It's a shame this has to happen. I always hope that something could be salvaged and used for Lunar Gateway, or... something. It's still my hope that NASA uses the remaining return trips to bring back as many "souvenirs" as possible. The unfortunate reality is that it probably doesn't make sense to do anything with the station other than de-orbit, with the declining costs and the age of whats up there.
When ISS was lofted the cost to get into space was crazy high. 1981 Space Shuttle was $65k per KG to LEO. Falcon 9 is somewhere in the range of $2500 per KG to LEO. Falcon Heavy is even less than that at around $1000 per KG to LEO. It wouldn't surprise me if Starship is even cheaper.
So why spend millions of dollars trying to "save a buck" on components when you can launch newer/better/stronger/lighter (ex: Sierra Space's LIFE Hab) for orders of magnitude cheaper than you could "back in the day".
When ISS was lofted the cost to get into space was crazy high. 1981 Space Shuttle was $65k per KG to LEO. Falcon 9 is somewhere in the range of $2500 per KG to LEO. Falcon Heavy is even less than that at around $1000 per KG to LEO. It wouldn't surprise me if Starship is even cheaper.
So why spend millions of dollars trying to "save a buck" on components when you can launch newer/better/stronger/lighter (ex: Sierra Space's LIFE Hab) for orders of magnitude cheaper than you could "back in the day".