Russia plans to sink the International Space Station in 2020
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/27/russia-plans-to-sink-international-space-station-in-2020/
Russia’s space agency announced Wednesday that the International Space Station — a space base the world’s scientists and billions of U.S. tax dollars helped build and maintain some 200 miles above the surface of the Earth — will be de-orbited and allowed to sink into the Pacific Ocean in 2020, just like its Russian predecessor, Mir.
“We will be forced to sink the ISS. We cannot leave it in orbit as it is a very complicated and a heavy object,” Roscosmos’ deputy head Vitaly Davydov said in an interview posted on the agency’s website.
“We have agreed with our partners that the ISS would function roughly until 2020,” he noted.
After sinking hundreds of millions into construction of the space station — billions if you include the cost of the space shuttle flights that carried the ISS modules into orbit — knowledgeable government sources and NASA spokesmen were aghast at Davydov’s plans to sink the station in the ocean.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen Russia come out with a statement that seems to be coming out of their own stovepipes,” one congressional representative told FoxNews.com. “I would give it no credence at all.”
“We wouldn’t allow astronauts to be on the station if there’s a sense that it’s limping along,” he added.
NASA agreed to construct the International Space Station on January 29, 1998, in conjunction with representatives from Canada, members of the European Space Agency (ESA), and Japanese and Russian space scientists. And the space agency clearly has a different vision for the station than Russia.
“The partnership is currently working to certify on-orbit elements through 2028,” NASA spokesman Joshua Buck told FoxNews.com.
Buck noted that an international panel including the U.S. and Russia met in March to evaluate the future of the space station. They identified no constraints on continuing operation through 2020 — and at the time, emphasized their common intent to continue operation of the world’s first space base into the next decade.
It was not immediately clear why Davydov made the abrupt change. Russia’s space agency did not immediately respond to FoxNews.com requests for clarification. U.S Senator Bill Nelson, a former astronaut and a congressional expert on NASA, told FoxNews.com the Russian comments were intended mainly to mitigate concerns about the growing issue of space junk.
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this is a significant announcement i believe..and i bet this gets brought forward from 2020 now thats it been released as news..
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