you're trying to say.

 

[Sgt Pearce]

but i did use spell check that time, maybe its just my grammar that is crap...

Edit: ill just sit quietly in the corner now  :-X  :-[ don't Mind me  :-\

 

[canada94]

But I did use spell check that time, maybe its just my grammer that is crap...

Stuff as simple as my edit (the yellow), will make your post much easier to read.

 

[Sgt Pearce]

Stuff as simple as my edit (the yellow), will make your post much easier to read.

Understood

 

[canada94]

Understood

Hey! don't sit "in the corner" as long as we can understand what you are saying we will be happy! It's hard to communicate with something we cannot read.

Trust me.. when I was a new member I went through similar problems, your mature about it as some people flip out when we tell them we can't understand what they are trying to say!

 

[vonGarvin]

Pte Pearce:
Did you mean to use it as an orbiting space dock?  That idea is common in many science fiction films and novels.  In 2001: A Space Odyssey, a space shuttle (operated by Pan Am) takes its special passenger to a space station

Then he goes into a purely "space" ship, not designed for earth travel. 

While the shuttle has clean lines and is aerodynamic, the lunar travel is done in an ungainly looking "thing" designed for zero and low gravity.

The USS Discovery One is even more "pure" in terms of being a deep space vessal, but I digress.




The problem with the ISS is that its orbit is very low.  It needs to be "nudged" up every once in a while.  If you see earlier posts, you will see the problem with pushing it into geosynchronous orbit.  And if it is that far up, it is a bit harder to reach than where it is now.

 

[aesop081]

end this so called economy crisis

Humm.....what ?

To all who think my post is Gamerish, i just want you to think about were UAVs and other such cool things came from.

They didn't come from Halo. The beginings of UAVs pre-dates video games.

 

[a_majoor]

The main problem with a "space dock" idea is there is no current technology for transferring fuel in zero gravity. Since most rockets use cryogenic (i.e. super cold) fuel and oxidizer, there is also the issue of thermal management of stored fuel over prolonged periods of time.

If the ISS or its sucessor(s) are to be useful they could serve as assembly platforms for deep space missions. Like TV pointed out, ships designed for space environments don't need to be streamlined or even very robust (the LEM which landed on the Moon had some panels slightly thicker than aluminum foil; think about that next time you watch "Apollo 13"), and some types of propulsion need very little reaction mass (which can be brought up in pre filled tanks) like the ion engine. Since the space station is in orbit you are already "halfway to anywhere"; the orbital velocity of the space platform is so great you only need to add a small amount of velocity to get to the moon or Near Earth Asteroids, and a modest amount more to go to Mars or Venus. Small rocket motors with modest amounts of power can be used for those sorts of missions (or even exotic solutions like solar sails). Reaching even farther, the movie "Deep Impact" had the ISS used to assemble an "ORION" nuclear spaceship to intercept a comet. Since that sort of ORION is driven by the plasma produced by nuclear explosions, you certainly don't want to launch directly from Earth...

 

[Sgt Pearce]

No that would be rather horrible to try and launch from earth, but you do understand what i am trying to say with using it as a dock or to simply re-use it in some other function, why crash it, in 20 years were going to want to do this all again and be looking back on history saying to our selves "Shiz, we should have just nudged her a bit higher up." its really just going to become a waist of resources to crash this large station.