JRS: In article 2,
dated Thu, 9 Dec 2004 14:45:00, seen in news:sci.space.station, Tom Kent
posted :
How about just re-locating it to a better inclination. Since the Russians
are going to star launching Soyuz from South America, there isn't an
awesome reason to keep the ISS going that far north. I haven't bothered to
do the calculations, but to drop it 20deg? Could that be something where
we could attach an upper stage built for sending things to geosynchronous
orbit and that would do it, or is it more of a issue of doing that twenty
times?

To change inclination 60 degrees requires as big a velocity change as
the launch velocity; you call for a change of about a third of that.
Launching ISS took several US launches and several Russian ones.

However, for a launch you start with the fuel on the ground, where it is
cheap; for a plane change you start by taking the fuel up there.

Deliverable-to-orbit cargo mass is between one and a few percent of
launch mass.

Therefore, all that is needed is fuel launches (engines can arrive at no
extra cost) numbering a third of twice several times a hundred divided
by up to a few. That is a lot.

You should have bothered to do the approximate calculations.

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