Ask HN: Why to ground Space Shuttles on Earth if they could 'retire' in space?
Nasa Space Shuttle are planned to be ground soon, apart from the maintenance part, has someone thought about sending them retire in space?<p>It'd be a large additional space for the ISS, and some instruments could be loaded to make it more useful.<p>PS: there's probably a lot of background for not doing so, it's just a morning "why?" moment :)
2 comments
Cost. Well, besides the need to maintain something that was never designed to be in space for a long duration, I would guess it would be because launching a Space Shuttle mission costs roughly 1.5 billion dollars (according to Wikipedia). And while there would be costs associated with decommissioning a shuttle, it seems likely that it would be significantly less than 1.5 billion dollars.
Docking them on the ISS uses the dock. Launching the shuttles for a goodbye costs millions of dollars for sentimental purposes.
Most important: Retiring them on earth lets us put them in museums for people to see.
Most important: Retiring them on earth lets us put them in museums for people to see.