Last week was incredibly depressing. It has finally become clear to anyone paying attention that unless dramatic change occurs after decades of service, coming events may consign the American icon to the dustbin of history.
Of course, I’m talking about NASA’s decision to hire SpaceX to drop the International Space Station on Earth. Truth be told, this decision got me into trouble. The biggest exploration entity in history hires the best space company in history to do the dumbest thing in history.
As one of the few people on the planet who has any small standing in the debate, I have opposed the idea of ​​destroying the ISS since it was first announced. First, as one of the leaders of the Space Frontier Foundation, I helped lead a nearly successful campaign in Congress to repeal it in the early 1990s. Why? Because we believed that the government should not build buildings and drive trucks (like the space shuttle). At the time, it was also clear that President Reagan’s vision of the station as a Solar System spaceport, to be completed in the mid-1990s for less than $10 billion, would not be realized. Judging by the president’s expectations, the ISS was never completed, as its construction stopped somewhere around 2010 after the US and its partners spent $100 billion. We lost the fight by one vote. Or, as my NASA friends say, they saved it with one vote.
Then, in 1995, coming to terms with that loss, and as part of an effort to capitalize on the taxpayer investment in the station, I testified before Congress in Alpha that all traffic to and from the station be commercialized. ISS supplies and NASA crew needs could be used to support a competitive commercial space travel industry. At the same hearing, I called on private firms to build and operate all extensions and other facilities.
Finally, the foundation stayed true to the frontier philosophy of not throwing anything in space and began a quest to save the Russian space station Mir. I eventually led a team to Moscow under which the visionary Walt Anderson signed up, leading to the founding of MirCorp and the chartering of Mir as the world’s first commercial space station. After our first crew flew out to investigate the device, and under extreme pressure from NASA and the US government, Russian President Putin ordered it de-orbited and dumped into the Pacific. It was a crushing blow, although the project led to the signing of Dennis Tito as the first private astronaut, who we later transferred to fly on the ISS. I was in tears when it happened. A sad sign that much more work will be needed to transform the psychology of space leaders from the existing “use-and-throw-it-away” mentality that has been the hallmark of contemporary human industrial society.
Since then, like most of us who follow such things, I have been amazed by the incredible work the agency and its partners have done aboard the orbiting laboratory. Amazing discoveries flowed continuously from the work of the astronauts and cosmonaut crews who flew aboard her. And so is the inspiration for millions of school children listening to thousands of lessons from space and sparking young imaginations around the world. The orbiting laboratory has become a beacon and an evening star for the power of science. And yes, even as the world below became seething and seething at the instigation of politicians, the spirit of international “Right Things” kept alive the candle of hope that humanity could work together to open the frontiers of space to all.
So, in a wonderful, almost ironic twist of fate, I found myself a few years ago taking the position that the American government cannot, must not, and if I can do anything about it, must not throw away one of the most important buildings in human history on a planet that is home to those who who built it.
The International Space Station must be preserved for future generations. There is no question and there is no doubt that this is one of the greatest achievements of mankind, on par with and in many ways surpassing the value of the Pyramids, the Parthenon, Angor Wat or other World Heritage Sites to our global society. Like them, she must be saved from the myopic stupidity of bureaucratic tyrants and their version of a space bulldozer.
Some will ask: Why is this so important? We must continue the tasks of building new space stations on orbital street, returning to the moon and even planning missions to Mars. Who cares about an old and useless building whose time has come and gone? The future is calling!”
Yes. And how we treat the legacy we create on the way to that future will in many ways help determine whether that future is an extension of how we treated the world we came from—or whether we’ve learned something and aspire to do it. better.
If NASA crashes the ISS on Earth, it will be the worst public relations disaster in its history. Now a new generation of environmentally conscious young people are taking over the reins of control as the agency behind the hopeful vision of the future is about to destroy the planet. Ridiculous. Worse, one of the most amazing companies in the world will be littered along the way. It’s a terrible decision, a terrible plan, and a signal that America is not serious about being in space. For if it had, it would have protected such a precious symbol of what had happened.
Before I offer a solution (and there are many), let’s be clear about how we got here. Because of that old industrial thinking I mentioned earlier, and as mandated by Congress and the White House, NASA has not done any serious work on how to save the facility. Their bosses in Washington started and stayed true to their primitive thinking. The groupthink at work here has been reinforced by artificially imposed budget constraints, created by bad decisions by Congress in other parts of the program, that are eating away at American tax dollars at an alarming rate. When asked, agency officials mix waters with red herrings: the difficulty of maneuvering such a large device up into a storage orbit, the cost of maintenance, even the altitude of such an orbit, using numbers based on locations higher than needed, and more . .
In no particular order, here are the basics of my proposal:
1. The ISS will be stripped of all of the billions of dollars of still useful hardware and technology it has on board. This may be auctioned off to one of several new commercial space stations or even, if appropriate, transferred to NASA’s planned lunar orbiting “Gateway” facility. The US government might even decide to use parts of this exercise as a way to establish and set precedents for much-needed rescue laws, which can then be applied to help clean up low Earth orbit by creating pathways that don’t currently exist for space. operators to transfer ownership of space assets to others.
2. SpaceX’s “tug” is to be built and operated as an orbital tug rather than a single-use system. Such an important tool will prove invaluable over time as it moves large payloads into orbit once they are delivered by large space cargo vehicles such as StarShip and Blue Origin’s New Glenn. Furthermore, with plans to build massive orbital tanker farms and the certainly growing number of private space stations now on the drawing boards, such an orbital tug will be an important safeguard when faced with failures of their on-board systems.
3. Russia will be given the opportunity to lend support to this effort and thus offer a chance for the necessary cooperation between our nations. If they decide to separate their part of the station, it will be up to them what they do with it. That leaves us with the original US mods, once known as “Freedom” to manage.
4. The equipment will be equipped with a basic set of on-board auxiliary engines or its existing auxiliary engine system will be modified to provide minimum control authority. This will prove to be a useful exercise for all involved, providing lessons useful for future large structures while drawing on existing knowledge developed by operators of large communications satellites.
5. The station will be moved into medium high orbit, closed and declared a universal heritage site. This new designation can also be used for the Apollo landing sites, Russia’s Lunochod, China’s Chang’e, and India’s Moon, as well as significant historical sites on Mars. If the world does not do so, or if it takes too long to implement such a designation, the US may designate “Freedom” as a Federal National Heritage Site.
There are many, many people in our space community who are much smarter than me and can solve these challenges. They weren’t asked to.
Such smart people include those building new commercial Leo Destinations (CLDs) or private space facilities. To this day, they sang the NASA song that the ISS must die. This is for two main reasons: the fear that anything that looks like extending the life of the device means it will remain a competitor to their plans; and the fact that they are caught in NASA’s sphere of influence and that no one is speaking out against the plan.
I get it. I believe this effort will benefit all involved. Like any venerable historic building in any community anywhere, something deeply sad happens when the creator of their legacy is destroyed. ISS has pioneered everything it strives to do. It will cost them nothing to support this effort, and it will tell the new generation that what they are building is part of something long-term and permanent.
This truth is especially true for NASA. If we are indeed and finally opening the Border to Americans and humanity, aren’t we doing it permanently? Do we not intend that our decades of investment in space will lead to the expansion of human communities beyond Earth? So don’t we owe these future pioneers and citizens of the solar system a right to their legacy?
I can imagine a time a hundred years from now when the children and grandchildren of today’s space heroes are living and working in an expanding bubble of life that grows out of the mother world of Earth. I see a time when the citizens of the future will decide that the venerable old station that gave them their first real foothold will be reawakened. I see a moment, probably covered not only globally, but on media stretching from the Earth to the Moon, Mars and the space in between, when the lights come back on and Freedom shines once more.
It is time that those of today who believe that what we are doing in space is not just a short-term set of camping trips and expeditions, but a harbinger of the next phase of human existence, start to act accordingly.
Friends of Liberty, from her astronauts to those who built her and keep her flying, have been inspired by the work aboard her, or simply people who believe in the importance of preserving historic monuments and those who don’t believe we should destroy the Earth. from space, the need to organize and educate Congress and the White House about why the current plan is wrong, what the alternatives might be, and how important this precious piece of our history is and will be.
Rick Tumlinson Founded the EarthLight Foundation and SpaceFund, a venture capital firm. He co-founded The Space Frontier Foundation, was a founding board member of XPrize, and hosts “The Space Revolution” on iRoc Space Radio, part of the iHeart Radio Network.