Proposed Next-Generation Space Station 153
WallytheWalrus writes "This NewScientist.com article discusses the proposed next generation of telescopes and space stations. The concept presented with little fanfare by the NASA Exploration Team (NEXT) consists of placing a space station about 5/6ths of the way to the moon at one of a handful of local Lagrangian Points. This station would act as a springboard for constructing new telescopic mirrors, maintaining the telescopes that use them, and as a haven for future manned exploration missions. If only NEXT's budget was more than $4 million a year...."
Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
is there a URL for this? (Score:2)
Is any of this online that I could have a look at? future proposed NASA missions? (and does anybody have links to other countries bluesky missions?). Cheers.
Competition is the key (Score:2)
Methinks if not because of the announcement by the "Chinese Space Agency" that they are going to the moon by 2010 (perhaps as early as 2008) and establish a moonbase there, with a longer-term plan of having a base on Mars by 2040, perhaps we won't even hear any "new ideas" from NASA.
Competition is indeed good !
Repeat from Wednesday (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Repeat from Wednesday (Score:3, Insightful)
I can understand reposts that are a couple weeks apart.
But these few-days-apart repostings are increasingly common, and it's getting really irritating. Back in the days of five-digit usernumbers, this almost NEVER happened.
Can't the editors of Slashdot be expected to have read all the Slashdot stories for at least the past week, so as to recognize obvious duplicates? I think it would be reasonable to expect them to search for duplicates for the past year, but that's just me.
How long before moderators can act on the stories themselves? Add a "-5 Repost" option...
- Peter
Re:Repeat from Wednesday (Score:3, Informative)
Ok, while the story is reposted, I don't think that's the worst of your problems.
Yeah, right... (Score:1)
Re:Yeah, right... (Score:3, Informative)
They seem to have fun messing around with stuff [nasa.gov]. Don't ask me what the heck they're up to on the picture.
Re:Yeah, right... (Score:1)
Re:Yeah, right... (Score:2)
I'm in as soon as they tell us what the frill the first one is doing of importance.
If you could frelling [scifi.com] spell it correctly, maybe we would. :)
Space Cowboys (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Space Cowboys (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Space Cowboys (Score:2)
Re:Space Cowboys (Score:1)
Re:Space Cowboys (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh well, if you can suspend disbelief long enough to beleive they would send Clint Eastwood and James Gardner into space, I guess you can overlook the physics too.
Why not? They sent John Glenn, and he's older than either of them.
Re:Space Cowboys (Score:2)
How does meta moderation work? Were these voted down?
Not again... (Score:4, Interesting)
You're making me earn my karma today, you bastards.
Okay, on topic: Am I the only person who really wants us to go back to the moon? If this space station gets built, I sure hope that they use it to act as a halfway point between the earth and the moon, and not as just a platform for Orbital Mind Control Lasers. [warehouse23.com]
Re:Not again... (Score:2)
Re:Not again... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not again... (Score:2)
Halfway, 5/6ths, whatever. Don't go confusing me with that "new math".
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Re:Not again... (Score:2)
Re:Not again... (Score:2)
THE WORLD FACTBOOK 2002 [cia.gov] has a handy translation table to ensure proper conversion between US units and international units.
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Re:Not again... (Score:2)
No sir, no you are not. I think that, while the one space station has it's advantages, I'd rather the money that might go towards any US space station v3.0 project, go instead towards research towards putting together a livable habitat for use on the moon.
That way, we can all start a lucrative career as Space Pirates [fantasticfiction.co.uk].
Re:Not again... (Score:1)
Re:Not again... (Score:3, Interesting)
Am I the only person who really wants us to go back to the moon?
Heck no. I won't be satisfied until we have self-sustaining colonies on the moon and Mars, with plans for them in other star systems. Keeping all of our eggs in one basket is probably the scariest thing I can think of.
My granddad actually worked on the Apollo project. A few years before he died we were all having dinner and talking about space exploration, and it was obvious how disappointed he was that we hadn't even gotten people to Mars yet. You'd think we could do better in 30 years.
why Mars and not space colonies? (Score:2)
Or at least, why Mars as first/second choice ?
much easier and cheaper to build colonies in space. Either mine the asteroids exclusively or create a lunar mining base, but once you have a stream of resources from either, real-estate and energy is MUCH cheaper in orbit.
Also transportation is cheaper (just one gravity well instead of 2)
(this is the third time I ask the question in
Re:why Mars and not space colonies? (Score:2)
Re:Not again... (Score:1)
Seen it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seen it (Score:1)
It seems the slashdot editors have found a way to travel to space without a vehicle.....and a body.
A real NASA project (Score:4, Funny)
Raise Taxes (Score:3, Informative)
In other words: raise taxes.
---
Bush's Argument: Raise children, not taxes
Re:Raise Taxes (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you can also slash "defense" spending. How many more third world countries are left to invade / bomb?
Re:Raise Taxes (Score:1)
Been there, not yet, proxy war with Israel, supplies arms too, Libya and Sudan missiled.
Re:Raise Taxes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Raise Taxes (Score:2)
If we're going to spend immense amounts of money on new modes of travel, we should figure out a way to make gas-burning automobiles obsolete.
Re:Raise Taxes (Score:2)
Space exploration is basically just a national ego trip
Establishing a permanent presence in space is the best way to ensure that the human race is never wiped out by natural (e.g. viral) or our own (e.g. nuclear war) causes. It would still be horrible for the Earth's population to die off, but at least the civilization we'd built would survive in other places.
Far into the future, it's also the only way for us to survive the end of our solar system.
As long as we stay on a single planet, everything we've created in the last 5000 years can be erased so well that it might have never happened at all. As flawed as we are, I think we deserve better than that.
Re:Raise Taxes (Score:1)
Re:Raise Taxes (Score:2)
Yes, I can see it now: all the voters shouting: "our survival is only important for the further advancing of science ! please take our lives for your next article !"
either you ment that the other way around, or, like the famous redhead said "you need to sort out your priorities"
Re:Raise Taxes (Score:2)
Bullshit. Most countries are crop importers, not exporters. Countries like Iraq and North Korea are the exception rather than the rule. Much of Africa is being lost to the desert; people in Asia are dying of malnutrition (this is what golden rice is supposed to solve). Obviously the political climate in many regions will need to change, perhaps by force, but this won't solve many problems.
I suppose I should have added eliminating contagious diseases as well. I'm not some left-wing fruitcake; these are all problems we have the power to solve, but the money is being wasted on things like crop subsidies and space travel. If we're going to have big government we should at least do things right. Invading small countries doesn't bug me one bit, as long as it's not to install US-friendly dictators again.
Re:Raise Taxes (Score:2)
Well, that's true for parts of northern Africa, but sub-Saharan Africa contains some of the most arable land on the planet, and that situation is unlikely to change anytime soon. Effective use of this land is the real problem, and is hardly the desert's fault
I suppose I should have added eliminating contagious diseases as well. I'm not some left-wing fruitcake; these are all problems we have the power to solve, but the money is being wasted on things like crop subsidies and space travel.
It would be naive indeed to think that eliminating infectious disease is something we can completely conquer at the present time. This is not simply a matter of throwing sufficient money at the NIH, and then getting out a cure for every strain of influenza, dengue fever, West Nile, hantavirus, HIV, and every other godforsaken pest that troubles us today. Funding is obviously important, but it can hardly be argued that this is the principal obstacle to progress here. I also think that it's interesting that you mention eliminating crop subsidies and space travel, but neglect much larger burdens such as our incredible defense budget, which is presently about twenty-five times larger than the entire NASA budget (which includes not just space exploration, but an enormous amount of life sciences and astronomical research).
So here's a solution I think we can both agree on: cut our military expenditures by about ten percent or so, and split the money down the middle, half for NASA, half for the NIH. I'll get more real space exploration, you'll get more diseases licked, and we'll build a few less cruise missiles this year. Sound good? Now if only one of us can get elected...:-)
Invading small countries doesn't bug me one bit, as long as it's not to install US-friendly dictators again.
Not even a little bit? As long as it's somebody else fighting?
Cheers,
Mouser
Good choice for name (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe Apple [apple.com] will buy them too
lagrangian points (Score:5, Informative)
These are points where the gravitational pull of two bodies, such as the Earth and the Moon, cancel each other out, providing a stable location to position spacecraft.
I am very surprised The New Scientist makes such a mistake. These points are stable mainly because of rotation. In a nonrotating system, there is only one equilibrium point, and that is unstable.
Re:lagrangian points (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:lagrangian points (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, that's why people on the surface of the earth occationally fall up to the moon, because they are on the moon side of the balancing point.
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Re:lagrangian points (Score:4, Informative)
The center of gravity of the Earth-Moon system is about 1000 miles below the Earth's surface.
The point where the Earth and the Moon would exert an equal gravitational force on a third body is in space, much closer to the Moon than to the Earth. I think the actual balance point, the L1 point, is somewhat closer to Earth because of the contribution of rotation -- "centrifugal force", which of course isn't really a "force" unless you use a rotating frame of reference
Re:lagrangian points (Score:5, Informative)
You are correct about the contribution of rotation to teh formation of the libration points. However, these points are not all stable. L4 and L5 (the triangular points) are stable (at least in a linear sense). L1, L2, and L3 are unstable. That said, you can establish periodic orbits around the unstable points, so they aren't completely useless :-)
Progress... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, at least this year the toilets on the space station will be ready and paid for.
Re:Progress... (Score:2)
Well, at least this year the toilets on the space station will be ready and paid for.
Please feel free to build your own space station and to use American Standard toilets. Ewwww. :)
Quote (Score:5, Interesting)
If only NASA could stay within their proposed budgets...
Seriously though, Congress wouldn't be so iffy about giving NASA money if they actually stayed within their budget. Now no matter how little they say a project will cost, everyone will always roll their eyes and assume it'll cost like 10 times that.
Re:Quote (Score:1)
Re:Quote (Score:1)
Can you think of any project, department or plan the U.S. Congress funds that doesn't end up costing more than anticipated?
Re:Quote (Score:3, Interesting)
The Panama Canal [pancanal.com].
Lockheed Martin's X-33 [af.mil] single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch vehicle concept.
NASA's Mars Global Surveyor [nasa.gov]
The NEAR [time.com] space probe (and it was delivered 9 months ahead of schedule!)
The World Trade Center recovery effort [aflcio.org].
The US Navy's Super Hornet [navy.mil] (upgrade to the old F/A-18 Hornet Naval strike fighter)
The U2 [cia.gov] Spy Plane
Also, I remember hearing from the Discovery Chanel or TLC or Discovery Wings or something that the F-117 Stealth Fighter was developed under budget, but I can't seem to find a reliable link.
Golden Grove Prison [correctionalnews.com] at St. Croix in the US Vigrin Islands.
The Grand Staircase-Escalante monument in Utah [hcn.org].
It happens. It's rare percentage wise, but it does happen all the time. With the exception of the last two, which I only found out from google searching for links for the rest, I knew of all of these off of the top of my head, so it's not a big secret or anything. Just think of all the mundane projects that come in under budget too. Government buildings, roadways, etc.
Re:Quote (Score:2)
Proposed: Next-Generation Repeat (Score:2)
Edge of Chaos (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So... (Score:2, Funny)
Poor Timothy (Score:3, Funny)
There must be a glitch in the Matrix.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:There must be a glitch in the Matrix.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:There must be a glitch in the Matrix.... (Score:1)
déja -> already (as you said)
voir -> to see (infinitive form)
vu -> past participle of voir -> seen
voir is conjugated with avoir, so "J'ai vu" means "I've seen".
vous -> plural of you (as you also said), when written capitalised, it is also the polite form of "tu". Note that English has no equivilent thereof. (thou, thy and thine haven't been used for a long time)
It means "already seen" in English.
Please don't confuse déja vu with rendez-vous. And yes, you do seperate rendez and vous, since they are two seperate words. "Rendez-vous" is in fact an entire sentence, when finished with an exclamation mark, since "rendez" is the verb "se rendre" in the imperative form, where the subject is implied to be the second person.
Deja vu all over again (Score:5, Informative)
While the concept of placing a space station at a libration (or Lagrange) point seems nice on the surface, it's a very tough proposition in reality.
The problem is that the myth of a libration point as simply some kind of nifty stable point in space where gravity balances has been propagated for a while now. I've seen this mistake turn up in countless places, including some otherwise reputable textbooks. The reality is far more complex, and difficult to analyze.
For starters, the L1, L2, and L3 are unstable. That means that anything put there will tend to drift away over time. Not only that, but the L points don't even exist in reality - they are an artifact of a simplified gravitiational model (three bodies only). Once you incorporate the eccentricity of the primaries, and the effects of the other planets, you find that the L points are not so much points as variable regions of space with rather messy dynamical properties that we still don't fully understand. Oh, sure, you can mess around with numerical explorations and experiments, and there are a couple of series approximations that give reasonable first guesses at some particular solutions, but we are still a long way from being able to characterize and predict the full dynamics in one of these regions.
So, placing some thing actually at a libration point is out. But, as it turns out, you can establish periodic or near-periodic orbits around the approximate region of the libration "point" (so-called halo or lissajous orbits). We still don't really undertsand these orbits that well either, but we know enough to be able to have successfully put some unmanned probes out at the Sun-Earth L1 point (e.g. ISEE-3, SOHO, and most recently Genesis). Note that these are all Sun-Earth L1 missions, not Earth-Moon which would add another layer of complexity due to the influence of the Sun's gravity of the Earth-Moon system.
At present, the process of designing a new trajectory for a libration point mission consists of a fair amount of trial and error, and iteration. Techniques have improved some in the last decade (check out the work by Martin Lo at JPL and Kathleen Howell at Purdue on using dynamical systems theory to find transfers to/from halos), but it's still a lot of work to generate a finished trajectory that meets all of the necessary constraints. Trying to do this kind of thing with a manned, maneuvering spacecraft is going to be extremely difficult. In particular, any kind of rendezvous between two or more spacecraft will be difficult, since it's tough to predict where your spacecraft is going to go (very non-linear dynamics). Planning L point trajectories in real time really isn't that feasible until techniques improve a lot more.
This is a very active field of research, but there's still a long way to go before we're likely to be really ready for manned missions that do anything other than hang around on their own at L1 for a while.
Re:Deja vu all over again (Score:2)
Re:Deja vu all over again (Score:2)
Also, I think most people understand that the models are simplified. Eliminating all but the major variables is a useful engineering tool in understanding the problem. In your freshman physics class when you solve the ball dropping off of the building problem you don't include every possible effect acting on the ball, but you still get a very useful answer. And part of the reason we want to put a station there is to study the intricacies of the problem further. Having an object physically there will help us to expand our understanding of all the variables involved.
Re:Deja vu all over again (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not saying that we shouldn't be doing research in this area, just that it's very premature to be talking about putting manned platforms there.
Also, I think most people understand that the models are simplified. Eliminating all but the major variables is a useful engineering tool in understanding the problem.In your freshman physics class when you solve the ball dropping off of the building problem you don't include every possible effect acting on the ball, but you still get a very useful answer.
I agree that simplified models are a useful engineering tool (I'm an engineer by trade). My point was that the simplified models have lead to a number of popular misconceptions about what the libration points actually, and a misunderstanding of just a how complex it really is to analyze those regions of space. Also, your example with the ball dropping off of a building is not comparable to a libration point trajectory. The ball example works because, unless you are looking for a very precise answer, you can neglect everything other than gravity, which is by far the dominant force (try doing the same thing with an analysis of a feather falling :-). A libration point trajectory is a nasty problem in nonlinear dynamical systems: it is very sensitively dependent on initial conditions. If you do not correctly model some of the effects that would otherwise be neglible, you spacecraft will start in a slightly different location than you had planned, and end up in a wildly different location than you had intended. Even basic three-body dynamics are quite messy compared to the Keplerian orbits we are all used to. Throwing in all those extra bodies makes then even hairier. Not to say it can't be done (we have done it after all), just that it's much more difficult than most people seem to think (far more involved than a "normal" space mission).
And part of the reason we want to put a station there is to study the intricacies of the problem further. Having an object physically there will help us to expand our understanding of all the variables involved.
The reason that NASA wants to put a station there is that the people involved in planning the station do not have a clear understanding if the difficulties involved - they believe the "simplified model", and don't even seem to fully understand that. Someone in the NASA HEDS program needs to talk to some of the folks at JPL or Goddard who do libration points for a living. We would do much better to place unmanned objects in libration point orbits if we want to "expand our understanding of all the variables involved". That said, it's not so much the actual environment that we don't understand, it's the math needed to characterize and predict what things will do in these regions. In a Keplerian orbit we can use standard conic sections as a first cut, and perhaps include the effects of the major perturbations if necessary. At a libration point we don't even fully understand the motion: there's nothing comparable to a conic section. It's all numerical explorations, with no firm grasp of the underlying character of the trajectories. Right now operating a spacecraft in the vicinity of a libration point is akin to what it would have been like if someone tried to compute a free-return to the moon in the days before Kepler pointed out that "it's all just ellipses".
Re:Deja vu all over again (Score:2, Interesting)
You're right about L1, L2, and L3 not being stable, but L4 and L5 are. This link [nasa.gov] explains in a bit more detail , but the L4 and L5 points, despite being peaks of gravitational "hills", would be self stabilizing.
Here's NASA's explanation:
A detailed analysis (In PostScript [nasa.gov] or PDF [nasa.gov]) confirms our expectations [of instability] for L1, L2 and L3, but not for L4 and L5. When a satellite parked at L4 or L5 starts to roll off the hill it picks up speed. At this point the Coriolis force comes into play - the same force that causes hurricanes to spin up on the earth - and sends the satellite into a stable orbit around the Lagrange point.
Putting a space station at either of these stable points wouldn't be much more difficult than putting something in orbit around the L1 point and would be easier then going around the moon to the L2 point, which NASA has shown they can do with reasonable success.
The radiation would be worse there, but if we have to improve our radiation shielding anyway, we might as well try to make it strong enough so people can be placed at these points.
Re:Deja vu all over again (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, if you read the paper you link to you will find that the L4 and L5 points are stable in a linear sense (i.e. using a linear analysis). However, it is not clear how far out from the libration point this linear approximation is valid. It may require extremely precise targeting to get your spacecraft into the linearly stable region.
That aside, the reason we were talking only about the co-linear points (L1,2,3) instead of L4 and L5 is that L1 was the focus of the New Scientist article. The most likely reason for that is that L4 and L5, being (as you point out) at least linearly stable, have accumulated a lot of dust and debris over the millennia (see also the Trojan asteroids at Jupiter's L4 and L5 points). This makes them unattractive as a location for sensitive scientific instruments, or space stations. Hence the focus on L1.
Re:Timothy should go. (Score:1)
And it will be his first story that isn't a repost!
Said it before, Will say it again (Score:2)
What we need now is a plan to mine asteroids.
Without this process/technology in place everything we do in space is extremely expensive because we have to carry all of our mass into orbit.
If we ARE mining the asteroids, or the moon, or whatever else is handy (and hey, how about not throwing away space shuttle tanks, that would be a start at least) then at the very least we can use the mass for shielding from both radiation and impact, but one hopes that we will also be refining steel in orbit so we can use it for the heavy structure of our various constructions. We all love aluminum and titanium, but steel is more useful, especially when you don't have to worry about building things from it which are strong enough not to collapse under their own weight. We just have to figure out how to make it so we can move them, or make it so we don't have to move them.
budget (Score:2)
Re:budget (Score:2, Funny)
You work for California don't you?
It's time to leave LEO (Score:1, Informative)
To think that technological advance is blazingly fast in this day in age is misleading. We're not doing too well at hitting the important targets. NASA might just now be waking up to this, but it's yet to be seen if their budget wakes up to it. (Nasa funding was 4% of the national budget at the height of the Apollo program, it's less than 1% now)
So I applaud their very recent efforts to finally mention some vague goals away from Low Earth Orbit. L1 is a fine stepping stone, but Mars is where the public eye is. Nasa administrator Daniel Goldin had some brave words about the possibility of sending men to Mars in this decade or the next, but Bush put a bean counter in charge of Nasa pretty quickly to throttle cost overruns from the ISS.
What we really need is a president giving NASA a kick in the pants, and the funding to follow, as Kennedy did. Either that or wait around for private space exploration to become worthwhile, and we're going to be waiting quite a while in that case. Another space race? maybe China? I hope so. Because the current NASA schedule is anything but ambitious.
This will never happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad thing is that with this development, the short term financial return will be what all space exploration is measured by. A private corporation isn't going to put the risk into a decade or longer effort to develop a space station or any sort of space travel because the risk involved in such a venture isn't worth it.
Anyone remember The Onion article? (Score:2)
"It took ages to get the smell out"
I'm sorry, I have to.... (Score:1)
Does anyone think this looks a little like... (Score:2, Interesting)
Obligatory Gundam Reference (Score:2, Funny)
Another huge wast of money (Score:1, Insightful)
See a Spade? Say "Spade"! (Score:4, Insightful)
Having figuratively seen Skylab and Mir tumble and burn while the Apollo gantries rusted in the sun, I now know their game. The $8 billion spent before 1 kilogram of the ISS made it into orbit more than illustrates the game. The game is to remain well employed and supplied with cool aerospace toys. As for the return of value to the taxpayer
The article talks critically and comparatively about "politically motivated Apollo missions of the 1970s, or the aimless, cash-guzzling International Space Station". This reminds me of the push for Network Computers some years ago, in which the very providers of software and hardware used their own high cost-of-ownership as a marketing reason for changing the installed plant over to NCs. If Apollo, the ISS, and the (implied and obvious) Space Shuttle were such fiascos, then of what good is NASA's next project? Irony abounds from this; irrelevant politics and outrageous expenses are the invisible bywords written into NASA's mission statement.
"This time the science will come first, promises Gary Martin, NASA's Future Technology Architect and head of NEXT." Oh, god! That's the very problem about the American space program: Science comes 1st; politics comes 2nd; and economics is in a very distant 378th place. The average Kuiper Belt object is nearer to NASA than considerations of economics and ROI.
Don't you think that we should put an end to this "jobs program for PhDs"? Don't you think that we should get manufacturing and energy returns from the public investment in a space program? Why do we continue to explore space without making real plans to go there to exploit the resources we find?
I have an idea. NASA should stop being some sort of "research agency on crack". It should be trimmed down to be a rocket agency, devoted to tranportation only, and more cheaply than what we have now. Its mission will be to lift cargo off the Earth, into 5 standard deliveries in increasing order of expense:
- Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is for temporary satellites.
- HEO is for long-term sats.
- Geosynchronous is for sats that require such a position.
- Cislunar is for reaching the Lagrange positions and Luna herself.
- Escape is simply a push beyond about 7 miles per second, in order to escape the Earth and reach all other points beyond (although to escape Sol requires about 618 km/s).
Once NASA is there to transport stuff according to rate sheets and schedules, then we'll see what private industry can do to make a buck off of manufacturing and energy.- how much money can I steal this quarter?
- how many poor people can I put into jail?
Reducing NASA to a cheap launcher has nothing to do with promoting white-collar crime and blue-collar imprisonment. The future of Humankind in space is Chinese. They will probably get it done before their empire surrenders to the inevitable self-immolation.Re:See a Spade? Say "Spade"! (Score:1)
Solar escape velocity from Earth's vicinity (1 AU) is about 42 km/s. Perhaps 618 km/s is the escape velocity from the Sun's surface -- something that isn't likely to be of much direct concern to us for the foreseeable future.
Re:See a Spade? Say "Spade"! (Score:1)
Ya until we run out of hydrocarbon to fuel all those toys. More likely it is "Perscute other countries to sell us all their oil, until no one has any fuel left"
uhh, lets finish the International Space Station (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:uhh, lets finish the International Space Statio (Score:2)
One should try to choose the best path at all times. Resources spent are not important, only resources you will spend, as oposed to your projected return and probability of success.
as for plans, one should always make other plans and think ahead, so that decision making will be more effective.
Bar Steward! (Score:1)
meh, I guess I should have checked first!
We need a class (Score:3, Funny)
Re:We don't need another money pit. (Score:2)
Though this makes for some cool Gee-whiz science and experience working in low/no gravaity environments, I don't foresee any nobel-prize winning science coming out of the International Space Station.
I'll have to agree with you there. I doubt the people who gave Yasser Arrafat a Nobel prize would find much use for the research being done on the space station.
If NASA intends on building something useful, it should consider building a large space ship for touring the solar system for conducting long term research with a crew of about 100 people.
Where are you going to build your large space ship, doofus? On Earth and launch it? No? Perhaps at a SPACE STATION? Whatever you're smoking, send me some - it's good stuff.
Re:Problem with this (Score:1)
Re:Funny. (Score:1)
You know, those useless tidbits of information!
No one cares about anything in that field, do they?