Why would we ever de-orbit the ISS? It took far more money and effort to get it there than it takes to operate it. The long-term value of ISS is unclear, but so is the long-term value of going to the moon or Mars.<p>Imagine if the people who founded Jamestown said, &quot;hey, we&#x27;re ready to start moving deeper in the continent, so let&#x27;s burn Jamestown and push it into the ocean first.&quot; Why give up a beach head?<p>Our reach on single missions is constrained by our rocket size. Therefore to do bigger missions, we will need to assemble and supply spacecraft in space over multiple launches, as we have assembled the ISS. If nothing else, the ISS would be useful for &quot;worker housing&quot; during such assembly projects.