You must remember that a space station is not something like an Army fortification or a building which stands by itself or require very little maintenance, which could be done by a stationed unit.
* The ISS is actually falling back to earth and needs to be lifted from time to time. You need fuel for that.
* The personnel must be changed frequently (too much time in microgravity is harmful to the body). You need to take people in and out.
* The station itself is very little compared to a building. You can't store years of supplies there, just 12 months or so. You need to send up supplies.
So, you must send fuel, people and supplies very often to the ISS. This is very very expensive.
So, it comes a time where you should consider shutting it down or keep using it.
Those are general arguments against pretty much any long term space habitat and they are completely wrong.
The ISS is constantly supplied and refueled that's not a reason why not to maintain it, it's an argument why we should not have built it in the first place which is a very silly argument to make.
We need space stations the more the merrier, China and India are getting into the game, Russia wants a new one of their own, and the public sector is also looking at such platforms for everything from micro-gravity manufacturing of drugs to space hotels.
The argument that people in favor of decommissioning the ISS should make is we need a bigger, better, further away one that we could use to go cheaply to the moon, asteroid belt, mars, and the Jovian and Saturnian moons.
> The argument that people in favor of decommissioning the ISS should make is we need a bigger, better, further away one that we could use to go cheaply to the moon, asteroid belt, mars, and the Jovian and Saturnian moons.
That is the answer to my question. Should we sink the ship because it is old and we have no use for it or should we sink it because we need another one and can't bear the cost of maintaining two?
If someone is willing to use it, then they must pay for it's maintenance. For NASA it's mission was accomplished, and it's time to move on.
* The ISS is actually falling back to earth and needs to be lifted from time to time. You need fuel for that.
* The personnel must be changed frequently (too much time in microgravity is harmful to the body). You need to take people in and out.
* The station itself is very little compared to a building. You can't store years of supplies there, just 12 months or so. You need to send up supplies.
So, you must send fuel, people and supplies very often to the ISS. This is very very expensive.
So, it comes a time where you should consider shutting it down or keep using it.
Keep using it for what? That is the question.