Before it comes down, what should be saved from the International Space Station?

As NASA and its partners prepare to deorbit the International Space Station (ISS) as soon as 2030, experts are grappling with how to preserve historically and culturally significant parts of the massive, complex structure. A panel hosted by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, featuring NASA officials, curators, and an astronaut, discussed what artifacts should be saved and how to capture the station's legacy of making continuous human spaceflight a routine, "boring" part of modern life.

Humans do not just visit space; they live there, but a major part of that is coming to an end. The platform that made the longest continuous human presence in space possible is becoming history. With NASA and its partners beginning preparations for the destructive end of the International Space Station ISS as soon as 2030, those who collect, curate, and study the station are now asking how to preserve the historic and culturally significant artifact, given that it is far too large and complex to keep intact. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on Thursday hosted a three-part panel discussion, bringing together space program officials, museum curators, an archeologist, and an astronaut to begin answering the why, what, and how the ISS might be saved. The sessions were part of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ AIAA ASCEND conference in Washington, DC. “I had a friend who works on the Artemis moon program come up to me when we had 25 years of continuous human residency . ‘Congratulations, guys You made space boring.’ And we did—and that’s a good thing, actually,” said Jacob Keaton, acting director of the International Space Station for NASA’s Space Operations Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in DC. “Not only did we make it boring because of the technical competence that the team brings to the table, we made it boring because it became part of our national fabric, almost. “This is just something that we do. We have people in space,” said Keaton. “The ticket tape parades after Apollo were wonderful. That’s a historic achievement—for Artemis, too, absolutely. But for the space station, this is just who we are now. I think it’s underappreciated the amount of work that it took to become boring.” From “boring” to “evocative” So how do you capture “boring” and make it accessible in how the program will be exhibited in museums for many years to come?