Question ISS Reusability

[Ivor]

My question is similar to Zorro's, when he asked about moving the ISS to the moon. Is there a reason why parts of the ISS cannot be reused? I am thinking specifically of the solar panels and some of the end modules and Canada Arms. Would in not be possible to send up new modules and then bolt the spare parts back on to their new sites. Deorbiting the whole thing seems such a waste of time, effort and money.

 

[billslugg]

No one wants to be associated with the use of parts that have exceeded their lifetimes.
The cost of removal, storage on orbit and eventual retrieval would be astronomical.
A cost analysis would show no savings. It would not be worth it.
Musk has made it cheap to launch mass into LEO.

 

[Ivor]

No one wants to be associated with the use of parts that have exceeded their lifetimes.
The cost of removal, storage on orbit and eventual retrieval would be astronomical.
A cost analysis would show no savings. It would not be worth it.
Musk has made it cheap to launch mass into LEO.

Thanks for the swift reply, Billslugg. The problem is, according to what I have read and cannot verify its accuracy, Starship comes with a lot of pollutants that it sprays into the atmosphere when it launches at the moment. The less we have to rely on it, the better. Hopefully, this will be rectified in time.
By the way, does anyone know what the relationship is ,of pollutants ssued between the total number of Starship launches and the current global airline fleet?

 

[billslugg]

If you already knew the answer, why did you ask the question?

 

[Laz]

Thanks for the swift reply, Billslugg. The problem is, according to what I have read and cannot verify its accuracy, Starship comes with a lot of pollutants that it sprays into the atmosphere when it launches at the moment. The less we have to rely on it, the better. Hopefully, this will be rectified in time.
By the way, does anyone know what the relationship is ,of pollutants ssued between the total number of Starship launches and the current global airline fleet?

I think I read somewhere that a single launch adds an equivalent of some 200+ transatlantic airliner flights in terms of carbon emissions....sorry I cant provide any details on that- it's just hearsay- but I think that it cannot be questioned that the emissions/impact is "a lot" and could certainly be reduced considerably in my mind by using lighter-than-air tech to lift the rockets to a maximum altitude before ignition (thereby reducing the fuel load) and utilizing parachutes to safely drop the expended rocket into a the ocean for recovery. These pointy returns are pretty flashy tech achievements but clearly quite damaging to our environment - I expect these type of operations will be banned in the future

 

[billslugg]

Rockets have been lifted by balloon and also by airplane. It is a well understood concept. Very limited in terms of payload. No balloon or airplane could lift a fully fueled Starship.

 

[Laz]

Rockets have been lifted by balloon and also by airplane. It is a well understood concept. Very limited in terms of payload. No balloon or airplane could lift a fully fueled Starship.

but you dont need to load so much fuel into the rocket to get it to altitude- "starship" is one big container, a huge waste considering how much of it is expended just getting it off the launchpad.
far far too damaging to the environment; elon can go back to his dope; there are better solutions, and far smarter folk than he

 

[billslugg]

We eagerly await the Laz rocket.

 

[ChrisA]

Thanks for the swift reply, Billslugg. The problem is, according to what I have read and cannot verify its accuracy, Starship comes with a lot of pollutants that it sprays into the atmosphere when it launches at the moment. The less we have to rely on it, the better. Hopefully, this will be rectified in time.
By the way, does anyone know what the relationship is ,of pollutants ssued between the total number of Starship launches and the current global airline fleet?

Why compare it to the airline fleet? Why not compare Starship to the emission of kitchen stoves in the city of Dallas TX? I think the larger pollution problem is the stoves in people's homes, by orders of magnitude. Even a small city uses vast amounts of Methane.

The fuel is exactly the same on the home stove and the Raptor engine. The (unbalanced) reaction in both is
CH4+O2 -> CO2 + H2O. If you are concerned about this (and there are good reasons to be concerned) then you should address the worst cause of pollution first. That would be the domestic use of natural gas for heating and cooking. There is an easy and cheap solution for the domestic use case, electricity from solar panels + storage.

 

[ChrisA]

I think I read somewhere that a single launch adds an equivalent of some 200+ transatlantic airliner flights in terms of carbon emissions....sorry I cant provide any details on that- it's just hearsay- but I think that it cannot be questioned that the emissions/impact is "a lot" and could certainly be reduced considerably in my mind by using lighter-than-air tech to lift the rockets to a maximum altitude before ignition (thereby reducing the fuel load) and utilizing parachutes to safely drop the expended rocket into a the ocean for recovery. These pointy returns are pretty flashy tech achievements but clearly quite damaging to our environment - I expect these type of operations will be banned in the future

I just wrote about the relative magnitude of household cook stove to rocket launches. But why stop there? Why not compare the relative amount of pollution from rocket launches to the pultion caused by biolocial decomposition in landfills. Or from raising cattle. Rockets are very small compared to landfills and cows.

One idea Elon Musk said he want to pursue to address this is to create the Ch4 used as rocket fuel from atmospheric CO2. If this were done then all the rocket launches would be polution-nuertal. These would be zero net effect on the atmosphere.

There is also a HUGE miscalculation in your argument for lifting rockets with balloons. It assumes that all the CO2 from the rocket fuel goes int other air. Not. The rocket quickly lifts itself and then spend most of the fuel above the atmosphere. So doing the fist 10 miles of altitude would save almost nothing. The vest majority of the burn time is "why high" already. Then you have to calculate the carbon footprint of l=making the lifting gas used by the balloons. There is not enough helium in the world so you would need hydrogen. Today most hydrogen is made from CH2. Sol in the end the balloons water even more energy than they save. (making H2 from H2O is just too expensive to be practical)