For Aron: What About the ISS?

Aron said: I've also been curious because of commerials for Discovery's The Colony...what would NASA do about the ISS if it was real.

Can't answer that absolutely. First off, the cataclysm of "The Colony" has never made much sense to me. Also, I found the show stupid (personal opinion) - they're priorities often seemed whacked. Was it supposed to be some sort of disease that wiped most people out worldwide?

Well, what we would do depends on the problem. If NASA, the landing facilities, our launching facilities or the Mission Control facilities were completely compromised, we'd bring down our crew as soon as practical unless we had reason to think the problems were temporary.

However, we're not the only ones with access to ISS (as demonstrated after Columbia). If the cataclysmic issue were not one for Russia, they might choose to continue to use ISS or we might find some way of working with them so we could maintain a foothold there. But, if our facilities/abilities/etc. were compromised, we'd be in a poor bargaining position to demand much. They'd hold all the cards.

What we couldn't readily do is take it apart or bring it back down. Provisions are not in place for either option right now and it would take a great deal of effort and planning, as well as considerable resources, to do so. If someone wanted to use it, they would have to reboost because it would eventually come back in uncontrolled if abandoned permanently.