BBC - Future - The Astronaut Fighting To Save Our Home in Space

1/10/2018 BBC - Future - The astronaut ﬁghting to save our home in space
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Space Station Space
The astronaut ghting to save our home

in space
The International Space Station (ISS) is humanity’s most expensive structure

– and in just six years’ time, it may vanish, plunging into the Pacic Ocean.
BBC Future meets the man trying to save it.
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By Richard Hollingham
8 January 2018
Draw up a list of the world’s most accomplished and experienced astronauts, and astrophysicist
Dr Michael Foale’s name is going to come pretty near the top.
Over the course of six missions, the British-born Nasa astronaut has spent more than a year in
space. Foale has flown in the Space Shuttle and the Russian Soyuz, lived on the Mir space
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180105-the-astronaut-ﬁghting-to-save-our-home-in-space 1/14
station and commanded the International Space Station (ISS). He’s carried out four space
walks, totalling almost 23 hours outside in both Russian and American spacesuits. These
included an epic eight-hour spacewalk to upgrade the computer on the Hubble Space Telescope.
“I’ve been very, very, very, very lucky,” he says, laughing. “Most astronauts are very jealous of
me, which is probably why I won’t get to fly in space again!”
Most famously, Foale was on board Mir in June 1997 when an un-crewed Progress supply ship
ploughed into the station, smashing a solar panel and breaching the hull. With the master
alarm sounding, air leaking, power failing and the station spinning, Foale worked with his two
Russian crewmates to prepare their Soyuz escape capsule and close off the damaged module.
By holding his thumb to a station window and examining the movement of stars, Foale used his
physics training to estimate the spin rate of the station, so mission control could fire thrusters to
bring it back under control.
Russian supply ships are refuelling tanks in readiness for the day the station is crashed into the
Pacific Ocean (Credit: Nasa)
The crew’s quick thinking under pressure not only saved Mir but meant their mission could
continue. And, over the next few weeks, Foale worked alongside his colleagues to help repair
the station, restoring full power and control as well as spending hours mopping up condensation
from the dripping interior walls.
“I didn’t feel our lives were threatened for much longer than 10 seconds or so during the
collision,” says Foale. “I always felt there was an opportunity to save ourselves and that
knowledge meant that I didn’t need to panic, didn’t need to be afraid.
“It became one of my best missions,” he adds. “I had so many opportunities to invent solutions
to problems that ordinarily Nasa managers didn’t expect you to solve.”
Now more than 20 years after saving one space station, Foale wants to save another: the ISS.
"
The station has proved that humans can live and work in
space for prolonged periods and carry out useful science in
orbit
I first interviewed Foale at Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in November 1998 shortly after the
launch of the first stage of the ISS, the Zarya module. He was there on behalf of Nasa
astronauts to champion the project, which at this stage was over budget, behind schedule and
beset by political bickering (you can get a flavour of the situation from this story written just
over a year later.
A joint enterprise between the US, Russia, the European Space Agency (Esa), Japan and
Canada, the ISS has now been continuously occupied since 2000. And, over that time, has
increasingly come to justify its $100bn (£75bn) cost.
The station has proved that humans can live and work in space for prolonged periods and carry
out useful science in orbit. It has also shown that nations which struggle to cooperate or trust
each other on the ground – such as the US and Russia – can work together in space.
“It’s that cooperation, that strength in the partnership, that’s really the value from a project such
as the ISS,” says Foale who, after flying there himself in 2003, is one of two astronaut members
of an international commission overseeing ISS policy and operations.
The ISS has served as a home in space for comsonauts and astronauts, affording them a
remarkable view of Earth (Credit: Nasa)
But the station’s days are numbered. Funding by the various space agencies involved is only
agreed until 2024. This means in just six years’ time, the most expensive structure ever built
will be pushed out of orbit by a Progress spacecraft to disintegrate over the Pacific.
And the countdown clock is ticking.
“Year by year, Russia is launching the fuel to fill up the tanks of the ISS service module to
enable the space station to be deorbited,” says Foale. “That’s the current plan – I think it’s a bad
plan, a massive waste of a fantastic resource.”
But national priorities are shifting and there is only so much money to go around. With the 50th
anniversary (in July 2019) of the first manned lunar landing fast approaching, President Trump
recently directed Nasa to return to the Moon. The plan involves building a space station, or
‘lunar gateway’, in orbit around the Moon before constructing a base on the surface. It’s an
ambition supported by the head of Esa, Jan Werner, and the Russian space agency.
Separately, and adding to the political pressure on the US, China is pursuing lunar landing plans
of its own.
"
They can’t go to the Moon or Mars and also continue to
supply the ISS with crews, cargo, food and supplies – Michael
Foale
Although none of the proposals are fully costed, it seems unlikely that the space agencies will
be able to invest additional funds for Moon missions on top of their current human exploration
budgets. For Nasa, this currently adds up to around $8bn (£5.9bn) and includes running costs of
$1.4bn (£1bn) for the space station as well as investment in new spacecraft such as the Space
Launch System.
Unless Congress approves additional funds for Nasa or there are cuts in other programmes –
and both would seem unlikely – any cash that goes into building a lunar orbiting space station or
funding a return to the lunar surface would have to come from existing funds.
“These various projects compete for the money,” says Foale. “They can’t go to the Moon or
Mars and also continue to supply the ISS with crews, cargo, food and supplies.”
Michael Foale has spent more than a year in space on various missions (Credit: Nasa)
Since leaving Nasa, Foale has been working in the private sector on new aviation technologies
and believes commercial operators could step-in to secure the future of the ISS. “I’m hoping
that commercial space can come up with a business plan that allows part of the ISS to be
maintained in space, without sinking it into the Pacific Ocean,” he says. “You have to come up
with innovative ways of keeping it in space.”
The ISS already supports some commercial operations. A private company, NanoRacks,
operates experiments in equipment racks on the station for private clients. The station is
increasingly also being used to launch small satellites into orbit, carried up in commercial
spacecraft such as SpaceX’s Dragon robotic supply ship. The Russian space agency takes
tourists to the station and has even suggested it might build a hotel module.
Although most of the business of human spaceflight is still directly or indirectly supported by
governments (and ultimately the taxpayer), the true privatisation of space is starting to take
hold. SpaceX’s competitor Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, recently
completed another successful test of its new rocket. And, after many setbacks, space tourism
company Virgin Galactic is moving towards its first sub-orbital launch with its Spaceship 2.
"
Every engineer, manager, astronaut or cosmonaut who’s
worked on the ISS, we all think the space station is such an
achievement on behalf of humanity – Michael Foale
In the meantime, Foale is formulating his campaign to save the ISS and says he plans to launch
websites to gather support to help save the space station. He says he intends to keep pressure
on the space agencies to continue to fund the programme.
“Every engineer, manager, astronaut or cosmonaut who’s worked on the ISS, we all think the
space station is such an achievement on behalf of humanity that it should continue,” he says.
“I’m still giving Nasa a chance to tell me how they’re going to do it.”
The ISS is the most expensive structure humanity has ever built (Credit: Nasa)
But, unless the private sector steps in, Foale fears that in 2024 the space agencies – and the
politicians that fund them – will end up destroying one of the world’s greatest engineering
accomplishments, not to mention a massive economic investment by millions of taxpayers
around the world.
“I’ve had my hopes dashed a thousand times,” Foale says. “I thought I’d be on the Moon by the
time I was 35 and Mars by 45, I wasn’t a fool but I was certainly naive about politics.”
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1/10/2018 BBC - Future - The astronaut ﬁghting to save our home in space

Home News Sport Weather Shop Earth Travel

Space Station Space

The astronaut ghting to save our home

The International Space Station (ISS) is humanity’s most expensive structure

And the countdown clock is ticking.

Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

The astronauts bred for life in space

Soyuz: still on duty after 50 years

The stray dogs that led the space race

Follow BBC Future

The Best Of Future

The disease that could change coffee

A battle is underway to save your daily brew

The frozen danger hidden under US soil

The atomic bomb too big to use

The secrets of a Soviet doomsday device

The flawed Soviet rival to Concorde

And its unlikely second life after the Cold War

More amazing Future stories

A made-up language that thrives online

When personalities go from bad to good

Is social media bad for you?

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