Robert Zubrin, a great Aerospace Engineer and advocate for human space exploration, has a credible proposal to move the ISS to higher orbits around the Earth under its own power using electric propulsion.  This would not be a fast process, but it would not need to be a fast process since it is a space station, not a spacecraft.   Think of it this way, ISS is to space what an oil platform is to the sea.  People don't realize that many of those aren't anchored to the seabed but float, and interface with equipment placed on the seabed below.   They move slowly, very slowly compared to a motor vessel.  Moving ISS would be like that it would take years.  With enough time even a small thrust can move an object great distances in space. 



Right now, the plan is to let this magnificent artifact simply fall into the deepest part of the ocean because it would be cheapest and easiest to do so. 

Think about that, as people used to say, let that sink in.  Imagine if we allowed that to happen to something like the Great Pyramid of Giza or the ancient monuments that exist around the world.  ISS being in space could outlast all of them but for one thing... due to its low orbit it needs to be reboosted to higher orbits every once in a while. 

Even more doable is to boost it to a much higher Earth orbit. 

US-Russia relations will likely not allow us to do this in time. 

Do I think this kind of effort will be made?  I think not.  It would require that we overcome the demons of our human nature.   The US-Russia relationship is a strange one.  We have been allies in two wars and enemies in none, YET we have third countries that we do fight who are our respective allies.  

All this time though when it comes to space the USA and Russia as much wanted to work together.  Nikita Khrushchev even suggested to JFK a joint Moon program.  Shortly after that was Apollo Soyuz.  The effects of our competition in space were to push each other further.  Then the ISS came and even now as we are geostrategic rivals in a very heated way the USA and Russia have managed to keep this monument to human capabilities alive.   It is a great Pyramid of our age. 



For geostrategic and geopolitical reasons Russia will always try to dominate, rule and command Eastern Europe.  Any country or alliance that conquers Eastern Europe will dominate Russia and the Eurasian heartland.  In the USA we view NATO as a defensive alliance that we would never allow to be used to start a war with Russia, ever.  Russia on the other hand can't afford to trust western/central Europe after what happened in WW II.   Even in his interview with Tucker Carlson, Putin, said he would not imagine that the USA wants to invade Russia.  We're "over there on your own island" as he put it. 

Meanwhile, for geostrategic and geopolitical reasons, the USA cannot be ok with a country that is acting as a dictatorship, without free and fair elections, to militarily conquer eastern Europe.  If that country is Russia, and they were inclined to they could dominate all of Europe, Asia and possibly even Africa.  In the cold war without heavy support from the USA, the USSR would've had complete dominant command of Eurasia.  Especially early in the Cold War when Stalin and Mao had a fairly solid communist bloc.  In the long view such a super state or alliance would eventually dominate over the world.  

This is why Ukraine matters, and that is why right now that level of cooperation is unlikely. Politically there isn't the will to explain to our populations why the US and Russia would work together in space to that degree while the Russo-Ukrainian war is going hot. 

That said it's not impossible.  US-Russia space relations have been a bright spot since the 1960's or 1970's.  If there is a hand of peace that hand will be extended there. Technologically it can be done it's just a matter of having the political will.