I feel like nobody on Tumblr knows that the international space station is being discontinued.
Did you know that? In less than a decade it will be gone
CNN Link from above screenshot
More detailed article by Space.com
Forbes: U.S. Plan To Crash Space Station Is Condemned By Space Agency Leaders (July 15, 2024)
Excerpts from the article:
"...NASA has selected SpaceX, creator of a revolution in next-generation reusable Starship rockets that will speed humans to the Moon and to Mars, to produce a specially designed spacecraft that would act as a Styx-like tugboat to guide the ISS to its demise."
...
"'To move the ISS from its present 400-kilometer altitude to an 800-kilometer altitude circular orbit requires a boost of about 220 meters per second, about the same as required for precise de-orbit control,' explains [Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General of the European Space Agency when the ISS was being built and expanded, and former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin] in an open letter, published via SpaceNews, to colleagues, friends and allies scattered across the space partners that co-constructed the orbital outpost.
'Our question to the current generation is: since the boost stage must be built anyway, would it not be better to use that stage to place the ISS in a higher orbit for the possible use of a future generation than to destroy it upon reentry?'"
