ISS after completion

As I understand it, NASA is planning on "retiring" the ISS at the end
of its nominal planned lifetime of ten years past its completion date
of 2010, that is, in 2020. The ISS will be somehow retired and moved
off NASA's books. But they are still going to need it around to serve
as a shipyard/staging area for expeditions to The Moon or Mars. I
suspect something like a private consortium will be encouraged to
purchase it, or a "Port Authority" will be formed to manage it. Then,
NASA will sign on as something like an anchor tenant, to be able to
use it as such a shipyard/staging platform.
This has several consequences. For one thing, a quasi private
organization will be able to actively go after profit making
activities that NASA can't go after - space resort tourists and so on,
so that NASA is only paying a couple of hundred million per year as a
tenant in this facility, rather than paying the entire one and a half
or two billion that it currently is costing them. The assumption is
that if the ISS is being run by a private consortium, or a quasi-
private "Port Authority", the managing organization will be able to
make up the difference in the cost of maintaining the ISS with income
generated by its various private income generating activities.
This brings up questions about what possible other income generating
activities those might be, and what income can be expected to be
generated. And what activities are mutually exclusive?

Bigelow has announced he will charge 15 million dollars for a 4 week
stay for a single tourist, or lease a 300 cubic meter module for 88
million per year. This does not include transportation, or, I'm
assuming, spacewalks. If we assume that the ISS might accommodate 6
guests per week, that might translate into 78 tourists per year, for a
total income of 1 Billion, 170 million dollars.
But those tourists are going to want an orbit that is a high
inclination orbit, to go over their home country. A space shipyard
for Moon and Mars expeditions will want a much lower orbit, if not
strictly equatorial.

Other income producing concepts include microgravity research, but
that requires a vibration free environment. Including guests and a
shipyard on a space station provides excessive amounts of bouncing and
vibration, so I don't see those uses as being compatible. Is there a
good option for a "free flyer" module to accompany the ISS and be used
for research? That essentially requires a separate spacecraft, power
supplies and all, to be developed, that can dock with ISS, undock,
drift along on its own for a while, and then either be retrieved, or
accelerate on its own to dock again with the ISS.

What options are out there for money making projects for a privately
operated ISS?
Harmon

Harmon wrote:
:
:As I understand it, NASA is planning on "retiring" the ISS at the end
f its nominal planned lifetime of ten years past its completion date
f 2010, that is, in 2020. The ISS will be somehow retired and moved
ff NASA's books. But they are still going to need it around to serve
:as a shipyard/staging area for expeditions to The Moon or Mars.
:

Why? What does ISS provide that would be needed for on-orbit assembly
of such expeditions? It's not even in a particularly good orbit for
such things, because we had to launch it further north so the Russians
could get to it.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 06:07:47 -0800, in a place far, far away, Harmon
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

As I understand it, NASA is planning on "retiring" the ISS at the end
of its nominal planned lifetime of ten years past its completion date
of 2010, that is, in 2020. The ISS will be somehow retired and moved
off NASA's books. But they are still going to need it around to serve
as a shipyard/staging area for expeditions to The Moon or Mars.

They claim otherwise. There are no current NASAs plans to use it for
such a purpose.

What options are out there for money making projects for a privately
operated ISS?

None, probably, if the operating costs have to be fully accounted for.

"Harmon" wrote in message
ups.com...
As I understand it, NASA is planning on "retiring" the ISS at the end
of its nominal planned lifetime of ten years past its completion date
of 2010, that is, in 2020. The ISS will be somehow retired and moved
off NASA's books. But they are still going to need it around to serve
as a shipyard/staging area for expeditions to The Moon or Mars.

Why?

And as others have pointed out, it's in lousy orbit for that.


Bigelow has announced he will charge 15 million dollars for a 4 week
stay for a single tourist, or lease a 300 cubic meter module for 88
million per year. This does not include transportation, or, I'm
assuming, spacewalks. If we assume that the ISS might accommodate 6
guests per week, that might translate into 78 tourists per year, for a
total income of 1 Billion, 170 million dollars.
But those tourists are going to want an orbit that is a high
inclination orbit, to go over their home country. A space shipyard
for Moon and Mars expeditions will want a much lower orbit, if not
strictly equatorial.


Bigelow is going to provide his own space station for far less cost.


Other income producing concepts include microgravity research, but
that requires a vibration free environment. Including guests and a
shipyard on a space station provides excessive amounts of bouncing and
vibration, so I don't see those uses as being compatible. Is there a
good option for a "free flyer" module to accompany the ISS and be used
for research? That essentially requires a separate spacecraft, power
supplies and all, to be developed, that can dock with ISS, undock,
drift along on its own for a while, and then either be retrieved, or
accelerate on its own to dock again with the ISS.

I'd suggest to stop thinking of "the space station" and "a space station".
I.e. there will eventually be many, all in different orbits serving
different purposes.




What options are out there for money making projects for a privately
operated ISS?
Harmon




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Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available!
Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html

On Nov 12, 6:07 am, Harmon wrote:

What options are out there for money making projects for a privately
operated ISS?
Harmon

Move ISS to our moon's L1, or possibly to Venus L2.

At least according to our crack NASA/Apollo wizards, our moon isn't
the least bit physically dark and IR reflective, nor is it hardly
anticathode reactive, even though it's so extra naked and having such
an unusually high density worth of cosmic and local solar debris of
heavy metallic worthy substances on deck (including more than its fair
share of various sodium/salts and those pesky radioactive elements).
--
Brad Guth

In article . com,
Harmon wrote:

As I understand it, NASA is planning on "retiring" the ISS at the end
of its nominal planned lifetime of ten years past its completion date
of 2010, that is, in 2020. The ISS will be somehow retired and moved
off NASA's books. But they are still going to need it around to serve
as a shipyard/staging area for expeditions to The Moon or Mars.

Why? By 2020, it's quite likely that there will be a number of
commercial space stations, certainly newer and possibly better equipped
(and positioned) than ISS. I see the benefit of an orbital staging
base, but why assume it has to be ISS?

I suspect something like a private consortium will be encouraged to
purchase it, or a "Port Authority" will be formed to manage it. Then,
NASA will sign on as something like an anchor tenant, to be able to
use it as such a shipyard/staging platform.

Well, that'd be good to the extent that ISS remains safe and useful.

What options are out there for money making projects for a privately
operated ISS?

You've certainly covered some, though I think it's going to be hard for
ISS to compete as a tourist destination with stations built for that
purpose. Another idea that comes to mind is filmmaking (i.e. orbital
movie studios) -- zero-G is one of those things that even modern special
effects can't well depict except in very limited ways. Another might be
a material depot -- fuel, water, food, whatever, on its way from
wherever it comes from to wherever the end-customers are.

HTH,
- Joe

--
"Polywell" fusion -- an approach to nuclear fusion that might actually work.
Learn more and discuss via: http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 07:22:13 -0700, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

What does ISS provide that would be needed for on-orbit assembly
of such expeditions? It's not even in a particularly good orbit for
such things, because we had to launch it further north so the Russians
could get to it.

.....which, in hindsight, was probably a very good idea.


--

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:43:53 +0000, in a place far, far away, Mike
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:


On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 07:22:13 -0700, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

What does ISS provide that would be needed for on-orbit assembly
of such expeditions? It's not even in a particularly good orbit for
such things, because we had to launch it further north so the Russians
could get to it.

....which, in hindsight, was probably a very good idea.

Only if one thinks that continuing the space station program was
intrinsically a good idea. From a functionality standpoint, it was a
disaster.

For an investment of (my estimate) less than half a billion, the
Russians could get to it at 28.5 degrees from Kourou.

On Nov 12, 2:00 pm, Joe Strout wrote:
In article . com,

Harmon wrote:
As I understand it, NASA is planning on "retiring" the ISS at the end
of its nominal planned lifetime of ten years past its completion date
of 2010, that is, in 2020. The ISS will be somehow retired and moved
off NASA's books. But they are still going to need it around to serve
as a shipyard/staging area for expeditions to The Moon or Mars.

Why? By 2020, it's quite likely that there will be a number of
commercial space stations, certainly newer and possibly better equipped
(and positioned) than ISS. I see the benefit of an orbital staging
base, but why assume it has to be ISS?

I suspect something like a private consortium will be encouraged to
purchase it, or a "Port Authority" will be formed to manage it. Then,
NASA will sign on as something like an anchor tenant, to be able to
use it as such a shipyard/staging platform.

Well, that'd be good to the extent that ISS remains safe and useful.

What options are out there for money making projects for a privately
operated ISS?

You've certainly covered some, though I think it's going to be hard for
ISS to compete as a tourist destination with stations built for that
purpose. Another idea that comes to mind is filmmaking (i.e. orbital
movie studios) -- zero-G is one of those things that even modern special
effects can't well depict except in very limited ways. Another might be
a material depot -- fuel, water, food, whatever, on its way from
wherever it comes from to wherever the end-customers are.

You folks ovbiously haven't seen film from those Apollo missions and
especially of their unfiltered EVA films and video that looked as
though quite terrestrial. Even though their using roughly twice the
frames/s, whereas stuff fell to that guano island's passive deck at
roughly 9.8 m/s, whereas it still Looks almost real enough to the
dumbfounded eye, doesn't it.
--
Brad Guth

Mike wrote:
:
:On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 07:22:13 -0700, Fred J. McCall
wrote:
:
:What does ISS provide that would be needed for on-orbit assembly
:of such expeditions? It's not even in a particularly good orbit for
:such things, because we had to launch it further north so the Russians
:could get to it.
:
:....which, in hindsight, was probably a very good idea.
:

Not so much. What's needed is for NASA to get out of the mindset of
grounding for multiple years every time something goes wrong.


--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
live in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Dryden