The American space Agency NASA has declared the need to reduce funding of the International space station to 2024 and redirect these funds to develop programs for training humans to Mars.
“ISS for NASA is a very serious issue. We’re going to continue financing its work until 2024, after which we will redirect these funds for the preparation of a manned flight to Mars,” commented chief scientific officer of the Agency, Ellen Stofan.
The termination of funding of the station from the US may mean its end, so the scenario of writing off are worked out now. Thus, according to one embodiment, ISS can be buried in the so-called cemetery of spaceships – the remote waters of the Pacific ocean. Here rests the bottom of the flooded waste a lot of spacecraft, rocket stages and other debris, including once belonged to the Russian station “Mir” and not burning up in the atmosphere.
“The ISS is huge. The size of a football field, so the most likely scenario is her immersion in the waters of the Pacific,” says Stofan.
There is another option. After the termination of state funding for the ISS would be able to issue (sell) any private company (or several companies), which will use it for commercial flights.
In addition, it should be remembered that the ISS belongs to several countries, it created, so it is possible that from use can opt-out of only US and the station will continue independent work without modules America’s space Agency.
The international space station began to operate from November 20, 1998. It is a multipurpose space research complex. In the ISS project involved 14 countries: Russia, USA, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Japan and Canada.
NASA decided to abandon the ISS and focus on Mars
Nikolai Khizhnyak