How Screwed Is The ISS And The Astronauts ??

billt460

billt460

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With all of this Russia / Ukraine crap going on, how bad is this for the ISS? They can't just abandon it, like your house when you go on vacation. Can they reenter with the Space X capsule? Where would they land.... Assuming they could? Can Orion dock with the ISS?

The Soyuz is a dependable launch / reentry vehicle. And with all of this bad politics going on, will it even be in play for American astronauts who are up there as we speak? The ISS has an orbit which is a lot more dependable than the governments that put it up there, that's for sure.
 
“Land” the ISS??? What?

And the orbit? What about it? And I’m not sure the relevance to Soyuz that you’re making?

And if you don’t know whether the SpaceX capsule can reenter the atmosphere then I’d suggest you start with the basics here.
 
NASA has been relying on SpaceX Dragon capsules for the transportation of American astronauts for over a year now and resupply missions even longer than that. Getting American astronauts and supplies to and from the ISS isn't a problem.

In 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine (the first time) and annexed Crimea, NASA was relying on Roscosmos and their Soyuz rockets to get American astronauts to the ISS. The arrangement established then, relying on a belligerent country to transport American astronauts, was far more tenuous than it is now.
 
Current plan is to "de-orbit the ISS and direct any remnants into a remote area of the South Pacific Ocean" on January 2031, although I wouldn't be surprised if this date gets changed once again, as it has been many times previously.

In any case, this should give the astronauts on board plenty of time to depart, using American vehicles.
 
kschachn said:
“Land” the ISS??? What?
Click to expand...
Where the hell are you getting that from? All I am wondering is can the ISS be serviced and maintained 100% by Space X, should the need arise, because of current political conditions that are deteriorating by the hour?

We're not paying the Russians millions to ride on their rockets because we think they're swell guys.
 
billt460 said:
Where the hell are you getting that from? All I am wondering is can the ISS be serviced and maintained 100% by Space X, should the need arise, because of current political conditions that are deteriorating by the hour?

We're not paying the Russians millions to ride on their rockets because we think they're swell guys.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I misread your post. There was quite a bit going on in there.

We aren't paying the Russians at this time for regular astronaut transport to the ISS.
 
^^ This. And should the need arise, Elon can put three pantloads of his tiny satellites up each week if he wanted to, so an extra trip to the station shouldn't be a big deal.
 
They've always had a spare capsule attached so that if there's any reason, they can always abandon the station if anything happens. Typically a SpaceX crew dragon will arrive and then get parked and the old crew will leave in the previous capsule and the new one stays there for several months until there's another crew change. That way you don't end up with a capsule that hasn't been used in 10 years. This way they end up rotating them and they get used again for the return trip in 6 months or so. Spacex also has about 4 crew dragons that can carry astronauts to space and also cargo dragons which are used for resupply missions without any crew.
 
It is interesting that NASA still does not have a way to get Astronauts up. If it were not for SpaceX, we would be in exactly the same place were were when the Space Shuttle was retired.

For all of NASA's talk, they are amazingly far behind. Think about the Saturn 1B from years ago. A rocket put together from available parts. Yet, today, 12 years after the shuttle retired, NASA has NOTHING.
 
Cujet said:
It is interesting that NASA still does not have a way to get Astronauts up. If it were not for SpaceX, we would be in exactly the same place were were when the Space Shuttle was retired.

For all of NASA's talk, they are amazingly far behind. Think about the Saturn 1B from years ago. A rocket put together from available parts. Yet, today, 12 years after the shuttle retired, NASA has NOTHING.
Click to expand...
The purpose of Orion is not to shuttle crew to and from the ISS. That was always commercial crew just as it is for Starliner. Besides, who paid both Boeing and SpaceX for those capsules? By that criteria NASA didn't build the Apollo hardware either. That was Chrysler and Douglas.
 
Cujet said:
It is interesting that NASA still does not have a way to get Astronauts up. If it were not for SpaceX, we would be in exactly the same place were were when the Space Shuttle was retired.
Click to expand...

The Commercial Crew Program is the way. Just like tens of thousands of companies pay FedEx and UPS to deliver stuff to your house, NASA pays SpaceX and Boeing to deliver stuff to space.
 
Cujet said:
It is interesting that NASA still does not have a way to get Astronauts up. If it were not for SpaceX, we would be in exactly the same place were were when the Space Shuttle was retired.

For all of NASA's talk, they are amazingly far behind. Think about the Saturn 1B from years ago. A rocket put together from available parts. Yet, today, 12 years after the shuttle retired, NASA has NOTHING.
Click to expand...
Basically NASA got out of the space launch business and farmed it out to SpaceX and other commercial ventures.

They have been working on the SLS for a long time though and it's clear that commercial ventures can move a lot faster than NASA. SLS was originally a 6 year project that is now in a 5 year delay. The James Webb telescope was supposed to take 11 years and only cost 500 million but took 25 years and cost 10 billion. There's a reason it's known as the telescope that ate astronomy.
 
It (ISS) is set for disposal 2030.
They will guide it to reentry over the south Pacific, away from inhabited islands.
Apparently they ditch just about everything there.
The disposal schedule will probably be stepped up several years.
Maybe even this current cycle of operations ??
 
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