Discovery News: The Space Station as a Deep Space Exploration Platform?

The Space Station as a Deep Space Exploration Platform?

It's the bread and butter of sci-fi movies: A spaceport in Earth orbit acting as a spaceship construction facility or an assembly point for astronauts to resupply before flying into deep space. Now there are some low-level discussions about turning the International Space Station (ISS) into that functioning spaceport.

According to letters exchanged by the Russian, European and US space agencies, it would appear there is renewed interest in further development of the space station's purpose.

The ISS is outfitted with a hi-tech suite of laboratories largely intended to study the microgravity effects on Earth biology. If these new ideas ever reach fruition, we could see a reinvigorated station with deep space aspirations. The research carried out on the station could then be used to understand how to grow food on Mars, or develop advanced life support systems for example.

According to the ideas being bandied around, the ISS could become a spaceship construction yard of sorts, building vehicles to make trips to the moon (for what purpose, it's not yet clear) and eventually form the backbone of a deep space exploration research infrastructure.

"We need the courage of starting a new era," Simonetta Di Pippo, Europe's director of human spaceflight, said in an interview with BBC News.

"The idea is to ascend to the space station the various elements of the mission, and then try to assemble the spacecraft at the ISS, and go from the orbit of the space station to the Moon."

This is fundamentally a sound idea. Getting stuff into space isn't easy; to get anything sizable into orbit is expensive and resource-heavy. If you can have a construction platform already in orbit you can send up the smaller components piece-by-piece to build large spacecraft outside of Earth's restrictive gravitational field. The size of the finished product is no longer a problem.

There is one huge issue with re-purposing the ISS, however. It was never designed to be a low-Earth orbit construction facility. Building space vehicles down here on Earth is hard enough; in microgravity the challenges multiply. Therefore, most of the fabrication would need to be done on Earth, then each piece sent up in turn -- very much like the construction of the modular ISS itself.

There's also the looming retirement of the space shuttle fleet. How would we get spaceship components to the space station for construction?

The space station has been the focus of much criticism over the years. At best, the ISS partners admit that the space station in its current form hasn't lived up to its scientific promise (yet). At worst, critics think it's a disproportionately expensive means of keeping humans in space with minimal benefit to mankind.

But we now have a near-completed space station with six crew members able to carry out around 70 hours of science per week. Construction has taken a decade, the scientific benefits of having this orbital outpost may take some time to see the light of day.

This isn't the first time the space station's purpose has been re-examined. Memorably, in 2008, a Washington Post article suggested that the ISS should be retrofitted with rockets and sent to Mars. Sure, this was a fanciful idea by a commenter who had obvious frustrations with the project, but it excited the public and science media alike.

Now there's some discussion with the ISS partners to turn the space station into a spaceport, does this mean an opportunity has been spotted to use the ISS as a viable platform to mount deep space manned missions?

We'll have to wait and see.