Quick summary (avoiding duplicating points other posters have already made):
* NASA's current plan for post ISS operations is to not be in the LEO space station business. NASA wants to buy LEO manned services if required from commercial operators (the same way NASA has left the business of delivering cargo and humans to the ISS). NASA will focus manned operations effort on beyond LEO.
* NASA has submitted an RFI asking for commercial interesting in re-suing major components of the ISS and says that it received no viable submissions.
Of course the haven't received any viable submissions. Pretty much anything space-related are one-off specialized extremely costly components not used anywhere else. And there's like two people knowing how to build them, and they are already employed by NASA
Just because there are mechanical parts and doesn't mean that they are reusable or serviceable.
Humans have basically no ability to do any manufacturing construction or service in space. It takes an 8 Hour Eva to change a couple bolts, risking human life all the time.
Bringing all of the tools and equipment to space to facilitate reuse would require far more than simply replacing it.
On top of that, most of the space station is worn out and far beyond it's design lifetime.
Also, if it's not big enough to monitor it can disappear. Radar makes it hard to track anything that's not huge and actively transmitting.
I don't know about that:
"Since 1990, the Goldstone Orbital Debris Radar has collected orbital debris data for debris as small as about 2 mm in LEO for the NASA ODPO. . . . . The Goldstone Orbital Debris Radar is an extremely sensitive sensor capable of detecting a 3-mm metallic sphere at 1000 km, which makes it an incredibly useful tool in the characterization of the sub-centimeter-sized debris population." - https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/measurements/radar.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_inclination_change#Cir...
(The circular orbit inclination change is sufficiently simplified for a back-of-the-napkin comparison.)
https://spacenews.com/industry-sees-missed-opportunity-in-de...
> Industry sees missed opportunity in deorbiting ISS
> “As technology matures, certainly in the next decade we’re going to get to the point where we’re going to be able to reuse and recycle a lot of these materials,” said Ron Lopez, president and managing director of Astroscale U.S., a company working on satellite servicing and debris removal technologies. “Instead of letting it burn up and lose all of that economic value, you take it to a foundry in space” and break it down into raw materials, he said during a Satellite 2023 panel March 16.
Easier said than done though.
There is also the question if the ISS, despite construction costs of hundred billion dollars, is really much worth in a decade. When Starship is flying you could use a modified rocket itself as a space station:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/07/could-spacex-turn-star...
Given its mass, either option would require significant delta-v to get it parked. The L4 and L5 points have the advantage that it could pretty much live there without worrying about station keeping.
I expect its possible to do it with a series of Falcon 9 launches of several tug craft but the co-ordination of that would be very difficult to pull off.
Absolutely not; that's absurd. The current orbit of the ISS is roughly 400 km. L4 and L5 are roughly the same distance as the moon, at ~384,000 km, and in a different orbital plane.
With hopefully the much better launch capability of starship, a new station is probably the best way forward.