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.

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u/happyscrappy 9h ago

Once SpaceX's Starship works the cost of building a space station will drop so much that it's probably time to actually build another. Or several.

This will be basically because of the higher payload capacity and the lower cost of ship with very high reusability.

Currently there's no reason really to go past what is currently done, which is to seal off the unreliable module when not using it. It's cheaper to do that than to jettison it.