ISS: It's All Decked Out. Give It Somewheto Go

No fundamental reason one could not, but here's one reason it should not be done: How much mass would need to be launched from Earth to make the interior habitable? If the interior is fitted with any where near the equipment density of ground-prepared stations, it could easily exceed one hundred tonnes launched to an already orbiting ET to make it habitable. With all the construction work being done on orbit, where it costs $20 million to get each worker into space (which could be slightly offset by getting the ISS crew to work on it, but still) how would this actually be cheaper than just making a custom module on Earth? An ET does provide a tantalizingly large hull which could be pressurized on orbit, but I'm not so sure it would be cheap.

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."
-Herman Melville

Received: Wednesday, July 16, 2008, 8:59 PM

From time to time, one reads of plans to use the Space
Shuttle's external fuel tank as a space station module.
Any reason that couldn't still be done? Any reason they
couldn't be docked to the ISS as easily as to each other?
Indeed, that could be a use for ISS: it can already have
eight or so people ready to work on the next ET sent up.

The proposed Ares V launch vehicle is expected to use a
similar ET.