+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹ Posted March 17, 2011 Subscriber¹ Share Posted March 17, 2011 Europe has formally agreed to the extension of operations at the International Space Station until 2020.Member states have also put in place the financing to cover their commitments at the platform for the next two years. The decisions were taken at a two-day council meeting of the European Space Agency at its headquarters in Paris. Europe is an 8% partner in the ISS project with the US, Russia, Japan and Canada. Esa's space station manager, Bernardo Patti, said the announcement from council was a significant development. "This is the formal acceptance from the member states that the space station will last until 2020 and will be supported financially; and that is really excellent news," he told BBC News. "Now that ISS is built, the emphasis in the coming years will be to maximise its exploitation." All five ISS-participating space agencies had indicated last year their desire to see the platform continue flying beyond 2015, but Europe had until now struggled to agree the funding arrangements within its member states. The 10 Esa nations that subscribe to the station project approved a 550m-euro sum at the Paris gathering to supplement the 1.4bn-euro package passed at the Ministerial Council in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2008. This extra money will cover commitments until the next Ministerial at the end of 2012, when member states will initiate a 2bn-euro arrangement to take European participation at the ISS through to 2020. By the end of the decade, it is expected Europe will have spent about 9bn euros over the full 25 years of the project. Source: BBC News Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Meanwhile, deveral European nations have signed letters of intent to use the Bigelow Space Complex's. Biggest problem for Europe is the US declaring their part of ISS a National Laboratory, giving US projects pririty - and opportunities are already rare and the crew size/timr limited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 it's time to move beyond the ISS, i mean we can keep her, but she's not really where we're headed. if i had to choose between keeping the ISS and channeling those funds towards longer range missions, i would choose the latter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 Putting a major space station/fuel depot at EML-2, an Eathh-Moon Lagrange point, should be first on our list. From there you have low energy (less fuel) access to most anywhere, and a low energy return location from most anywhere. Returns tp Earth can then be done with deep space capable capsules like Dragon or Orion. Bigelow's Hercules station is IMO the way to go: 8,300 cubic meters vs the ISS's <900 cubic meters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guru Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 so when is Bigelow's Hercules station going to be online? and by fuel i'm assuming you mean Liquid / H and O. would nuclear be better? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 Chemical fuels, but not H2/O2. The problem with cryogenic fuels like them is boil-off - even the best insulated tanks would lose most of their contents in a few days without active cooling and sun shades, the former requiring massive solar panels. Nope - too much $$$$ infrastructure. At first the fuels will be what is used now: hypergolics like nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine. They are durable in space, ignite on contact with each other (reliable & simple - no igniters needed) and have a long experience base. Their downside is toxicity, as in very. This means expensive loading processes pre-launch and a means of isolating them frlm the crew. Eventually a non-toxic fuel combination will have to reace hypergolics for safefy and economic reasons, and there iz a candidate: NoFBX, as discussed in my fuel thread. NoFBX is a monopropellant (no separate tanks for fuel & oxidizer) with quite good power factors. Nuclear comes in 2 likely flavors; nuclear thdrmal and nuclear electric (read: VASIMR). Nuclear reactors for either presents issues of the political kind. .more so since the troubles in Japan. No matter the tech is proven and launch safe - this is what's kept it from launch since the 60's. Until thats cleared up... Nuclear thermal is best used as a departure stage, mainly because it uses liquid hydrogen as a reaction mass which brings in the boil-off problem on longer uses. Nuclear electric is the interplanetary propulsion of the future. It can run for months/years at a time and get ships up to over 130,000 mph easily. Reaction mass can be most any elemental gas, but argon has worked well in other ion drives and you don't need a lot of it. Another plus for VASIMR is that it can use solar power, at least for missions to the inner planets, asteroid belt. Further kut would need nulear power - at least 100-200 MWe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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