On Monday, the world celebrates 20 years of continuous human presence in space. Astronauts and cosmonauts have been hovering over the International Space Station since November 2, 2000.
In these 7,300 days, U.S. The $ 1 billion billion orbital laboratory has hosted 241 people from 19 countries and conducted more than 3,000 scientific experiments.
Still, all good things must come to an end. NASA has cleared the ISS for at least 2028 flights, but the station is starting to show its age. At some point in the next 10 to 15 years, it is likely that NASA will break up the station in the South Pacific Ocean.
But other habitable stations are expected to take its place – most of them designed and built by private companies.
Some of these companies, such as Axiom Space and Biglow Aerospace, hope to further the success of the ISS by adding extensions to the station that could eventually take off in orbit as their home.
Others, like Blue Origin, want to make new spaces so large and sophisticated that they can begin to come to life on Earth.
ISS is aging
The life span of the station has already exceeded 15 years. The last few months alone have seen a toilet go bust on the Russian side of the station, an oxygen-supply system crash and air leakage getting bigger.
“All modules in the Russian segment have been sold out,” Gennady Padalka, a cosmonaut, told RIA Novosti in October.
A diagram of the International Space Station, including the Zvezda service module. (NASA)
These issues are not enough to tamper with the integrity of the station for now, but are signaling deterioration.
“I think it’s an incredibly reliable and robust system,” NASA astronaut Kate Rubins said during a press call last month on the ISS.
But in the wake of the space station’s tumultuous retirement, private companies are already competing to develop a worthy successor.
Some companies will start by making connections with the ISS
A private aerospace company called Axiom Space, based in Houston, Texas, aims to build the first commercial space station. Founded in 2016, Ixiom has received an agreement from NASA to build at least one new habitable commercial module to add to the existing space station.
Then once the ISS retires, that module, along with anyone else that JoAxium has added in the intervening years, will theoretically separate to become an independent orbital outpost.
Xxiom means observatory, a part of its planned ISS module, rendering of the artist. (Axium space)
Another company with similar aspirations is Beagle Aerospace, founded in 1999 by real estate billionaire Robert Beagle. The business has already sent a working prototype of its inflatable ISS module into space – connected to the Beagle Expandable Activity Module or BIM. It has been a station since 2016. Currently used for storage.
But Bigelow is designing a new version of the residence at its facilities in Las Vegas in Nevada, which is much larger and more ambitious than before. The latest model called the B330 has an internal volume of 11,650 cubic feet (330 cubic meters), hence its name. It is the size of a 1,165 square foot apartment with a roof of about 10 feet.
“Equipped with two galleys, two toilets, a huge cargo space and two different propulsion systems, this is the ideal residence for a long-term space mission,” Bigelow said in a September 2019 statement.
“This huge space station can accommodate four people and five people indefinitely for many.”
Eventually, Biglow hopes that some version of the B330 will be able to hold astronauts traveling to Mars.
Yet another company, Sierra Nevada Corporation, is working on a prototype of three-story inflatable space housing. Its design will enable it to either connect to the space station or serve as a lunar base.
Known as the Large Inflatable Fabric Environment or Life, the facility may also have a microgravity garden that can supply fresh produce to astronauts.
(Sierra Nevada Corporation)
Janet Kawandi, senior vice president of Sierra Nevada, is also a retired NASA astronaut. She told Business Insider that this flowery residential space can serve many purposes, including “manufacturing facilities, hotels, which some people may be interested in, or even an observatory.”
The ultimate goal, he added, is “replacing the existing space station with new capacity.”
Blue Origin envisions living in a ‘fundamentally different’ space
While corporations like Bigelow and Axiom are using the ISS as a starting point for space accommodation that could eventually become an independent station, others, like Blue Origin, are already working on single orbital housing.
That company, owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, envisions more spacious and more luxurious residences than the ISS.
A job posted by Blue Origin in September suggests that even its starting stations will be “fundamentally different from ‘research’ accommodation designed for small, professionally trained crews in rational space.”
The artist’s conception of the O’Neill space colony mimicking Earth conditions in space. (Blue Original)
In the long run, Bezos envisions huge housing in the solar system that could have a space-based economy of millions of workers, allowing heavy industry to move beyond our planet. The atmosphere inside these habitats will mimic the Earth’s gravity and the most ideal weather.
“This is his best day of the year,” Bezos said in May 2019. The Guardian. “No rain. No earthquake. People want to live here.”
This article was originally published by Business Insider.
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