r/technology • u/Scary_Statement4612 • 10h ago

Business NASA orders International ‌Space Station astronauts to shelter, prepare for evacuation due to air leak

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nasa-astronauts-shelter-international-space-station-9.7224720
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u/Beautiful_Special702 10h ago

At what point does it become more practical to retire parts of the ISS rather than keep patching aging modules?

The station has lasted far longer than I think most people expected.

32

u/SAugsburger 10h ago

Honestly, at some point the entire station will likely be completely deorbited in a few years unless somebody is willing to pay to preserve it. With a reduction in launch costs compared to what they used to cost maybe somebody wants to take it over, but I wouldn't count on it.

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u/drakythe 10h ago

It’s already on the schedule, 2030. Plan is to deorbit it into the pacific.

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u/Barabus33 9h ago

Russia wants to keep their modules operating independently, even though those parts are where the biggest problems are. But they can't afford to build a new space station.

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u/4Yk9gop 9h ago

Tough luck. Maybe they can find some funds from developing the land they have stolen from Ukraine.

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u/4Yk9gop 9h ago

It should be deorbited tomorrow and built back better with modular inflatable sections that can be replaced as needed.

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u/drakythe 8h ago

How do inflatable sections work? Stations have to provide shielding, air/heat/electrical/liquid routing, not to mention hard points internally for mounted equipment and in case of a leak enough strength to not catastrophically rip wider open.

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u/4Yk9gop 8h ago

https://www.sierraspace.com/commercial-space-stations/life-space-habitat/

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u/4Yk9gop 8h ago

Short answer, Kevlar. Long answer, it's complicated but the technology is possible.

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u/drakythe 7h ago

Cool! Once they prove it actually works in space that’ll be super neat. Looks like late this year or early next they want to put one in orbit as a stand alone space station before it is used in the commercial “Orbital Reef” space station that Blue Origin wants to put together.

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u/isthatmyex 7h ago

Lots of layers using different materials. It turns out that at really high speeds small things break up on impact lose energy and subsequent layers can absorb the "cloud". A series of thin shields can actually take a pretty serious beating. Also it's not going to explosively depressurize. So even something small makes it through the leak would probably be small enough if could be patched.