Elon Musk calls for International Space Station to be deorbited by 2027
- Reference: 1740157386
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/02/21/elon_musk_iss_mogensen_insult/
- Source link:
Yesterday, Musk [1]tweeted on his social media mouthpiece, X, that: "It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station". He claimed the outpost had served its purpose and "There is very little incremental utility."
Later, the billionaire, who also leads [2]DOGE , an organization charged with improving the efficiency of the US government, [3]said , "I recommend 2 years from now."
[4]
The ISS is aging, and before Musk's intervention, the plan was to deorbit it in 2030. SpaceX was [5]awarded a contract in 2024 worth almost a billion dollars to do the deed but will need to work fast if Musk's suggestion is accepted by the US President, Donald Trump. The original plan required a de-orbit vehicle to be ready by 2029.
[6]
[7]
Musk's statement comes as the US space agency, NASA, is going through a period of uncertainty. Budget worries, job cuts, and the prospect of SpaceX customer, [8]Jared Isaacman , being its administrator weigh heavily on the agency. Therefore, the possibility of an axe falling on a flagship program such as the ISS will be unwelcome.
NASA's international partners, such as the European Space Agency (ESA), expect the ISS to remain in orbit until 2030 or beyond. Russia has committed to keeping the ISS going until 2028. The Register asked ESA for its thoughts on the matter, and a spokesperson said, "The International Space Station is a project involving various international partners. As such, all matters regarding the ISS are discussed together with all space agencies involved."
'What a lie'
Musk's assertions about the ISS came on the same day he exchanged some harsh words with ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen on the Tesla and SpaceX boss's own social media platform, X. Mogensen had [9]commented on an interview the South African tech mogul had given to Fox News's Sean Hannity, in which Musk claimed the Starliner crew had been "abandoned" on the ISS for "political reasons." The Danish astronaut opined on X: "What a lie."
The Tesla boss then immediately [10]retorted in the thread, implying Mogensen has an intellectual disability (although he went for the pejorative), and insisted that SpaceX could have returned the crew months ago, but that the Biden administration rejected the offer and the return "WAS pushed back for political reasons."
He did not elaborate on what that offer was.
During an [11]interview with The Register in 2024 , Mogensen said there was every chance the ISS program could be extended beyond 2030. Less than three hours after Musk fired off his taunt, the billionaire called for an end to the outpost sooner than planned.
An early end to the ISS also has commercial implications. Several private companies have plans for stations in Low Earth Orbit, but even the most optimistic timeline won't result in a standalone station before 2028. Unless, of course, SpaceX manages to get some Starships into orbit to replicate some of the utility of the ISS.
The ISS is hitting its stride in terms of utilization. The station typically has at least seven crew members on board; the number fluctuates during crew rotations using the three-person Soyuz and four-person Crew Dragon spacecraft. There are, therefore, resources available for research as well as maintaining the outpost itself. As such, an earlier-than-planned ditching would be a waste.
[12]International Space Station's out-of-this-world selfie booth turns 15
[13]DARPA skips the lab, will head to orbit to test space manufacturing tech
[14]SpaceX Crew Dragons swapped so ISS crew can go home early
[15]Boeing, Boeing, burned: Over half a billion dollars by Starliner in 2024
Taken at face value, Musk's desire to get to Mars appears to be the driving factor. His company, SpaceX, already has lucrative contracts to keep the ISS supplied with crew and cargo. An early end to the ISS would mean no further contracts. Yet it would also free up resources to fund a human mission to Mars.
However, ESA's comments that the fate of the ISS is something upon which all international partners must agree, as well as the need to get US lawmakers to give the plan the green light, indicates that just tweeting something does not necessarily make it policy. ®
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[1] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1892621691060093254
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/07/opinion_column_musk/
[3] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1892627928921329862
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z7kFjoV9VxBt4bCF0Gq51wAAAI0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/spacex_wins_iss_deorbit_contract/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z7kFjoV9VxBt4bCF0Gq51wAAAI0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z7kFjoV9VxBt4bCF0Gq51wAAAI0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/04/trump_nasa_boss/
[9] https://x.com/Astro_Andreas/status/1892517170384392664
[10] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1892584783064052114
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/15/esa_astronaut_interview/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/14/15_years_iss_cupola/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/12/darpa_decides_to_skip_the/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/12/spacex_crew_dragons_swapped_for/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/05/starliner_boeing_losses/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"There is very little incremental utility"
It's interesting to contemplate the fact that His Muskiness is suddenly an expert on Science and a visionary when it comes to deciding what should be or not be done in space.
The ISS has invaluable utility and, if it does need to be replaced, it needs to be done in the most progressive way possible, preserving what exists and allowing for a new station to be built before decommissioning the old one.
Musk has a habit of throwing his toys out of the pram.
He is not qualified to decide on how Science should advance.
Unfortunately, he's got the position now, for a mere $250 million.
Re: "There is very little incremental utility"
Is his assistant qualified to decide anything?
Re: "There is very little incremental utility"
By assistant, do you mean the teenage boy he’s been using? For government business.
Re: "There is very little incremental utility"
> Musk has a habit of throwing his toys out of the pram.
Musk has a habit of throwing other peoples' toys out of the pram.
Remember that this is the prick who accused one of the main figures involved in the [1]2018 Thailand cave rescue of being a "pedo guy", purely because that person was openly critical of the flaws in Musk's ill-conceived plan to rescue them by building a mini sub. (*)
In the event, the sub wasn't built, and all the children were rescued successfully by teams of experienced divers. Who would want to bet that would have been the case had they risked waiting for Musk's sub *and* relied on it working, just so Musk got to be the Big Hero of the piece?
I mention this because it's clear that self-glorification and self-enrichment are key motivators for Musk, and the Not-Invented-Here ISS neither involved him nor makes him enough money.
(*) I think it was at this point that it started becoming clearer to many more people- myself included- just what a piece-of-shit excuse for a human being Musk actually is.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tham_Luang_cave_rescue
Conflict of Interest
Genuinely don't know how any of this is legal, it's totally baffling.
Re: Conflict of Interest
Many/most US presidents (and I suspect leaders around the world and throughout history) have had unofficial advisors. Trump is being open and honest about it, relatively speaking.
Something tells me that Joe Biden was not the person controlling the content of his teleprompter and "his" policies. Just a hunch.
H. Clinton made a snootload of money BEFORE she ran for president by being a horrible public speaker. You think those people paying didn't have "interest" in the outcome of the election, or plan to remind her of their support after she got elected?
Your point is valid. It should be a concern about ALL leaders, not just the ones you voted against.
Re: Conflict of Interest
Place your "whataboutery" somewhere moist and dark if you would.
Trump is open and honest about nothing. He is an ignorant, ignorant, misogynistic, orange bully, who likes the company of bullies (such as Musk, Putin, Fat boi kim, et al). He is a proven tax dodger, rapist, liar, bribe payer, he ran off with state secrets last time he was president. He is liked by the countries who wish the US harm, and abhorred by your allies and the people who hitherto have shared most of the same values of fairness and democracy as the US.
Unofficial advisors are nothing new, nothing abnormal, but that's not what we're seeing. The nearest parallel to the way that Trump is ensuring that he controls everything through his chosen arse-lickers would be the way that Hitler cemented his power through the SS. It is a common misconception that Hitler used violence to assert control, and that the SS were a military force. The reality is that military Waffen-SS were a tiny and insignificant part of the wider SS, which was more like a civil service loyal to him, and controlled the budget, asserted control over industry, science, education, citizens records, justice....is that sounding familiar yet?
Re: Conflict of Interest
(wish I had more upvotes to give)
Re: Trump being honest
only applies when it comes to sucking money from people who can't afford it
AND
Declaring himself King Donald.
Everything else is one big lie after lie after lie after lie. For heavens sake, he even cheats at Golf. How low can you get?
Re: Trump being honest
Let's face it, Trump is an orange gusset stain on the underpants of all that is civilised.
Re: Trump being honest
HAHAHAHAHA….
Re: Conflict of Interest
If we're carrying through with this comparison, it would make Musk more like Bormann. (no, not Hess)
Re: Conflict of Interest
The obligatory ACOUP as to why Trump is a fascist, not that it bothers his fascist supporters in any way:
https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-definition-of-fascism/
One thing for him, he surely gets the speedrun record of going full fascist – even Hitler himself took a few years!
Re: how this is legal
The relevant [1]legal loophole was reported in 2018.
[1] https://theonion.com/trump-claims-he-can-overrule-constitution-with-executiv-1830106306/
The Tesla boss then immediately retorted
Good to know that he has not only retorted but that he's fully retorted.
Look Elon. Mars is that way. You have the money, you have the time, you have the desire. Get gone already. We promise to wave*
*By wave, I mean ignore him the moment he leaves Earth orbit and hopefully never hear from him again.
I'm sure he'll get his mum to write him an excuse note.
Oh I'll give him a cheery one finger wave as he goes.
Follow the money
NASA currently pays SpaceX about $1.5 billion per year for crew & cargo services to the ISS. Musk clearly thinks any ad-hoc Starship based or third-party commercial replacement will make him more.
Re: Follow the money
Think bigger, I would say they have a contract to supply X number of missions until 2030. With no exclusion of the ISS not actually being there. If they deorbit early, they still get to keep the contract as they are willing to keep up their side of it, without the expensive of actually have to do it.
Re: Follow the money
You are missing the big picture. Musk has no long term interest in dollars from the government. He considers both to be outdated and is actively destroying them. The replacements will be crypto and AI algorithms controlled by corporations. The first moves involve [1]RAGE (retire all government employees) then filling the gaps with a mixture of programmers and incompetents. The programmers move the databases to corporations so they cannot be inspected by the public. The incompetents make what is left of government not worth saving. Any government functions Musk considers worth saving will be carried out by corporations.
[1] https://substack.com/@mikebrock/p-156755682
I wonder why Musk never took a space ride
Very bold with a keyboard, too coward to launch on the top of a rocket?
Re: I wonder why Musk never took a space ride
Same when he ran away from the proposed cage fight with Zuck. Early on Musk was talking himself up, he was the man, he was going to do it...then as soon as it looked like it might happen he ran away and hid. What a complete cunt.
MAGA
Moron And Great Asshole.
Re: MAGA
Morons Are Governing America
Mars?
Not far enough away.
Another few billion dollars of taxpayers money
going into his pocket.
Gee... I wonder where those conflicts of interest recuses are? Probably somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico (soon to be renamed Gulf of Trump when he gets elected again in 2028)
Re: 2028 election
Trump will not tolerate elections in 2026, let alone 2028. Look at what it took to "win" in [1]2024 .
[1] https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/
How would giving up a "lucrative contract" free up funds to develop anything?
Surely it's the lucrative contracts that provide the funds?
See JoshOvki's suggestion above: if Musk is contracted to supply NASA until 2030 but the ISS comes down early, SpaceX then show *their* half of the contract was held up (pointing to a stack, apparently ready to go) and demand NASA keep up their half (i.e. PAY).
Literally money for nothing (just keep the stack dusted and add a few theatre smoke machines for that "boiling off" look).
How would giving up a "lucrative contract" free up funds to develop anything?
It seems to me as if Musk is trying to cut out the middleman i.e. NASA and funnel money straight from the US taxpayer directly into his pocket. That way he gets all the money without having to do anything for it.
A leech, a fantasist and a real danger to the whole world.
People in the Kremlin must be laughing their heads off at the shit-show.
How surprising
Space Karen got his ass handed to him by someone with lived experience so he spat his dummy out and called for the manager, .
How has that asshole gotten into a position of power without maturing past the emotional age of 14?
Re: How surprising
This. Let's not forget that he suddenly wanted the ISS to be de-orbited [1]after the actual commander of the ISS called Moron Man out on his lying . Musk should stick to things he understands, such as separating fools investors from their money with science fiction stories written for children.
[1] https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musk-calls-famed-astronaut-andreas-mogensen-an-idiot-after-being-accused-of-lying-about-stranded-astronauts-13313772
Re: How surprising
He's never had to, much like Trump, because he's always had Daddy's money and so people don't say no to him or publicly disagree with him when he talks bollocks.
Expert diver says submersible is useless and a publicity stunt for cave rescue as caves are too narrow even for divers in SCUBA gear. Diver publicly accused of being a paedophile based on his appearance.
Twitter employee points out Musk's lack of understanding of how the site is coded. Employee fired via twitter.
Astronaut points out that Musk's claim that Biden left the astronauts stranded for political reasons is "a lie". Musk calls astronaut an idiot, then ignores him when the astronaut gives a calm and reasoned explanation of why Musk is wrong.
There's 3 examples, and I'm willing to bet with a bit of research that there are hundreds more. Musk and Trump live is a bubble where sycophants agree with them and anyone who doesn't is "radical left".
Re: How surprising
"How has that asshole gotten into a position of power without maturing past the emotional age of 14?"
The US electorate voted for him. Twice.
Re: How surprising
It beggars belief.
Re: How surprising
Or it just shows the values that the American electorate hold close. Mind you we already knew that. They could have had their first woman president, but all the red-necks and primitives invented a narrative that she was unfit for power, either by virtue of her gender, or being of mixed race.
I'd recommend everybody who voted Trump go out and buy some Klan robes (except for those who who don't need to go out and buy more).
Re: How surprising
While in no way any real excuse of the left-pondian electorate being utterly dumb in electing ChiefTwat™ again, they have also been heavily gerrymandered by the Reps in the past decades whenever they held any part of local power. Meaning any US elections simply "democratic" aren't...
Re: How surprising
Gerrymandering wasn't enough last time. The electoral map matches voter suppression laws. The basic strategy was to send a post card that looks like junk mail to black, hispanic and asian households. Anyone who did not tick the box and return the post card got removed from the electoral register. Anyone who noticed was given a "temporary ballot"(1) "until their eligibility was confirmed"(2).
1: a ballot that was not counted. 2: never.
Re: How surprising
Easily. First having been born into some money (it really helps if your Pa is a diamond mining mogul fascist in South Africa), then by joining the C-suite even if others chuck you out of it for being dumb (as did actually happen with him and PayPal – he got fired). Get enough money, you can do anything, including being an apartheid scum fascist.
This is a wonderful idea, providing it is shot up Elon's fundament.
Here an idea...
Many news sources still mention that X was formerly Twitter. Can we agree to qualify Musk similarly?
What about "Musk, known in the UK as chief cockwomble, ..."
Re: Here an idea...
I'd prefer "the paedo guy", but he's been pretty litigious about that. Well, at the very least he did say for everybody to forward any Twitter CSAM images to him, IIRC. For "safekeeping", I guess :D
Re: Here an idea...
Remember that Musk [1]won the legal case against him because he....
> [insisted that] the phrase "pedo guy" was commonly used in his native South Africa and meant "creepy old guy", rather than being an allegation of paedophilia .
Obvious bullshit. But he won on that basis regardless.
That being the case, Musk- a man well into middle age- has shown himself to be the epitome of a creepy weirdo in numerous ways, so by the definition he got the court to accept he can likely be considered a "pedo guy".
[1] https://www.lbc.co.uk/usa/elon-musk-tells-court-pedo-guy-just-means-creepy-o/
When they land in March
It will be - interesting - to hear what is said when astronauts Wilmore and Williams return back to Earth and aren't showing signs of having been "trapped" in space, but merely the usual physical tiredness of a crew when returning from a perfectly normal (plus a few days) length of mission on board the ISS.
If this were a bad SciFi movie, I'd expect the billionaire in control of their re-entry vehicle to arrange "a little accident", maybe just in their individual air supplies, "see, they suffered from having been up there too long". Or maybe a bit more dramatic (have the rest of Crew-9 been "behaving appropriately"?).
Hopefully, instead all we will have is tall tales from certain quarters, praising the two for "putting on such a brave face" and how "we must let them rest from their ordeal and not take anything they say as anything more than ramblings of clearly exhausted, but brave - oh, very brave - individuals".
Whatever happens, Mister X will try to put so much spin on it that we'll believe he is trying to beat that centrifuge launch company at their own game. Or he'll not bother and just call them names.
Don't leave ISS uncrewed for a day
It might have a little accident.
* So sorry, StarLink birds aren't supposed to be up that high.
* My DOGE expert only had root privileges to find where the payments went. How could he know a push to production could do that to the gyroscopes?
* Biden shot at it with a catapult.
Deorbited ?
Why wouldn't M. Musk get off his shiny little keyboard and mind his own business for a while ?
Like, for example, stop allowing pieces of his own rockets to fall on random European countries ? (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62z3vxjplpo)
ISS Test
Lettuce [ISS] Test
Given the fickle relationship Trump has with his advisers, how long will Musk last in his inner circle?
Which will deorbit first - The ISS or Musk?
Well if a random guy on Twitter says it,
then surely it must be done!