Ocean experts are raising concerns about the launch of the International Space Station

GOLDEN, Colorado – NASA is facing the challenge of safely unloading, at one time, more than 400 tons of space equipment over several years. Currently, the agency plans to take down the International Space Station in early 2031 by towing it to Earth and dumping it in the remote Pacific Ocean — an idea that has scientists and environmental dogs ringing bells.

As recently reported by the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG), the outer orbital space has been plagued by ongoing wear and tear problems, such as cracks and air leaks, after decades of use. .

NASA has evaluated and rejected several options for removing the ISS, including disassembly and return to Earth, keeping the station in high orbit and even the natural state of orbital decay through uncontrolled re-entry. . Instead, NASA concluded in a white paper that “using a US-made deorbit vehicle, with a final destination in the far ocean, is the best option for the end of the station’s life.”

A destructive drink

NASA announced last June the selection of SpaceX to design the United States Deorbit Vehicle (USDV) under a contract worth $843 million. The USDV will be based on a redesigned Dragon spacecraft with multiple Draco thrusters to lower the station’s orbit for a powerful, destructive nose dive. The trunk section developed for the USDV includes engines, propellant tanks with six times more propellant than the standard Dragon spacecraft, power generation and other systems.

Most parts of the ISS are expected to “burn up” during re-entry. But some thicker or heat-resistant components are expected to survive re-entry.

A possible drop-off point for these hard parts is Point Nemo, officially called the “point of inaccessibility,” which is already being used as a liquid burial ground for damaged space materials due to of its position as the distance from dry land on Earth. This area is 1,450 kilometers (2,685 miles) from the nearest landmass. The nearest point is Ducie Island, part of the Pitcairn Islands, to the north; Motu Nui, one of the Easter Islands, in the northeast; and Maher Island, part of Antarctica, to the south.

A wave of anxiety

The ISS explosion, however, is raising concerns among several environmental groups and marine ecologists.

“I consider this idea very dubious,” said Edmund Maser, a molecular biologist at the Center for Toxicology and Pharmacology for Natural Scientists at the University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel, Germany.

Maser said ocean dumping has been a short-sighted solution comparable to 80 years ago when it was considered a good idea to dump unused World War II ammunition into the oceans. He said: “Today, it is found that the guns are breaking down and scattering their explosives in the sea area. SpaceNews.

It was later determined that these explosives are not only explosive, thus posing a great danger to people and the environment, Maser said, but are also toxic and carcinogenic. Decades ago, he added, no one thought of these long-term negative effects on the marine environment and people, and now today people are faced with the difficult and expensive task of cleaning old weapons.

“Therefore it is understandable that we will cause great damage with the planned abandonment of the ISS and others,” said Maser. “Our future generations will hold us responsible for this and they will criticize us, shake their heads – and they will have to make great efforts to correct our current mistakes.”

Surviving the wreckage

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is evaluating how disposal of the International Space Station in the ocean will need to be managed but has not yet shared details of the issues involved or the regulatory aspects.

“EPA’s Office of Water is coordinating with the Office of General Counsel on this difficult issue. The agency does not have a timeline for this review,” EPA spokesman Dominique Joseph said SpaceNews.

“Sixty-six years of space missions have resulted in tens of thousands of tons of space debris crashing into the oceans,” said Ewan Wright, Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia and a young fellow at the Outer Space Institute, a group of interdisciplinary experts dealing with the ongoing challenges of space operations.

Wright noted that there are several unknowns about the operation of the ISS, which will be the largest in history.

“We don’t know exactly what equipment is on the ISS, and the debris left behind could be dangerous to marine life,” Wright said. But dumping it in the ocean is the worst option, reducing the risk to people and aircraft, and preventing it from being hit by space debris.

While derailing the ISS might clear another spacecraft’s orbit, dumping it in the ocean is a short-sighted answer, said George Leonard, chief scientist at the Ocean Conservancy — a Washington, DC-based group that aims to Protect the ocean from the world’s greatest challenges today. – told SpaceNews.

Leonard compared NASA’s strategy to dumping single-use plastics in the ocean: it makes pollution invisible and mind-blowing.

“For many, this means that the ocean has become an ideal place to dump everything from tires to old ships to barrels of radioactive waste, and really, space junk,” Leonard said. He said: “The debate over the disposal of the International Space Station is based on the fact that people often fail to plan the end of life of the things we create, and the ISS and a plastic fork are not so different. .”

Leonard said that the ocean suffers every time we add pollution to it.

“Space debris being left in our ocean is not something new, but it is a problem that we know will grow in the future. There’s no easy solution, but we can’t ignore the long-term effects of adding more waste — whether it’s single-use plastics or landfill waste — to our oceans,” Leonard said.

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