First, the idea that the Europeans or the Russians could be “given” the ISS is not feasible. Operational costs for ISS are higher than either can afford with their current budgets. And who will run the ground station in Houston or the American communications infrastructure? Would we charge for this? In addition, they would have to assume a much greater burden for launch and resupply.

Closely tied to this is the fact that under current international treaty, the state that _launches_ an object into orbit is responsible for it. That treaty currently contains no means for transferring control. If the US were to cede control to another party, part of the deal would have to include responsibility for de-orbiting it. Lacking that, the US would have to agree to remain liable for its portions of the ISS. This would be a very thorny issue.

Finally, the claim that the ISS hardware remaining in storage could be adapted for launch into equatorial orbit makes little sense. For starters, it assumes that the VSE even _requires_ an equatorial space station. Nobody with spacecraft design or operations experience has claimed that this is a good option.