"Rich Godwin" wrote in message
ups.com...
I've had this nagging idea at the back of my head for some time. (no
it's not a tick)
When NASA is finally finished with the Shuttle fleet (if it ever is)
why is it not possible to retire the fleet ON ORBIT instead of in a
museum?
As long as we could refuel the RCS and OMS system regularly we'd have
not only a safe haven for ISS, but also three highly capable vehicles
that are not going to be matched in space in our lifetimes.
I realize that there are problems, not the least of which is NASA's
McDonalds style of business-throw it away after use.
Recharge the RCS & OMS on orbit when necessary
Park it reasonably close to ISS
For power recharge the fuel cells OR place solar panels all over the
thing.

They wouldn't have to come back again, so they'd be relatively safe and
then you'd have what it was always supposed to be...a space truck!

This sounds like a great idea. They could be used for emergency habitation,
emergency evacuation and landing, extra laboratory space, assembly area for
space based objects, storage of suplies, transfer stations for payloads
going further out in space, vehicle to use to supply any luner base, and a
miriad of other purposes including harvesting (stripping it) of the raw
materials for other purposes. Land them on the moon full of suplies for
future missions.
We spend Billions getting these things up and then send them into mothballs
or worse here on earth. Leave them in space so in the future we do not have
to spend billions more sending reasorces up.