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China shares ambitious plans to double its space station as the ISS approaches the end of its life cycle

China shares ambitious plans to double its space station

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/china-shares-ambitious-plans-to-double-its-space-station

As the NASA-led International Space Station (ISS) approaches the end of its useful life, China wants to increase the size of its space station from three to six modules .

China shares ambitious plans to double its space station as the ISS approaches the end of its life cycle::undefined

20 comments

raspberriesareyummy

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Sadly enough, the international community is really good at infighting and wasting money, and really bad at coming up with a followup for the ISS :( So China, for all its flaws, will have the biggest functioning space station in LEO at some point. ISS operations have just been extended to 2034, but if we get a single micrometeorite hit in the wrong spot (e.g. Node 2), that'll put an end to it.

SkyeStarfall

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I wish the world was better at just giving a ton of money to science and space. It's such an obvious use of money, if you ask me.

Especially since the future of humanity, given that we survive, is in space. There is a lot of potential for space-based infrastructure.

SpacetimeMachine

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Too many people think that when we spend money on space, that we are literally sending the money into orbit. Almost all of it is going back into the economy and keeping tons of businesses alive.

OldWoodFrame

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I don't really understand how the entire ISS could be "end of life cycle." Aren't there a bunch of different modules of different ages? And anyway, the oldest modules are 24 years old that is nothing with proper maintenance, there are 50 year old trains still in operation daily.

Beardsley

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Space trains fall under a different regulating authority than space stations, unfortunately.

SkyeStarfall

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If a train fails, at worst that will happen is it will stop. When a space station fails, the worst that will happen is everyone inside dies.

In addition, a space station is far more expensive, and it may be simply too expensive to still maintain old technology. Ideally, at some point, one will replace it with a newer, more modern, space station. Which will both be cheaper, and allow more, novel, science to be done. Although I don't know if there is any plan for that.

I'd like to see a space station with a rotating ring, that generates artificial gravity through centrifugal acceleration.

TotalTrash

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Lol that's nowhere near the worst scenario for a train failure.

0x0

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I don't know why can't they just send it to a Lagrange point and leave it there. Burning it seems like literally burning money.

MrSpArkle

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Space races are good for science. As long as spacex engineers keep Elon at bay, Starship should be able to launch stage biggest station modules in history.