Elon Musk's fight to decommission the International Space Station has continued with a new twist, as a former NASA employee reveals the 'serious concerns' that allegedly plague the safety of the $150,000,000,000 space hub.
It has been almost three decades since the International Space Station (ISS) was first launched by a collaboration between five of the world's biggest space agencies, and it has since been visited by over 280 astronauts from 23 different countries.
While it was only supposed to be a 15 year mission, the ISS' lifespan was recently extended towards 2030 during the Biden administration, and Elon Musk's SpaceX was awarded the government contract to deorbit the station safely back to Earth, with its replacement being a private and commercial entity.
Advert
However, since being awarded the contract Musk has remained persistent that the ISS should be brought down earlier than expected, with this year proclaiming that it was 'time for it to go' with two years as the proposed timescale.
A recent statement from one former NASA employee has only furthered Musk's desire to get rid of the International Space Station, pointing towards the 'potentially serious concerns' that are present within its construction, as reported by the Daily Mail.
Advert
Posting on X, former NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory employee Casey Handmer outlined:
"The ISS's structural integrity is far more marginal than is being publicly discussed. We are having multiple, and increasingly frequent, leaks from heavily fatigued node segments in the Russian segment."
Russia itself has outlined plans to withdraw from the ISS after 2025 but if Handmer's claims are correct, the Zvezda service module could prove to be a far more pressing issue.
"Whether that means a leak slow enough to close some hatches, get the crew out or at least into safer parts of the station, is a roll of the dice," Handmer outlined. "It could also depressurize in less than a minute."
Advert
This would leave any astronauts currently in the module without enough air to breathe, which would obviously be incredibly dangerous and life threatening.
Given his clear opposition to the existence of the ISS, it didn't take long for Musk to chime in on this claim with his own assessment of the situation.
"There are potentially serious concerns about the long-term safety of the @Space_Station. Some parts of it are simply getting too old and obviously that risk grows over time," Musk wrote on X.
Advert
"Even though @SpaceX earns billions of dollars from transporting astronauts & cargo to the ISS, I nonetheless would like to go on record recommending that it be de-orbited within 2 years."
Musk also proclaimed that the space industry needs to "move on from this ancient space station," proposing the use of his own 'deep space Starship missions' to fill the gap before a private solution is built and sent into space.
One potentially major point of contention here comes as a result of Musk's conflict with President Trump though, as the latter threatened to end all Musk-led government contracts, which include significant links between SpaceX and NASA which could put the future of the ISS into jeopardy.
It remains to be seen whether Trump will follow through with his threat and where that would leave both NASA and Musk in the space world, but that could also be part of the reason behind Musk's haste in this case.