The International Space Artifacts Museum at the Earth-Moon L1 Lagrange point would house the decommissioned space stations and observatories, sparing their fiery destruction. (credit: M. Thangavelu)

The case for an International Space Artifacts Museum

by Madhu Thangavelu
Monday, August 12, 2024

What to do with the International Space Station (ISS) when the facility is retired is the question hovering over us right now. NASA's report on the rationale for ISS decommissioning suggests that the agency imagination (and budget) seem to be running dry.

It appears that through new projects like the lunar Gateway and Artemis, the agency is being hobbled by more human spaceflight programs than it can afford to spend resources on. The easy way out is to eliminate the ISS, wipe the sheet clean, so NASA can move on to new programs. The agency claims that there have been no credible offers to requests to transfer operations to another entity. I hope the collective forward-looking vision of our people does not succumb to this vacuum of creativity.

Besides the new knowledge that these facilities have gathered, the ISS and observatories like Hubble and JWST have deep meaning associated with them. Their true value far exceeds the science and technology of our time. We should find ways to protect and preserve our collective species heritage, not destroy them and, worse, leave no trace of precious unique artifacts that continue to shape and evolve the view of who we are, and our purpose and place in the cosmos.

Beyond sheer scientific value or advancement of technology, the ISS holds tremendous “symbolic” significance. Symbolism that lays over the foundation of philosophy upon which ideologies are built and policies of nations are formulated.

The ISS was built and is being maintained through global participation and cooperation among nations with diverse cultural and governance philosophies. Free world values and peaceful collaboration is at the heart of the ISS program. The exchange of ideas, technologies, and hardware to conceive, create, and operate the ISS has weaved bonds in international relations and brought nations, even adversarial ones, together in common peaceful pursuit. Human spaceflight is at the core of this pursuit.

Just take a look at the diverse astronaut crew on board the ISS and the global support team that is associated with such an endeavor. Forget the budget. The sheer “elbow grease” by the thousands of scientists, engineers, highly skilled technicians, and the policy makers that went into bringing the world of nations together to create, operate, and maintain the ISS program far exceeds all the budget woes and associated drama.

Unlike the Salyut missions, Skylab, or Mir, which were symbols of national prestige, or the Chinese Tiangong station in orbit now, scuttling the ISS would set back our common species cosmopolitan ambitions rather than continue to enhance and enrich the spirit of global collaboration and cooperation.

We should create new orbital stations and extraterrestrial habitats. We should also use our collective imagination to at least continue to service this unique facility till the next generation of stations become real. Otherwise, we’ll be faced with the situation like the space transportation gap we faced after the agency retired the Space Shuttle.

If ISS is truly showing age and unsafe for crew, we should find ways to preserve it unmanned, in a parking orbit, making it the centerpiece for an International Space Artifacts Museum that would include other historic assets like the aging Hubble.

We proposed a concept for such a facility in our Moon book, The Moon, Resources, Future Development & Settlement.

Though we suggested the Earth-Moon Lagrange point L1 as the final spot in cislunar space for the Space Museum, we could begin to collect and preserve artifacts in a suitable Earth parking orbit until we mature more suitable transportation and propulsion systems to locate it further out.

Yes, there are tough engineering problems to address. But technologies exist that can solve these issues. For instance, advanced electric propulsion coupled with power from the existing large solar arrays can gently thrust the ISS into a higher orbit where the LEO constellation traffic is much more manageable and the debris threat is reduced. Electrodynamic tethers installed on spacecraft that interact with the Earth’s magnetic field have been proposed to alter orbits in the past. Gentle initial thrusting of the fragile ISS truss structure is also possible using small conventional thrusters that employ deep throttling, several being built and tested using state-of-the-art additive manufacturing methods.

Furthermore, the increased orbital debris threat that the agency points to, mostly from assumptions in studies, can be mitigated by mounting high-energy laser systems that are already mature and in use today by the military and heavy industry. By adopting this line-of-sight speed-of-light (LOSSOL) targeting approach, the ISS has ample power onboard to neutralize any threat posed by debris. Moreover, such a LOSSOL mitigation technology is vital as we plan to execute fast-trajectory crewed interplanetary missions using nuclear propulsion. It is time to develop and certify such debris threat mitigation systems and the ISS could play host to this critical technology development.

The harder issues may lie in the modification of existing memoranda of understanding among the partners. Partner nations with deep historical roots also know the immense value of history and preservation. Our nation should lead the effort as we have done all along, and continue to provide the maximum resources to keep the facility in orbit. We should also encourage more partners to join the coalition to preserve ISS just as we are doing with the Artemis Accords right now.

It is good to be reminded that we dearly hold on to and cherish the continuum of civilization by preserving historic artifacts all over the globe. Culture is enriched, and generations to come will value the preservation of heritage of historic artifacts of our era.

And that is why we have cultural heritage sites and museums around the globe, to protect and preserve the continuity of thought and creativity of our species and our civilization, lest we forget how we became what we are today and what our aspirations are for tomorrow; what we hope to be.

And in civil architecture philosophy, we also rehabilitate and service historically relevant buildings and infrastructure all over the world. In fact, some structures in use today date back to the cradle of civilization.

The time is right to start evolving the infrastructure for an International Space Artifacts Museum to preserve our species heritage in space and on celestial bodies as we explore and settle lands beyond planet Earth. The promise of new technologies for the maintenance and evolution of endurance-class future spacecraft can evolve through such an effort.

The ISS collaboration has paid rich dividends in the past, continues to do so today, and our bipartisan leadership should act proactively to propose a creative plan with the established partners together with emerging spacefaring nations to establish such a museum when the time comes to decommission this unique facility.

Our leaders know this, and our architects stand ready to act too!

Madhu Thangavelu conducts the ASTE527 graduate Space Exploration Architecture Concept Synthesis Studio in the Department of Astronautical Engineering within the Viterbi School of Engineering and the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California. He is on the faculty of the International Space University, an international organization that trains space professionals globally. He is a director of the National Space Society and the North American activities coordinator for the Moon Village Association.

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