The International Space Station is about to pass a remarkable milestone. In November, the giant spacecraft will have been in orbit around our planet for a quarter of a century.
For the past 25 years, hundreds of astronauts have made temporary homes there while other visitors have included frogs, worms, shellfish and butterflies: each has been the subject of experiments aimed at uncovering the effects of weightlessness, radiation and other extraterrestrial phenomena on living creatures. In addition, astronauts have carried out studies of dark matter, cosmic rays and Earth’s ozone layers.
Yet the days of this 100-metre-long behemoth – which began on 20 November 1998 when its first segment, Russia’s Zarya module, was blasted into orbit – are now numbered. The station has already been operating for a decade longer than planned, and it is suffering more and more from air leaks, thruster failures and other mishaps that are intensified as it is heated and cooled 16 times a day while sweeping round the Earth at 17,500mph. Vibrations from spaceship dockings and crew movements are only adding to these woes, as well as its ageing – near obsolete – equipment.
As a result, Nasa has decreed that the ISS, which now consists of 16 pressurised modules, will be terminated and sent spiralling into the Pacific Ocean in 2031. The space agency insists the risks posed to humans by the 400-tonne craft striking our planet will be minimal. “Once the debris enters the ocean, it would be expected to settle to the ocean floor,” it says. “No substantial long-term impacts would be expected.”
The forthcoming destruction of the International Space Station raises key questions. Was it worth £120bn to build and operate? What have we have learned over the past 25 years that justifies this incredible outlay? What will replace it, and who will pick up the bill?
The first question is the most controversial. Many scientists point out that the ISS has provided invaluable insights on how to live and work in zero gravity, knowledge that will be crucial as humanity prepares to return to the moon and head off on long-duration trips to Mars and beyond. Thanks to the space station, we have learned that humans can make homes in outer space and that is a crucial lesson, they state.
Others disagree. They argue that the money spent on the ISS would have been better invested in different projects. In the 1990s, when planning of the ISS began, the US – the principal funder of the international station – was considering two major rival scientific projects. The first was the ISS. The second was a proposed particle accelerator, the Superconducting Super Collider. Both came with colossal pricetags, and the US Congress decided the nation could only afford to provide cash for one. Mainly for political reasons, it chose the ISS and axed funding for the super collider.
The decision left Europe free to build its own particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), at Cern, in Geneva, where research has since garnered a host of Nobel prizes. By contrast, the US ended up with an “orbital turkey”, as the late US Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg described the ISS. “The only real technology that the space station has produced concerns the technology of keeping humans alive in space – which is a senseless and circular process if you realise there is no point in having humans in space,” he argued.
This point is backed by the UK Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees. “The case for sending humans into space gets weaker and weaker every year as robots get cleverer and more sophisticated,” he told the Observer. “They can do the science and assemble large structures in space and are much, much cheaper to operate in space. We don’t need humans to do research in space.”
“Just look at the headlines,” Rees added. “The only time the ISS makes news is when its toilets stop working or an astronaut floats about with a guitar singing Space Oddity.”
Space stations are not about to disappear from the night sky, however. The ISS may be destined for termination in a few years, but the US, Europe, Japan, Canada and India have all revealed plans to launch and build new orbiting laboratories, while China has already constructed its own permanently crewed station, Tiangong. Now scheduled to outlive the ISS, Tiangong is set to be fitted with extra modules to double its current size in the near future.
For its part, the US – in partnership with Europe, Japan and Canada – is planning to build Gateway, a smaller version of the ISS which would then be put into orbit round the moon. The station would be visited by groups of astronauts, initially for weeks and then for months at a time. From there, they will direct robot craft that will explore the moon’s surface and help prepare for the construction of a permanent crewed base there.
However, it is the arrival of private entrepreneurs that is expected to transform the market, with one key player, the US-based company Axiom, making headlines last week from the announcement that it had reached agreement with the UK Space Agency to send four British astronauts on a two-week space station mission in the near future.
Axiom is scheduled to add four new segments – or habitats, as it calls them – to the ISS, with first launch scheduled for 2026, Michael Baine, the company’s chief engineer, told the Observer. “Each habitat will support four astronauts, who will be sponsored either by an individual nation or a private company, and they will do research and meaningful work in orbit.” This will not be a tourist venture, in other words.
Baine said its four modules would be launched on privately owned rockets, such as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launcher. Once put together at the station, the modules would later be detached as a single new space station prior to the ISS being de-orbited and sent to crash into the Pacific. The station would arise from the ashes of the old, in short.
“Each module is designed to last for 15 years or more, possibly 30 years, and we aim to increase capacity there considerably over the years,” added Baine.
“There are many biological and pharmacological products that can be made in space, as well as crystals, fibre optics and metallurgy. All have a strong potential revenue, and we are aiming to exploit that.”
Other private operations being backed by Nasa include US companies such as Orbital Reef and Starlab, with the former describing its planned space station as “a business park in space”.
“We see future space stations as being a combination of zero-gravity factories and research laboratories. That is the potential they offer,” added Baine.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
