Russia and its International Space Station partners have an oral agreement to continue using the orbiter outpost until 2020, the president of leading Russian spacecraft maker RSC Energia said on Thursday.
"The ISS partners have not yet signed any documents, but verbally we have already settled the initiative [to extend the station's use]," Vitaly Lopota said at a news conference in Moscow.
teopze Member
Posts: 180 From: Warsaw, Poland Registered: May 2008
posted 02-07-2009 04:33 AM
The fact that the ISS will be used after it's original 'decommission' date was to be expected, I guess... Just few days ago I was thinking how long will they actually use it in total for science [will they ever...]. After all it was a lot of money and effort [and lives...] and a kind of disappointment in a sense [at least to me, although I'm a huge fan of ISS/STS].
Do you think they will extend the use of ISS after 2020? Perhaps till 2025+ etc? Is it technically possible? Or would it be so economically ridiculous just as the STS occurred to be? Or would it be better to dump it in the ocean and go forward?