The Future of the ISS

I have been subconsciously and loosely following this outline.  I wrote a little further on the topic here.  On that post, I suggested taking the ISS to L4 or L5.  But rather than doing that, why not take it to L1?  The reason for this is so that it can serve as mass for the eventual construction of a lunar space elevator.   Or rather than taking the entire station up there, take only the parts that would be the most useful.  It would be useful to keep portions of the ISS in LEO, I would think.

The idea of deorbiting the ISS and sending it to a fiery doom seems like a terrible waste.  Surely, the basic materials alone are worth something even if their only value is as a counterweight for a lunar space elevator.  It is consistent with in situ resourcing- "living off the land", which Zubrin has been writing about.  It is the principle behind the idea of recycling the shuttle's external tanks, which I have been writing about.  It will save the money that it costs from having to launch from the Earth's deep gravity well.  No matter how much launch costs can be reduced, it would still be good practice to economize where practical.

The ISS is scheduled to last until 2020.  It is never too soon to think about what comes next.


Update: 12/29/10: 9am

If a space cannon can get fuel up to a space station, that would be helpful way of utilizing the cold box idea I wrote about here.  The cannon can launch the fuel, then dock with the cold box and unload its fuel.  After making its drop, the projectile can reenter the atmosphere and be refilled over and over again for launches into space.  Keep launching these projectiles and filling the cold box until it is full.  When the cold box is full and since the rockets are still attached, fire them up which takes it to EML-1 and mate them together until you have the necessary mass for the lunar space elevator.

Update 12/29: 1:00 PM approx.

Found this webpage about a future moon base on the lunar south pole.  Interesting.

Also, I added a new website (see left side bar under news and info) from one of the Google ads running on my page.  Its a space elevator blog.

Update 12/30: 6 am approx.

The space cannon idea above is said to be relatively cheap ( 250 dollars per pound) way of getting payload to orbit.  It is said to be able to do 1000 lb payloads.  The below is a video about using this concept to fuel rockets that can explore the planets.





One of the things it can launch is argon fuel for the VASIMR propulsion system which is close to being tested on the ISS.  This could be a valuable technology in its own right, and its just around the corner.