The end of the ISS will usher in a more commercial future in space

Sometime in 2030, astronauts will pack up their bags, turn off the lights and depart from the International Space Station (ISS) for the last time. The trajectory of this grand old structure will be adjusted, leading it into the path of Earth's atmosphere over the next year, and then a specially designed deorbit vehicle attached to the station will perform a long reentry burn, returning the station to Will push down into the atmosphere. ,

As the station hits the atmosphere at thousands of miles per hour, the structure's massive solar arrays and radiators will be the first to explode; Then each module will come apart; And eventually, the truss structure that forms the backbone of the station will collapse. Reaching temperatures of thousands of degrees the surface of each of these fragments would separate, exposing the internal structures, which would burn, the metal would melt and vaporize, and the remaining fragments would fall away from land into the ocean.

Thus the ISS, an icon of the space age that has served humanity for more than three decades, will come to an end.

In its place, NASA envisions one or more commercial space stations, each run for profit by a private company and part of a thriving space economy, providing low-Earth access for humanity, including NASA astronauts. Provides a more modern and efficient platform for being in the classroom.

But there is not much time. Companies are racing to create their own space station concepts. If we want to maintain a continued human presence in space, which we have had for over 20 yearsThe private sector has only a few years to build, test, launch and deploy those designs. There has never been a commercial space station before, and the economic outlook is unclear.

No one knows whether there is money to be made in space or not.

There are good reasons for orbiting the ISS. mostly, It's just old, and repairing or replacing the hardware will be expensiveIt costs money to operate every year, so switching to a commercial model could be a viable option – if it can be done in time.

NASA has stressed its desire to become a customer of space companies to reduce costs and build infrastructure – the idea of ​​one customer among many.

This model has achieved undeniable success in commercial crew programdespite which Difficulties with Boeing Starlinerhas provided two space transportation vehicles capable of carrying humans into orbit, at a price much lower than what the agency would have spent developing its own vehicle. One such program, commercial cargoSince 2012, we have seen private companies delivering equipment, supplies and experiments to the ISS.

Now, NASA wants to build on these successes and apply these principles to stations in low-Earth orbit, or LEO.

“By converting a U.S. government-owned and operated platform into a commercial platform, it is our goal to reduce costs, open up to other customers, and provide commercialization that will lower costs for us all and provide new ways to do business. ” said Angela Hart, manager of NASA's commercial LEO development program.

Two companies are working on their own independent space station designs, Blue Origin and Starlab Space, as well as a third, Axiom Space, which is beginning to develop its own modular station infrastructure that could begin life attached to the ISS. Will do. All three companies receive funding from NASA to develop their concepts, Hart said, and several other companies have also expressed interest in building the space station. In fact, NASA has currently offered a second round of non-funded agreements covering three additional companies.

However, with such a limited time frame, there remains the worrying possibility of potential delays. And as both the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner showed, private companies are just as prone to missing deadlines as NASA is.

Will the station (or stations) be ready on time? “It's absolutely a matter of concern,” Hart said. “One of our top risks is the schedule. The idea of ​​developing a commercial space station and putting it in orbit by 2029, which is our goal, is a daunting task. NASA has been in talks with these companies since 2018, but there is a possibility that these will not be launched before the ISS is scheduled to deorbit: “If we have a gap we also have to prepare for what we do.”

One possibility is to extend the life of the ISS or open a commercial station with minimal capabilities. But Hart believes there could be some loss of features during the plan change. “We may have to accept that on day one we will not have the same capabilities that we have on the ISS today. “We hope this will be a development.”

with the incoming Trump administrationPeople across the country are bracing for a turbulent and potentially chaotic change. As with other government agencies for which the future is unclear, NASA's priorities may be forced to reflect the interests of President-elect Donald Trump and his allies – which may or may not include an interest in space stations. .

“With the recent presidential election, I think it will be a priority for NASA in the new administration to go to Mars and possibly the Moon,” said Roger Handberg, a space policy expert and political science professor at the University of Central Florida. But he added, “That doesn't mean the ISS isn't increasingly important.”

Indeed, experts agree that despite future interest in deep space exploration, LEO operations are not going anywhere. “No matter what we're doing in space, it's much easier and cheaper to test it in LEO before going to other places,” Hart said. “So we'll always have needs in low Earth orbit.”

NASA's stated goal is to put at least two crew members per year on a commercial space station, which is less than the current normal rate. Hart says that's enough to meet NASA's science goals, which will continue to include basic research, but others see interest in low-Earth orbit waning as new and attractive destinations like Mars take center stage. .

“What you're seeing is a gradual decline in the government's interest in working on the ISS, because that's the only budget,” Handberg said. “It can't do everything for everyone.”

Much of the future of space exploration may turn around the whims of powerful individuals like Elon Musk, who already wields considerable influence through SpaceX and is set to gain even more power under the Trump administration. “The re-emergence of the Trump administration makes everything very delicate,” Handberg said. “Elon Musk is clearly the best person to be elected president. Now people ask the question, how long will this continue?

Musk has made it clear that he has a very specific view of space exploration in terms of sending people to Mars – even Challenges like radiation exposure A major obstacle remains in that effort. SpaceX has made great achievements with its reusable rockets, but Musk has a history of staging grandiose launches Completely unrealistic timelines For big space projects – As does Trump – And he has shown his desire for it fly in the face Of government agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration.

“That's why NASA is between a rock and a hard place,” Handberg said. “We have someone who's out of control, but she has access to those powers.”

One of the obvious problems with human space exploration is that it is prohibitively expensive. This leads to major breakthroughs (technology developed during the Apollo era led to improvements in everything from kidney dialysis machines to firefighting protective equipment), but these tend to be unpredictable and long-lived. And in the short term, the money has to come from somewhere.

NASA plans to support the development of commercial space stations so that, over time, they can become economically sustainable with the technological advances they enable. But whether this is possible is an open question.

“Right now, no product produced in space is valuable enough to justify the cost of doing business there,” Handberg said. “That's why the commercial space up to this point has been mostly communications-based or satellite navigation assets.”

There are promising avenues of research in the space that will be attractive to private companies, such as the development of new drugs and drug delivery systems. But who would be willing to spend money for fundamental research like the ISS's Cold Atom Lab, which conducts groundbreaking research in quantum physics?

The hope is that NASA will use its limited budget to continue such research, but the concern is that as costs decrease with a focus on human exploration of the Moon and Mars, this work will become less clear and If there is no immediate practical application, it will remain aside.

“As we've seen many times, you never know where fundamental science will lead,” said Bruce Bates, chief scientist at The Planetary Society. “That's why it's important to fund these not necessarily practical things because they can ultimately change the world.”

Bates pointed out that in a purely commercial environment, companies are unlikely to be interested in this kind of research: “They'll do what makes them money.”

If the focus will be on building a sustainable economy in low-Earth orbit, it's not clear how the kind of scientific breakthroughs people are looking to NASA for will fit into that. If money is being spent to support business development, it is not being spent on science research, and those goals are not necessarily in sync.

“The commercial space is not inherently space exploration or space science,” Bates said. “That doesn't mean they can't do those things or they won't do some of those things. But, at least now, they're not like that, and they're things that are incredibly valuable to humanity.

Even with NASA's best intentions, being a customer of a private space station is a vastly different scenario from being the owner and operator of one. NASA may have to give up a great deal of control over which missions are flown, when and how. After all, there's a big difference between buying a seat on a rocket and renting facilities on the space station.

Bates emphasized that he, along with many other space scientists, are not against commercial space exploration.

“We're just worried that people won't look away from it when they see it going into space [on commercial missions]And that's great. People are doing tourism, and some of them are doing education. But this is not science, this is cutting edge, 'let's figure out who we are and where we came from and where our solar system came from.' As far as I can tell this would be a government sponsored place.