{"id":148390,"date":"2025-08-01T14:12:27","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T19:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldtribune.com\/?p=148390"},"modified":"2025-08-01T14:12:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T19:12:27","slug":"u-s-has-multiple-opportunities-to-exploit-aging-international-space-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/u-s-has-multiple-opportunities-to-exploit-aging-international-space-station\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. has multiple opportunities to exploit aging International Space Station"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"color: #2980b9;\">FPI<\/span><\/strong> \/ <span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em>August 1, 2025<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/geostrategy-direct.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Geostrategy-Direct<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em>By<\/em><\/span><strong> <span style=\"color: #333399;\">Richard Fisher<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While it could still be transferred to and operated by a consortium of \u201cprivate\u201d companies, it appears that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to end its operation of the International Space Station (ISS) by 2030, and to thereafter begin operations to deorbit the large space station.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_148391\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-148391\" style=\"width: 451px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-148391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.worldtribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/iss25.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"451\" height=\"251\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-148391\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">There may be only a few years left for the United States to gain additional benefit from its $75 to $100 billion investment in the International Space Station. \/ NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In June 2024 NASA awarded Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX Corporation a contract to develop a larger version of its Dragon cargo\/manned spaceship to push the ISS out of orbit.<\/p>\n<p>So, there could be about five years remaining for the United States to obtain additional political and even military benefits from its estimated $75 to $100 billion investment in the ISS, with an annual operating bill to U.S. taxpayers of $3 to $4 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Already, the scientific and economic benefits of the U.S. investment in the ISS have been enormous, to include advances in knowledge of human health in space, study of microgravity effects, development of new materials in space, robotics and Earth observation.<\/p>\n<p>And while not the subject of deliberate planned outcomes the U.S. investment in the ISS has yielded clear political benefits, to include advancing an early post-Cold War peaceful relationship with the former Soviet Union \u2014 the main partner in building the ISS \u2014 and the welcoming of 56 non-American and non-Russian visitors to the ISS.<\/p>\n<p>The list of countries sending their people, either as \u201ccrew\u201d or as \u201cvisitors\u201d include: Japan (11); Canada (9): Italy (6); France (4): Germany (4); Saudi Arabia (2); United Arab Emirates (2); India (1); Poland (1); Hungary (1); Belarus (1); Belgium (1); Brazil (1); Denmark (1); Great Britain (1); Israel (1); Kazakhstan (1); Malaysia (1); Netherlands (2); South Africa (1); South Korea (1); Spain (1); Sweden (1); and Turkey (1).<\/p>\n<p>A key benefit is that all of these non-U.S., non-Russian crew and visitors gain the experience of training in the United States and return to their home countries to contribute to their respective space programs and to advance space cooperation with the United States and other democracies.<\/p>\n<p>Of these 24 crew\/visitor countries other than the U.S. and Russia, only Belarus, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Turkey are not members of the now 56-nation Artemis Accords of 2020 that set out rules for conduct and transparency on the Moon.<\/p>\n<p>But with the increasing likelihood that there may be only a few years left for the ISS&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/geostrategy-direct.com\/2025\/07\/u-s-has-multiple-opportunities-to-exploit-aging-international-space-station\/ \" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\"><strong>Full Text<\/strong><\/span><\/a> . . . . <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/geostrategy-direct.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\">Current Edition<\/span><\/a> . . . . <a href=\"https:\/\/geostrategy-direct.com\/subscription-information\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #bf2e2e;\">Subscription Information<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/freepressinternational.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"color: #3498db;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Free Press International<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FPI \/ August 1, 2025 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher While it could still be transferred to and operated by a consortium of \u201cprivate\u201d companies, it appears that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to end its operation of the International Space Station (ISS) by 2030, and to thereafter begin operations to deorbit the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":148391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,121,10,12,5],"tags":[305,6],"class_list":["post-148390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusives","category-rest-of-the-best","category-space","category-top-stories","category-world-links","category-world-tribune","tag-u-s-has-multiple-opportunities-to-exploit-aging-international-space-station","tag-worldtribune-com","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}