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Boeing's Starliner Lands Successfully, but Without Its Astronauts on Board.
(www.smithsonianmag.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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I mean, that's probably physically rough on you, but speaking from the standpoint of "only ~116 people have ever been able to be present on this station", that "this is probably something that they had to work towards for some time to get", and "the ISS is nearing end-of-life and any replacement has risks associated with it and will be a smaller structure", I don't know that eight months on the ISS is the worst thing that could happen to someone.
I don't expect you to have the answers, but is the ISS nearing end of life because of technology, or because of gravitational pull? If it's the latter, how feasible would it be to attach rockets and drag it further away?
https://www.planetary.org/articles/why-international-space-station-cant-operate-forever
The ISS has gone through multiple reboosts to gain altitude because there is a small amount of atmospheric drag in its orbit. That's not the limiting factor though.
The structure is aluminum. Aluminum accumulates fatigue damage every time it flexes. Every time the iss goes from sunlight to the earths shadow, there is significant thermal expansion/contraction. This fatigues the structure. The repeated docking maneuvers also stress the structure. Radiation and atomic oxygen also cause degredation. All those factors are relatively minor in any given year, but are always accumulating. The ISS is getting less safe and the risk of a structural failure is increasing.
On top of that all, a bunch of the systems on board were designed 30 years ago. There have been major changes in communications, power systems, etc. in the time since the modules were built. Even though new experiments are built all the time, they are still constrained by capabilities of the capsules they operate in. So there are also science advantages to moving to a newer platform.
What an incredible overview that was both detailed and digestible! I really appreciate it, that makes a lot of sense and answered all my questions
Also worth mentioning that as the ISS was being constructed, its planned retirement was to be about 2015. We’ve been able to massively extend its operational period, which is awesome, but the materials can’t last forever.