What Will Replace The International Space Station?

IRA FLATOW: This is Science Friday. I’m Ira Flatow, with Flora Lichtman. And I’ve got good news and bad news for you space fans. Which do you want to hear first? How about–

FLORA LICHTMAN: How about the good? All right, how about the bad?

IRA FLATOW: The bad? OK. NASA is planning to decommission the International Space Station in, what, 2030, which will make it 30 years after it began operations in 2000. Now for some possible good news. The Space Agency has been anticipating this retirement for quite a while, and it’s turning to private companies– why are we not surprised? to build future Space Station.

So who’s in the running? How could next gen space stations be different from the one we know today? Here to help bring us up to speed is Loren Grush space reporter at Bloomberg News. He joins us from the studios of member station KUD– KUT, of course, in Austin, Texas. Welcome back to Science Friday.

LOREN GRUSH: Thanks so much for having me back.

IRA FLATOW: Nice to have you. I think some people have vaguely heard that the Space Station is going away in a few years. Can you give us the exact plans for decommissioning it?

LOREN GRUSH: Right. So during the Biden administration, the plan was to extend the lifetime of the ISS, but to give it an end date, with the retirement happening at the end of 2030. And so yeah, at the end of the decade, after 30 years of continuous human presence on the International Space Station, the plan is to take it out of orbit and, I hate to say it, but plunge it into the Earth’s atmosphere, where it will likely burn up.

IRA FLATOW: Wow, it sounds very, very dramatic. If you want to hear the rest of the drama, our listeners can call us at 877-925-9174, 877-925-9174. Can any parts of it be saved for people who want to have a piece of it?

LOREN GRUSH: [LAUGHS] I do not believe the plan right now is to do so. I will tell you, though, that it is a very big vehicle. And so parts of it will likely survive when it is plunged through Earth’s– our Earth’s atmosphere. And so that’s why NASA is taking great care to be very delicate and plan out that de-orbiting process.

They’ve given a contract to SpaceX to create a vehicle that will attach itself to the International Space Station and guide it out of orbit, so that it is placed over an uninhabited area of the ocean. And so if there are any chunks that do survive, it will hopefully not rain down on any populated areas.

IRA FLATOW: I’m old enough to have covered the demise of Space Lab in 1979. That was a pretty teary goodbye, if I remember correctly.

LOREN GRUSH: I was unfortunately not alive during that time.

IRA FLATOW: Well, we’ll talk over some coffee.

LOREN GRUSH: Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

IRA FLATOW: Can you talk about the main reasons it’s being retired? I mean, is it falling apart? I mean, has it lost its usefulness? What’s going on?

LOREN GRUSH: Sure. Well, there’s still quite a bit of utility that is gained from research on the International Space Station. It’s become a really impressive platform for studying the effects of microgravity on certain materials, on technologies, for deploying small satellites, but most of all, for studying how the human body fares during long-term stays in microgravity.

And we’ve learned quite a bit about what happens to our various biological systems, thanks to the ISS. But yes, just as our cars and our various technologies age over time and start to have issues here on Earth, the International Space Station has also started to age and show its age over time. And so while the main reason of the ISS is to perform research, the inhabitants of the Space Station have also spent a great deal of time just maintaining it and keeping it up to date.

So a lot of the spacewalks that are done by the astronauts in orbit are done to do repairs on the outside of the Space Station, to do upgrades, to swap out things like batteries and other technologies, to make sure that the ISS keeps functioning. And that takes up a lot of their time and their energy and their resources. It can get expensive over time. And so it’s just become– as much time as the astronauts spend doing research, they spend quite a bit of time just making sure it stays up in orbit.

IRA FLATOW: Yeah, well, we now know that there are private companies that are putting satellites up and building spacecraft. Is it going to be a private company that builds the next Space Station?

LOREN GRUSH: Well, that is ultimately what NASA wants. So NASA has been undergoing this really interesting transition period where they’ve been offloading a lot of the things that they used to be in charge of to the private sector. So a great example of that has been the cargo and crew services that they use to get to the Space Station. So in the past, NASA was in charge of launching its astronauts and launching cargo, primarily with the space shuttle to the International Space Station.

But when the space shuttle retired, they turned to private companies to take up that mantle. And so that’s why you have SpaceX and Northrop Grumman, who are in charge of sending cargo to the International Space Station. And then SpaceX and Boeing, obviously, we don’t have to get into what happened with the latest Boeing vehicle. But SpaceX has been sending crew to the International Space Station.

And so in that similar vein, NASA is thinking about transitioning the control of this area, LEO, Low Earth Orbit, to the private sector. And so they have been energizing commercial companies to create new platforms and new space stations that could provide some of the same services and a place for astronauts to go, just as the ISS has done for decades.

FLORA LICHTMAN: And we’re taking your questions. If you have a question about the future of the International Space Station or what comes next, give us a call, 877-925-9175, 877-925-9174. I can’t read– 9174, everybody. Thank you.

OK, Loren, here’s the question that I have. Why would private companies want to get into this business? Where is the money in this?

LOREN GRUSH: Well, right now, primarily the money is coming from NASA. So operating the International Space Station is expensive. Right now, NASA allocates about $3 billion a year to keep it up and running. Now, these next space stations may not be as comprehensive as the ISS. The ISS is a technological marvel, not to say that these new space stations will not be. But they will probably start off small and grow over time.

But yes, it is a very expensive endeavor. And so what NASA is trying to do is help with the development funding, so start, give some early contracts to help the design and build, and then also, have a soft guarantee that once these space stations are complete and are up in orbit, then NASA will serve as an anchor customer.

And so that way, there’s guaranteed funding and revenue that will be coming in from the federal government while these companies can also find additional revenue streams from things like other commercial companies or maybe academics who want to send astronauts to their station.

Space tourists, for instance, has definitely been floated, pun not intended. And then there’s also been talk of other countries. There are other nations throughout the world who haven’t always had the option to send astronauts to space. Perhaps they would want to pay to send their own members of their country to these space stations.

IRA FLATOW: Speaking of other countries, isn’t China building a space station?

LOREN GRUSH: China has a space station in orbit.

IRA FLATOW: So what’s their philosophy? How is that different?

LOREN GRUSH: Well, that is kind of a concern that has been used as to why we need to maintain our presence in low Earth orbit, because China does have its own space station. And if we don’t have one, let’s say there is this concern that these commercial space stations won’t be ready in time by the time that the ISS has retired. It’s known as the dreaded gap in LEO.

And the concern is, if we don’t make this a priority by getting other commercial space stations up and running, then China will have their own space station that they can use to court other partners. The ISS has the word “international” in it. And so it has been this really great tool for international collaboration. So the concern is that we will lose that tool.

IRA FLATOW: A new space race.

LOREN GRUSH: Yes, exactly.

IRA FLATOW: We have a new space. We have a new space. All right, let me go to the phones, to Evan in Pittsburgh. Hi, Evan.

CALLER: Oh, hi. How are you guys doing?

IRA FLATOW: Hi, there. Go ahead.

CALLER: Yeah, I have a question, a little unorthodox question, perhaps. But when they made the bad decision to tear down the University of Pittsburgh’s football stadium, I was fortunate enough to get a piece of it, and it’s hanging on my wall. Any thoughts that they’re going to maybe auction some of the pieces off to fund some future scientists going to college with the proceeds?

LOREN GRUSH: I am not aware of any of that. I’m sure there will probably be some attempts to save some of the pieces.

IRA FLATOW: I mean, we paid for it, right?

LOREN GRUSH: Yeah, sure.

IRA FLATOW: The public owns it, doesn’t it?

LOREN GRUSH: But I do know that NASA– NASA takes great pains not to– it doesn’t profit off of any of what it does, or at least tries not to seem to be profiting off of any of its programs. So I don’t know about that. But hey, I’m not involved in those discussions. So maybe give your representative a call, or maybe give NASA call and offer that as an opinion.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Loren, you visited the headquarters of one of these companies that’s competing for this contract to build the next Space Station or begin that process. Tell me about Vast. What makes them stand out?

LOREN GRUSH: So Vast is a really interesting company. They kind of burst onto the scene very recently. They were formed just in 2021. And they were founded by a cryptocurrency billionaire, Jed McCaleb. And they came onto the scene with a really ambitious timeline, which is they were going to put the world’s first commercial space station into orbit as soon as 2025.

Now, they’ve since changed that timeline. Now it’s next year. But that definitely caught a lot of people’s attention because they were such a relatively new company, and they were promising this really big, bold endeavor.

But I think what also makes them interesting is the fact that they do have this billionaire founder, who has been open about the fact that he is willing to put in up to $1 billion of his own net worth to help with this initial startup money to get the design and the construction of the Space Station going. When it comes to these space startups, having a lot of upfront capital is key.

IRA FLATOW: Having the right people, hiring the right people, too, right?

LOREN GRUSH: Yes, exactly, having the people that can build and come up with the design. And so that’s what caught us to take notice. And then now, we did go visit. And they were very clear that they are very interested in this NASA program that we’ve been talking about.

NASA is supposed to give out final contracts for this program to replace the International Space Station sometime next year. And they are very much banking on winning those contracts. They’ve said as much to us. But still, the fact that they are able to fill that time before those contracts awards are made with this money is, I think, something to take notice of.

IRA FLATOW: One of the great features of science fiction films about space stations and out in space is artificial gravity.

LOREN GRUSH: Mm-hmm, yes.

IRA FLATOW: 2001, A Space Odyssey, all the way– they’re running a track. Any of these new things, have any of these new gadget ideas come up for the next Space Station?

LOREN GRUSH: Well, that is the long-term stretch goal of Vast. Not only did they have everyone stand up and take notice when they announced their timeline, but they also announced that they were eventually planning to pursue artificial gravity. You might have seen stuff like that in science fiction, where there are these massive rotating modules. And they’re supposed to use centrifugal force to simulate what gravity feels like here on Earth.

And the goal is that if we are able to bring gravity with us into space, perhaps we won’t suffer a lot of these long-term health benefits that we have found to be an issue when we send humans into microgravity.

IRA FLATOW: Yeah, exciting.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Let’s go to Steve in Oregon. Hi, Steve.

CALLER: Hi. My question– why do you have to bring the old Space Station down? It costs a lot of money to get all that mass up there. And it could be used as a material resource. It could be an emergency place to go for people if there is some kind of disaster with the new Space Station, or anything else. I mean, why just let it burn up in the atmosphere? It doesn’t seem to me that if you just mothballed it, it would really be hurting anything.

IRA FLATOW: Say, like having an outpost in Antarctica or something.

LOREN GRUSH: Yeah, good question, Steve.

IRA FLATOW: Loren?

LOREN GRUSH: That is–

IRA FLATOW: Loren?

LOREN GRUSH: –a great question. And you’ve touched on a very fiery debate that I think a lot of people have within the space community. There are some that think it’s much too premature to bring the International Space Station down just yet. Obviously, it is requiring a lot of updates and maintenance. But I think there’s a large contingent of folks within the industry who think that it might be too early, that we could still get quite a bit of utility out of it.

So the issue, of course, is the money that is involved with. And I think I mentioned earlier, it costs about $3 billion a year to maintain it and to operate it. And so with anything that NASA does, there’s opportunity cost. And so when someone sees $3 billion a year that could potentially be freed up, a lot of people perk up and think, OK, well, what else could that money be spent on?

Because NASA’s budget has not experienced the intense growth that it did receive during the Apollo era, when we sent humans back to the moon. The budget of NASA has grown for the last decade, but it is starting to shrink for the first time. Also, there’s quite a bit of discussion going on in DC about cutting costs right now and lowering budgets.

So there’s quite a few people who are eyeing that $3 billion to say, OK, what else could we use that to spend on, given the fact that we have used this platform for such an amount of time? All things do come to an end after a while. And so could we potentially free up that funding to use it for deep space exploration or other endeavors that we haven’t done yet?

IRA FLATOW: I’ve got about 30 seconds left. When will we see some action or movement or contract on this?

LOREN GRUSH: Well, the contracts have already been given out, or I mean, at least when it comes to that deorbit vehicle I was talking about. That’s been given out. So that is on the way. When it comes to contracts, the final contracts for the Space Station replacement, like I said, expected next year. But again, everything is very volatile at the moment, so who knows?

IRA FLATOW: We’ll have you back. We’ll have you back to talk about it, OK?

LOREN GRUSH: Yeah, we’ll have to talk when that happens.

IRA FLATOW: All right, It’s. A date. Loren Grush, space reporter at Bloomberg News, based in Austin, Texas.

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