Even though it still seems like International Space Station He still has a lot of service left, the truth is that we are in that special moment in which we must start planning how we will get rid of it without harming anyone along the way. To put this a little more in perspective, we must refer to the entry into the atmosphere of the Chinese Space Station, which is out of control and that came to frighten many people at the possibility of it literally falling on them.
With this in mind, it is not surprising that there have been many voices in NASA that have begun to try to start conversations to start up some type of team that is precisely dedicated to developing a strategic plan in which it is finally revealed how we will get rid of the International Space Station itself which, as a detail, next November it will turn 20 years since the first part that makes up it was launched into space.
NASA begins to consider different alternatives to get rid, when the time comes, of the International Space Station
Before even continuing, tell you that literally today in NASA has no definitive plan to make the International Space Station crash into Earth safely. It must be taken into account that objects of this size tend to fall to the Earth and in this process they disintegrate when they come into contact with the atmosphere.
This process also has its negative point, which is that larger objects tend to arrive whole when they fall to Earth and in this sense the International Space Station will be no exception. According to a report issued by NASA inspector general:
At some point NASA will need to stop the operation of the International Space Station and lower it from orbit, either due to an emergency situation or because its useful life has ended. However, the space agency does not yet have the capacity to ensure that the International Space Station will re-enter Earth's atmosphere and land in an ideal location in the southern Pacific Ocean.
Some private companies dream of turning the International Space Station into a kind of luxury hotel
As expected, many are the plans that are beginning to be presented. Some of them even talk about turning the International Space Station into some kind of tourist attraction or hotel. The idea is to take advantage of it and even some kind of Economic performance from the year 2025.
In this sense, despite attending to these proposals, NASA has not hesitated to confirm that doubt very much about the viability of such a project, especially if we take into account the degradation of some of its parts, which has appeared with the passage of time and above all how extremely expensive maintenance work is.
The idea, as you can see, is to carry out some kind of plan in which to discuss what the re-entry of the International Space Station to Earth would be like and how, when the time comes, it would proceed to achieve crash it safely. The plan, as is logical, has not yet been finalized and today it is waiting to be reviewed by the Russian space agency for possible approval.
NASA does not have any kind of plan to be put in place in the event of the International Space Station collapsing in any way
If we look at a possible end in which the International Space Station is finally destroyed, according to NASA engineers, this process would be much more complicated than we can imagine, as well as long and expensive. To give you an idea, the same, according to the preliminary plans, would cost about two years and they estimate that about $ 950 million, expenses that would be would go mainly in fuel.
As you can see, it is especially striking that in this plan there is always talk that, until the last moment, the International Space Station will work correctly. At this moment There is no plan to get rid of it in case it suffers some kind of failure in its operation or is impacted by a meteorite.