HOW TO REPLACE THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION?

 

(Affichages fiaits sur Linked In ces derniers jours.)

Intéressant. L'ajout prochain d'un quatrième module à la station spatiale chinoise ne sera donc que la première phase d'un programme d'expansion de plus grande envergure. Quelles seront les autres phases?

https://x.com/ChinaScience/status/2069616514760876098

Interesting reading. In the relatively short history of all the activities related to the exploration of space and the exploitation of its varied resources, the International Space Station is not the norm but the anomaly. It is the embodiement of a specific time period, when the United States got the upper hand over the Soviet Union, creating a brief moment of international calm. It is analogous to the famous "End of history" book that was published at around the same time by a reputable Japanese historian, claiming that good has finally prevailed over evil, opening the door to paradise, worldwide brotherhood, long-lasting harmony, and universal peace. Those words were nice to hear, of course, but they also amounted to a whole truckload of anglospherian self-serving, triomphant and sterile blah, blah, blah... The reality is that the still young space age is as much a part of the ongoing human comedy of error as any other time period, whether the Iron Age or the Bronze Age. People do not change that much, over time. The beginning of the Space Age was marked by the emergence of two powers, the USA and the USSR, walking along a small path that started at the German launch base of Peenemunde, on the Baltic Sea, and that then branched into two latger roads, one passing through Baikonour, the other, through Cape Canaveral. The Russians and the Americans were the first to reach space, and then the Moon, respectively, in that order. After the fall of the Soviet Union, began a new phase, with the space agencies of America and Russia at the centre, helped by a few others, all cooperating on a common project, the ISS. That intermediate phase is about to end. In a few years, a third one will start, similar to the first, in many aspects, but with important changes: a greater number of public space agencies, a growing presence of private actors, and a burgeoning economy that, at least for the moment, is centered mainly upon the development of the artifical satellites industry. That third phase will be a reflection of the current world order. China is likely to continue its ponderous, step-by-step setting up, putting in place growing facilities around Earth, and then one day on the Moon. As for Russia's Roscosmos, it is likely to turn its back on the ISS era and deepen its cooperation with the Chinese, in their various endeavours, in a junior position, along with a number of other public space agencies. As for America's NASA, a lot will depend on the political evolution of that country, badly-led at the present time and afflicted by a ballooning and paralysing federal debt. In all likelyhood, NASA's budget will suffer from the way America's public finances are managed, being less a source of prestige for the Trumpians than their ballroom and arc de triomphe, and it may thus be reduced in the coming years, something that, objectively, would be a good thing for America's taxpayers, even though there's also a possibility that the savings would in fact be directed toward the military budget. All in all, NASA may found itself with a diminished role in the field of space exploration. In such a case, it may become necessary for other actors to step in and create an alternative to China's growing presence in space. It is probably not in mankind's best interest that the Chinese are the only one with a manned permanent presence in orbit around Earth, or farther away. A dual station like the ISS, built from an assemblage of Russian segments and American segments, is far from an ideal formula, since the usefulness and viability of such an arrangement became automatically dependant on the vagaries of international relations. The start of the Ukrainian War, in 2022, had many consequences, spacewise. It led to Roscosmos departure from the activities of the European spaceport at Kourou, in French Guyana, for instance. It also created something of a malaise between the two main operators of the ISS, unofficially and covertly at war with each other in Eastern Europe, while officially at peace aboard the ISS, a strange and unusual situation nobody would have predicted at the time it started to take shape decades ago... Thus, a future second space station, alongside Tiangong, in a manner of speaking, would make more sense if it is operated mainly by one space agency, which doesn't mean that the participation of other space agencies, in a junior position, is forbidden. Who could be the main operator of an hypothetical second space station around Earth, post-ISS? It could be NASA, of course, even though such a thing implies that the US space agency receive a budget sufficient to assume that kind of task, something that is difficult to take for granted at the moment. Japan's JAXA and Europe's ESA are not likely to be able to be up for the task, for a similar reason, the countries running those space agencies being heavily indebted, while Canada's space agency is minuscule. In fact, it may well be that the only realistic possibility, when the time will arrive to identify a prime mover for an hypothetical second space station around Earth, would be for India's agency, ISRO, to take the pole position and assume the leadership of such a gigantic task. It would be a big challenge for India, of course, but it probably can be done, especially if other space agencies are allowed to participate, in a junior position, like NASA, JAXA and the ESA, both financially and materially.

https://spacedaily.com/t-china-was-effectively-shut-out-of-the-international-space-station-after-the-united-states-passed-the-wolf-amendment-in-2011-so-it-built-its-own-if-the-iss-retires-on-schedule-around-2030-and-no-comm/

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