The International Space Station is falling. It has been orbiting the Earth since 1998 and was completed in 2011. The plan was to retire it in 2024, but the accounts did not work out and, in 2021, the NASA administrator set a definitive date: 2030. The question is whether it will last that long because a few months ago we already said that members of NASA showed concern about the accumulation of technical problems that were accelerating the decline of a seriously aging facility.
Air leaks, cracks in different modules, lack of spare parts for critical systems and lack of budget to propose a serious solution mean that the Different agencies have been putting patches on for years. NASA has already commissioned SpaceX to develop a ship that will tow it to the Pacific space cemetery, but… is there no other solution for the 450-ton, $150 billion station?
The answer is yes. At least, that’s what Greg Vialle, founder of a startup called Lunexus Space that is committed to recycling the International Space Station, thinks.
Turning the International Space Station into a mine
By the middle of last year, NASA was clear that Point Nemo, a remote place in the Pacific, 2,700 kilometers from the nearest land pile, would be the station’s graveyard. There was only one thing that could prevent dismantling: ROSCOSMOS, the Russian space agency, would refuse to abandon the ship.
Russia soon changed its mind, commenting that its cosmonauts spent more time repairing equipment than conducting experiments. Come on, no matter how much they wanted to “annoy” NASA at a geopolitically unstable point, it didn’t work out for them. Everything was aimed at the disappearance of the current ISS, but there are those who have something to say.
Lunexus Space is a startup focused on the development of industrial infrastructure in low orbit that reuse structures and space junk to facilitate the construction of goods directly in the lower atmosphere. The goal is to develop a kind of circular economy in low orbit by taking advantage of the tons of material already in space, eliminating the need to launch them again from Earth.
In Space News, the CEO of the company has developed an article in which he explains his plan to “avoid wasteful expenses.” Vialle affirms that the ISS has 430 tons of high-quality aluminum, titanium and other materials valuable for future space missions. He estimates the value of the material at $1.5 billion, which would be lost to the ocean floor if NASA’s plan goes ahead. And it also points out the almost 1 billion that NASA will spend on the vehicle that tows the station to its resting point.
“It is a fiscally irresponsible plan that loses a strategic resource and a golden opportunity.”
What he proposes is “a common sense alternative”: converting old infrastructure into raw materials for new construction. Their calculations highlight that launching a kilogram of material into space costs $3,500, but if they take materials from the ISS, the costs would drop entirely.
And, faced with the 1,000 million dollars of the plan to sink it, Vialle suggests that Its recycling process could be carried out for about 300 million dollars to which an equivalent government loan would have to be added to launch the necessary infrastructure, appealing to significant savings for taxpayers while preserving valuable resources.
American leadership, of course
“How can we expect to prospect, mine, refine and transport in deep space if we cannot extract the many tons of cataloged and space-grade materials that are already beginning to manage low Earth orbit?” appeals Vialle. But of course, there is a B side to this plan: strengthening the space leadership of the United States.
By receiving the ISS, the CEO believes that the seeds of “a new industry in space led by the United States will be sown, ensuring our economic and strategic leadership over competitors like China.” China has also been planning its own station for years.
And he compares the maneuver with the American manufacturing policy to prepare for World War II, the Japanese strategy in the 1970s that established the country as a technological miracle or Taiwan’s position with TSMC and chip manufacturing. His idea is for the United States to invest in resource management technologies in space, something that is taking its first steps and that, if it reaches a solid program, will make “the nation dominate the future of commerce and defense in orbit.”
It is evident that Vialle has known what sticks to play in a moment as sensitive as the current one and, although in his letter he urges Congress to influence NASA’s decision to ‘deorbit’ the International Space Station, the space agency already detailed that, after a session to evaluate the possibility of reusing the main components of the station, they did not receive any proposals of interest from the industry.
On the other hand, the European Space Agency already noted that recycling in orbit was “a real challenge” and it was not clear whether the resources used to capture and process waste in space would be profitable.
Either way, time is of the essence. We will see what happens with the ‘Recycle the ISS’ movement, but there are four years left and, as more and more voices point out, something must be decided because the installation is on its last legs.
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