What is our long term commitment to space? Earth-moon is literally our back yard, how long do you think the population of this planet will have this relationship develop. Nations come and go, civilization rise and fall; even if this entire present civilization should collapse because of wars, ecological over-reach, pollution, disease and pestilence, de-population: the moon should still orbit the earth for at least the next few hundred thousand years - enough time for another civilization to rise from our ashes (if we don't completely sterilize the planet).
Granted the ISS is aging out, welds are failing and leaking atmosphere, but let's think of the mass and the composition of that collective mass. Before treating the ISS like a beer drinking Bubba driving down a country road: chucking a trillion dollar space stations, multi-million dollar satellites, and billion dollar telescopes at earth like a empty beer can tossed out the pickup window. No recycling. No accounting the environmental or energy costs of putting these technological marvels into space; just like the petrochemical industry externalizing all the inconvenient expenses.
- Upon reentry all these highly refined and processed materials will be (ideally) vaporized, even under ideal conditions unrecoverable, non-recyclable, and unsustainable. Refined and processed Rare Earths, high alloy aluminum, stainless steels, magnesium steels, vanadium, high and low carbon. All of these objects in space, subject to degradation, the exotic metals, electronic components, solar panels, etc. a living laboratory generating long scale material data: critical for future vehicles designed for the rigors of an extended space presence (including SNAP generators). And the shear tonnage of mass available for salvaging reaction mass for ion thrusters.
- Now if our commitment to this planet is long term and thus our commitment to at least "our" Earth - Moon "backyard" then it seems to me that implies the necessity to think in terms of manmade constructions in open space beyond the Earths Van-Allen belt for thousands of years. What Material Science do we have on such long term exposure and how do we acquire it? What is the rate of Neutron Embrittlement of the T16 Aluminum Alloy? T34, low carbon, high carbon, High Alloy, 316 Stainless Steel? How does all the electronics and equipment inside the SST and the outer hull of the SST react over extended time to all the charged particles? How does the insulation on the wiring fare and the other plastic components we are so fond of perform and/or degrade over the decades and centuries in and out of vacuum and the temperatures of space? Put JB WeldTM or any other NASA originating sealing compounds on the leaking welds, holes and place instruments to keep measuring points of interest and see how they last. How do capacitors, transistors, transformers, microprocessors degrade under hard vacuum and exposed to the full barrage of electromagnetic and particle radiation from the Sun and intergalactic space decades or centuries outside the Earth's Magnetic sphere?
- What needs to be done with these spent mission hardware is make missions to attach boosters or fuel existing systems and put these end of life marvels into a Lagrange orbit: EM-L4 for Scrap/salvage and EM-L5 for a spin station (per L5 society Ad Astrum). We, the citizens of earth have expended our monies and presence on the moon. I wonder if the future moon bases might need some refined alloy metal materials. Feed stock? Resources to put these materials into space, the least to be done is keep them there for future civilizations to use even if our civilization crashes before we expand off world. Dealing with the existing space debris and creating a spin station in the Lagrange Points should be our main objectives along with permanent presence on the moon and mining the Asteroid belt.
- IMHO "We" Earthlings/ Terrans/ Humans need a new plan for our back yard. A completely reusable "space plane" Earth Orbit & re-entry to serve as astronauts ferry to lower orbit. A "tea kettle" type transport to go from earth shuttle orbit rendezvous to higher assembly orbit and on to a "Clark" Spin Station located at EM Lagrange 5. Have a Moon Lander / Ascent specialized vehicle to go from the Clark station to the lunar base(s) and return. Even without the Clark Station at LG5, keep a specialized earth orbit to moon (and back) with orbital refueling. Instead of launching "Everything" mission vehicles from earth: assemble and provision the mission in orbit (modules). We cannot treat everything as disposable - single use. The Solar System is our spaceship through our galaxy, the earth is our space capsule habitat; let the human race not only look but strive to the heavens for there lies our destiny and our species future.
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