NASA and ESA take a close look at Europe's International Habitation Module

ESA and NASA astronauts are taking the opportunity to clamber around a mock-up of the Lunar I-Hab, a European habitat intended to form part of the Gateway in 2028. The astronauts, alongside representatives of Thales Alenia Space, were tasked with evaluating the module's ergonomics and habitability as part of a milestone dubbed …

[Joe Dietz]

Bet this never flies.

The program is going to get cancelled or redirected yet again or simply underfunded until one of those happen.

[Pascal Monett]

Re: Bet this never flies.

I hope not.

Zero-Gee science is indispensible for furthering our knowledge of metals and biotechnology. At least, I'm convinced it is. So we need to have a permanent base in orbit, so as to do Science (yes, with a capital S), as well as serve as a launchpad for missions that go beyond low orbit - which we need for our knowledge of the Universe.

So I do hope that there will be a successor to the ISS - one not managed and owned by China, for example.

But I can only hope.

[Spherical Cow]

Re: Bet this never flies.

Except this will be in lunar orbit, not LEO. And it's way too small to do much science: look at the size of the habitat part compared to the Orion Capsule, it's tiny. This is not a replacement for ISS.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Bet this never flies.

"Zero-Gee science is indispensible for furthering our knowledge of metals and biotechnology.

A lot of science has been done in zeroG to date and there are lots of great results. I had a nice long chat with Charles Walker about an experiment he designed and flew with on the Shuttle. If the budgets are going to continue to be slanted towards killing people (oddly called defense spending) with nothing more allocated to space and science, I would like to see a base set up on the moon to look at things in fractional G over another orbital station. That might be more sustainable even though it's much further away since astronauts might not suffer as rapid of a decay with at least some gravity and it also makes sense for working on things that need to stay where they are put. Doing metallurgy in zero G is quite dangerous. Waste reclamation is easier with gravity. Medical procedures such as surgery would be easier on the moon than in orbit.

[Dizzy Dwarf]

ISS

Lots of delta-v needed to boost it from leo to lto.

And you have to miss all that other space junk as you're spiralling out.

Pfft: Mere technicalities.

Better than dumping it in the ocean.

[phuzz]

Re: ISS

It only takes about twice as much fuel to boost the ISS up to a graveyard orbit, as it would to de-orbit it, and no reason why that deltaV couldn't be delivered by multiple spacecraft over a period of time.