In a few short years, some of us will be able to look up at the sky and see a flaming dot roar toward the Earth and crash into the ocean. In that dot will be 30 years of international scientific cooperation between nations that are more often at each others’ throats than in each others’ labs. As the dot gets closer, we’ll see the burning fragments of the International Space Station modules — and maybe even some other countries’ modules that we bring down with us.
Congress has authorized ISS operations into 2030, though budget fears still hover over some in the field. NASA’s latest public relations sprint, however, is geared toward finding commercial contractors that can tug the U.S. modules back to earth for a splashdown. And those which can privatize such low-orbit destinations, demoting NASA’s role from that of public creator to private customer.
