The ISS is nearing its decommission date and various deorbiting plans are under consideration, but they all seem to involve crashing it into the Pacific Ocean in one way or another. That's a lot of raw materials going to waste. Would it be feasible to crash land it on the moon instead? That way materials for processing or parts for repurposing would be available to future Lunar settlers.
The artwork currently online shows the Dragon module with extra thrusters deorbiting the ISS while attached to Japan's Kibo module, which seems wasteful in the extreme, and one wonders whether the international partners have been consulted adequately, given that Kibo and Columbus were originally intended to be free-flyers. Russia has already announced that it will detach its Nauka module in 2028 for attachment to a station of their own. Axiom intends to assemble its space station while attached to the ISS, so why not take the opportunity to transfer Columbus, Kibo, Canadarm and Dextre to it? I have an article on this suggestion coming up in Orkney News on Sunday, but I think it needs wider circulation.
Best wishes,
Duncan.
Karl,
Laudable ambition, but the kinematics are against it.
The delta-V to escape LEO, brake into lunar orbit and then deorbit the station is greater than that to deorbit it from LEO.
Spreading an interesting mixture of alloys and polymers over the lunar surface isn't going to be of great benefit to anyone (and may annoy the IAU).
Settlements are likely to initially be at the south pole, so there's an extra plane-chance to bake into the delta-V budget.
Sad to say, but it's likely to all become smoke in the troposphere.
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