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Space Science

NASA Panel Says ISS Cuts Hurt Science 289

Posted by timothy from the don't-remember-asking-to-pay-for-this dept.
medcalf writes: "The AP reports that the International Space Station, as proposed, is incapable of doing much meaningful scientific research, and that NASA should thus stop characterizing the program as 'science-driven.' Factors listed in support of the recommendation are insufficient crew, lack of certain vital equipment and insufficient resupply missions. Makes me proud of spending $30 billion in tax money -- hey, isn't that about enough for a manned Mars mission? Perhaps a reevaluation of our goals in space, and what we are prepared to risk for the money, would be in order?" The AP article is summarizing the conclusions of a 23-member panel, which finds the current aim of a "core-complete" station too slender a justification of the past and current expenditures in the name of science.
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NASA Panel Says ISS Cuts Hurt Science More

NASA Panel Says ISS Cuts Hurt Science

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  • Damn (Score:3, Funny)

    by unicron ( 20286 ) <unicron@@@thcnet...net> on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:00PM (#3867264) Homepage
    Now we'll never know if ants can be trained to assort tiny screws in space.
  • a billion isn't nearly what it used to be...

  • The public (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sheepab ( 461960 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:02PM (#3867277) Homepage
    Its our damn tax money that pays for this stuff, I say we should be able to vote on what NASA should focus on next. They really havent done anything ground-breaking lately. The U.S. should take a vote on whether or not we want NASA to goto Mars, or build a space station on the moon. If that were to happen, people would be more interested in Space, and be willing to spend more on space exploration, thus it wont hurt science.

    • The public? (Score:4, Informative)

      by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) <bittercode@gmail> on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:20PM (#3867404) Homepage Journal
      You do get to vote on what NASA does w/its money.

      Every time you vote for the people who represent you in Washington.

      If it is as important as you think- get the word out, get others to rally around your platform and elect someone who will get the job done.

      If you don't think people will do that now- what makes you think they would be more active if they were voting for how money is budgeted directly?

      If the American populace determined the budget it would be a complete mess. And if you think a majority of your fellow citizens are in favor of huge expenditures for space exploration - you are mistaken

      .

      • Re:The public? (Score:2, Informative)

        by martyn s ( 444964 )
        Stop pretending like the US is an efficient, lubricated fair democratic machine. It's not. Granted, it's probably the most democratic nation ever (nation, I said), which is especially important considering it's size, but we've passed the time when the US has resembled anything like a democracy. The US is not a democracy.

    • Re:The public (Score:3, Informative)

      by Guppy06 ( 410832 )
      "I say we should be able to vote on what NASA should focus on next."

      We do. Every two years in November. It's called "voting for the guys who dole out the budget."

      • Re:The public (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Jeremi ( 14640 )
        We do. Every two years in November. It's called "voting for the guys who dole out the budget."

        Unfortunately, there are only two choices on the ballot, and they are "cut NASA's funding" and "cut NASA's funding". If you think American elections actually give Americans much of a say in things, then I highly recommend this book [fixingelections.com]. Modern America is a democracy in name only.

    • Its our damn tax money that pays for this stuff, I say we should be able to vote on what NASA should focus on next.

      Why should NASA be different than any other government agency? There was no election held to decide whether we should bomb the bejeepers out of Afghanistan. I never got a chance to vote on the S&L bailout in the 80s. The religious people don't get a chance to veto public money being used to support artists that create blasphmous works like the "Piss Christ" and the "Dung Virgin Mary". The public never gets a chance to vote how their money is spent.

      Besides, if the public had their way, they'd probably vote for NASA to blow it's budget sending N'Sync of J Lo into space. Remember how the media wouldn't shut the hell up about John Glenn's return to space a few years ago?

      GMD

      • I agree totally, we should be able to vote on the details of all that other stuff as well.

        In fact, fire congress and just have direct democracy right now.

        • I agree totally, we should be able to vote on the details of all that other stuff as well.

          Well, I wasn't actually advocating that kind of system where the public votes on everything. It sounds interesting but I fear that a system like that would end up being mob rule. As I mentioned before, the religious right would certainly organize a campaign to have NEA funds witheld from any artist that they didn't like. I'm sure they would successfuly be able to convince Joe Average, who knows nothing about the value of controversial art, to vote in support of their measure. Science funding would most likely take a big hit as well. Actually a lot of the stuff slashdotters hold near and dear would probably find themselves voted out. We're not exactly mainstream people here.

          All I was saying in my original post is that allowing the public to vote on how their money is spent in such a micro-fashion just doesn't fit in our current system.

          GMD

          • Ahh hah!

            So you want the public to vote on the sort of issues you deam them capable of! You hypocrite. This country should be ruled by the people if that means they make decisions you don't like then tough.

            You cannot stop people voting merely because they vote differently to how you want. This is the current system and it stinks.

    • Re:The public (Score:2, Interesting)

      by wrinkledshirt ( 228541 )
      They really havent done anything ground-breaking lately.

      Well, they kind of have, you just haven't noticed it directly. Consider that the way America wages war (coined "Hyperwar") involves sending overwhelming waves of missiles and striking targets with a ferocity that nobody can effectively react to. This form of warfare is becoming increasingly reliant on satellites for communications.

      In other words, your largely unopposed war in Afghanistan is testament to what NASA has done lately.

    • Re:The public (Score:2, Informative)

      by pjt48108 ( 321212 )
      The end of Apollo was really the climax of US space exploration. The shuttle/ISS are the post-coital cigarette.
      But seriously, the US was all set to go to Mars, but in the heady days of the early 70s, the Nixon administration had other plans. After all, remember that Apollo was really just a political carrot held before us by the Kennedy administration. Once we got to the moon, the collective sigh was sent up: "Been there, done that". By the time of Apollo 13, people took rocket science for granted, and were caught off guard by the Apollo 13 debacle, which, in my opinion, was a textbook example of Nasa at both it's worst and at its best.

      In theory, the shuttle program could have been a more practical stepping-stone, but various budget-cutting measures and a highly-diminished drive to go to space handicapped it before it ever flew. So, you get what you pay for. Signs of this are extant in the solid rocket boosters, which are a cheap (and dangerous) alternative to a throttleable booster system. Whole unmanned systems were developed on paper as shuttle derivatives, but never flew off the drawing board due to intransagent budget hawks

      Challenger showed the pennywise-poundfoolishness of the various cost-saving measures. Hopefully the people will see the real threat emerging from China now - they want to go to the moon themselves - and vote in pro-space legislators. Slip on over to space.com or spaceflightnow.com to bone up n your space geek knowledge. Your brain will goo "Mmmmmm!"

    • The problem is that if you let the public-at-large vote directly on NASA funding, most would gladly cut their funding to zero and spend it on their own pet local projects instead. Most Americans simply don't care about space exploration.

      NASA could stage a poll to solicit opinions on worthwhile goals, and use the results to attempt to lobby Congress for more funding, but in the end the pork-barrel projects like ISS would win out. I find it quite remarkable that so much good science (the Mars program, Cassini, Galileo, CONTOUR, the Solar observatories, Hubble upgrades, Stardust, and so on and on) gets done in this environment.
      • I think that if you have a vote 'go to mars by 2030 or reduce NASA budget to $0' then people would vote for mars. Alot of people would like to see something 'kool' being done, but as it is now NASA isn't doing anything 'visable' enough for people to want to fund it.

  • Where? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...and all the while NASA has to cut the ISS and other viable projects, the Senators and Representatives unanimously vote themselves a huge payraise because they've doen such an outstanding and thankless job last week.....
    Gotta love the American System...

  • Probably not... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by krlynch ( 158571 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:04PM (#3867288) Homepage

    Makes me proud of spending $30 billion in tax money -- hey, isn't that about enough for a manned Mars mission?

    Well, given the inability of multiple independent national and international space agencies (the US and Russia in particular), to bring in a much simpler, safer, and less technically challenging mission (namely ISS) on time and on budget, I find it highly doubtful that a $30 Billion dollar projected budget for a manned mission is even within an order of magnitude of what the actual cost will be....

    • How To Save Mars Mission Money (Score:4, Funny)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:46PM (#3867544) Journal

      I got an idea to save money. Have a Mars Survivor TV show. All the participants sign away any death compensation rights.

      That way we don't have to spend lots to make the ship extra safe, and the TV ad revenue for the show helps pay for it.

      Plus, it will make great drama.

      "Dammit! I'm leaving this tin can! I can't stand you four. You selfish b8stards only want....."

      "Wait!!!, don't open that air lock without a......"

      (Swoooooooooooosh)

      "Nevermind"

      -T-
    • The limit here was in politics, not technology. NASA is big enough that is has it's own politics (I am not going to propose/support X because if it fails I don't get position Y), plus having to deal with outside politics (if X fails your funding goes down to Y).

      This is why I suspect that truely commercial/private ventures will be the ones that give us a significant presence in space. Such organization don't have to worry about outside politics for funding, and their internal politics reward taking a risk and achieving something.

      I still have my hopes up for www.armadilloaerospace.com It is still relatively primative, but progressing despite the budget being relatively tiny and with a small staff. I am hoping that, at the very least they will demonstrate that it is reasonably possible for private/commercial entities to go to space without the aid of NASA.

  • Hrmph (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nebby ( 11637 )
    Being that we, as a civilization, do not know if it will be today, tomorrow, or many years from now when an asteroid hits us, plague overtakes us, or our resources deplete, I'm always suprised when people declare that space exploration should be anything other than our number one priority.

    What good is feeding the starving, curing cancer or AIDS, and fighting the latest war when it all comes down to the fact that for the foreseeable future we, in fact, have no real "future" beyond what is here in front of us.
    • You must remember that humanity is a rather short sighted specieis. A meteor strike isn't going to happen in the next 4-8 years so as far as a politician is concerned, that's never going to happen. If a meteor strike did happen, civilization would fall apart and it wouldn't really matter whether the politicians fought to save the planet because the survivors would be too busy hunting and gathering to worry about voting them in for another term.

      The problem with the future of space exploration is that there's no evidence that there's any useful return on that investment in the short term. As we can tell from the social security debates, that's what makes or breaks any political decision.

      As for your view that we shouldn't care about AIDS, etc, because it doesn't matter in the long run if a big asteroid wipes us out. Using that logic, then to hell with space exploration, lets get to work on reversing entropy. Because regardless of anything we do, if entropy continues on its merry way, we're screwed. Check out Asimov's short story, I believe it's called "the question" or something like that.

      Personally I think space exploration is vital to our survival, but in a way that isn't immediately obvious. It's not about avoiding the next plague, rather it is about creating hope and something to strive for. Right now, there are few frontiers left to explore on this planet. We have this growing sense of stangation of culture, etc. BUT, if we were pushing into space, then suddenly we've got new things to strive for.

      I suspect though that, as with all of past exploration, money will have to be the driving factor. Corporations need to be convinced that there's money to be made by investing in space exploration. Renaissance exploration was all about trying to find resources, and wealth. If the WWF's report on the fate of the world is any indiciation, there will be plenty of motivation to do this in the near future.

      • With regard to our "short-sightedness" regarding space in general & meteor strikes in specific:

        Suppose we were to find out & verify, ala Armageddon, that meteor X, about the diameter of Texas, composed of a mixture of metal ore, rock, and ice as most meteors are, is hurtling toward us to destroy earth & humanity. What those politicians you refer to as short-sighted realize that you may not is that there's not a damn thing we can do about it. There is no ICBM collection, no space shuttle that can do jack shit for us no matter what story Jerry Bruckheimer likes to tell. There's also no form of technology we even have an inkling of that can deflect a meteor large enough to do serious damage to our planet. You can do the calculations yourself, but there aren't enough nuclear weapons on the planet to put a dent in a rock that big. We'd all have to face the fact that we're fucked and everything wasn't meant to last.

        For fuck's sake, if there's any situation it's not the US government's job to handle, that's it. It's bend-over-&-kiss-your-ass-goodbye time, because almost all of us would die and the state of the US budget would instantly cease to be a concern for any survivors.


        • Answer #1: That's why they weren't advocating building a meteor defense shield around Earth, but rather establishing colonies on at least a couple of nearby rocks, so that the entire human race wouldn't be all in one place and vulnerable to being wiped out by a single catastrophic event.

          Answer #2: It all depends on how far out we catch it. If it was far enough, we might only need to deflect its course by a few milliradians to put it on an orbit that would miss us. F=MA. If the mass, distance, velocity, time, etc., worked out right, we just might be able to give it enough of a nudge to do the trick.

          Though I agree, of course, about the silliness of the movies, where you see the producers' eight-year-old-level understanding of physics (i.e., the cute notion that when you "blow up" something, its mass just "disappears"), plus the fact that, I guess, "nudging" it somehow doesn't seem as cool.
    • Sure, that might be important if we launch a mission to divert an asteroid, but there's still the problem of thrusting it out of the way. A few hundred nukes may or may not do the job.

      And forget about colonizing the planets as an escape plan. It's orders of magnitude cheaper to build underground shelters with a few years of supplies to outlast the nuclear winter. As long as they don't take a direct hit, the shelters would survive.

  • Ask yourself why. (Score:3)

    by Telastyn ( 206146 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:05PM (#3867296)
    This sounds an awful bit like something influenced alot by NASA in order to get a bigger budget. I think everyone on slashdot would agree that doubling or tripling NASA's budget would be better than sending cash to Israel, or sending that extra fighter wing to the "war against terrorism", or even wasting it on keeping pot smokers in jail...
    • I think everyone on slashdot would agree that doubling or tripling NASA's budget would be better than sending cash to Israel, or sending that extra fighter wing to the "war against terrorism", or even wasting it on keeping pot smokers in jail...

      Think again. NASA doesn't effectively utilize the funds it gets right now; why do you think throwing more money at it would help? A government bureaucracy sometimes just isn't the most effectrive way of doing things. Instead, private enterprises should be encouraged to engage in space exploration, e.g. through tax incentives.

      (I agree with you on the war on drugs though - it's just stupid.)
      • Surely the *rest* of the US government is wholy efficient in their use of money...

        imo that cannot be fixed, and thus the best way to solve NASA is to toss more money, especially given the at least triple digit times more cash that's spent on bombing people.

        I do agree on privatization as the "best" way to do things in space, though I am as wary, if not more wary, of corperations as I am the US government.

    • Re:Ask yourself why. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by krlynch ( 158571 )

      This sounds an awful bit like something influenced alot by NASA in order to get a bigger budget.

      Well, in a word, no. This is the same conclusion drawn years ago by (literally, not figuratively) hundreds of other independent scientific organizations, including the NAS, AAAS, APS, AIP, and MRS: there is almost no science that the ISS can do that can't be done better, cheaper, faster, and safer either on the ground or on an unmanned orbiting platform, or during short duration flights. There is certainly no other scientific program funded by the US (and other nations) government that would be able to get away with such a fantastically miniscule ROI. The space station never has been, and never will be, primarily a scientific research platform. This is not to say that the he ISS is an unjustified expenditure, but its scientific program is not the justification.

      • I liked the proposal to bill it to the State Department, given the stated goal of encouraging international cooperation.

  • Sigh. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Unknown Poltroon ( 31628 ) <unknown_poltroon1sp@myahoo.com> on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:05PM (#3867297)
    As i recall, the original plan for the space station called for 15 billion, and satisfied pretty much all of the scientfic needs. Thanks to political budget games, its been redesigned so many times its usless and costs 3 times as much, and dosent even meet the original needs. I love it when humanity pisses on its own feet.

  • Typical.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dciman ( 106457 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:06PM (#3867306) Journal
    This seems so typical these days. Just look at what the United States accomplished in the first 5 or 10 years of our space program..... then since the early 80's we haven't done crap. Granted that it helped to be in the cold war and have someone to compete against. IT seems without that pressure that the US isn't interested in making the needed investment and dedication to really push space exploration. To me that seems terribly sad. We shouldnt' just let the ISS sit up there and collect dust, it is a great place to do some very interesting science. IF.... we would get our act together.

    Also, lets do something about the space shuttle for god's sake! What total piece of shit. How sad is it that we are flying something designed 25+ years ago that has the computing power of an P90 into space in the 21st Century.

    • Re:Typical.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:17PM (#3867383)
      > Also, lets do something about the space shuttle for god's sake! What total piece of shit. How sad is it that we are flying something designed 25+ years ago that has the computing power of an P90 into space in the 21st Century.

      No shit.

      I did a double-take when I saw the title of this article -- ISS Cuts are hurting science? It's the goddamn ISS/Shuttle sinkhole that's making it impossible to do science in the first place. Perfectly good probe in orbit around Jupiter is gonna fly by Amalthea and miss out on a chance to get spectra of Ionian dust that's accumulated on it. Why? Because we can't afford $100K (or $1M to do it by "established procedures") to turn the damn camera on -- because ISS has eaten the budget again.

      Science is suffering because we're spending billions on the goddamn ISS, which exists solely to provide an excuse to give the friggin shuttle fleet something to do.

      <RANT>

      The best thing NASA could do for science would be to launch one more shuttle, duct-tape it to the ISS, and fire the engines to deorbit it -- with the point of impact being the rest of the rest of the Shuttle fleet!

      </RANT>

      The resulting $30-40B in cost savings could be used to develop a heavy-lift capability (read: buy Proton and Energia from the Russkies), and start launching probes capable of doing real science. Hell, if you get the heavy-lift capability right, you could have enough cost savings to choose between building a replacement space station or saying to hell with low earth orbit for now, and doing a Mars Direct approach.

      The only use I can see the ISS having is as a meeting/construction/refueling point for fuel tanks and other probes. If they'd just admit it and use it for that, it could have been a lot cheaper and more functional to boot.

      • Thank you! (Score:2, Insightful)

        by boredman ( 169127 )
        You saved me the trouble of typing this myself. The ISS, our shutle fleet, hell, the ENTIRE MANNED SPACE PROGRAM is a huge white elephant. If science is really NASA's goal:

        1) Give the manned program a rest until we have heavy lift capability or reusable vehicles with maintenance schedules similar to those of military aircraft.

        2) Build more Galileo-class probes. The faster-better-cheaper nonsense has been exposed for what it is. Doing anything right is neither fast, nor cheap. Focus on the "better" part and save money in the long term.

        3) Don't succumb to the urge to "build pyramids." Apollo, was a classic example of what we DON'T want to see happen: an awesome technical achievement left to decay when priorities shifted. When we go to Mars, I hope we'll have a CONCRETE exploration / colonization plan that extends DECADES into the future, not just a series of flag-plantings.

      • You hit the nail on the head.

        Probes are the key to studying space. Are there people on Chandra? On Hubble? People only go to them to make repairs and upgrades. I use these two observatories as an example because they have been of great benefit to science and should be exemplary (with the exception of the Hubble lens snafu) of the rest of our efforts in space. Manned presence in space is only necessary for maintenance, repairs, and upgrades.

        By the way, do you ever read Robert Park's weekly "What's New?". If you don't, I think you would really enjoy it (go to aps.org). He frequently comments on NASA.

    • The Space Shuttle (Score:3, Interesting)

      by GuyMannDude ( 574364 )

      Also, lets do something about the space shuttle for god's sake! What total piece of shit. How sad is it that we are flying something designed 25+ years ago that has the computing power of an P90 into space in the 21st Century.

      What exactly don't you like about the shuttle? Why is it a piece of shit? Is there something wrong with it? Is it not meeting our needs? I can't tell if you have a legitimate beef with it or just don't like it because it's old. Except for the tragic Challenger accident, the shuttle seems to have done a pretty good job of wethering the years. I think it's impressive that something built 25+ years ago is still in service. Like the U2, it's a testiment to the quality of the original design. And what makes you think the shuttle has the computing power of a P90? I find it hard to believe that NASA hasn't upgraded the computer system in the shuttle. And if they haven't, it's probably because they haven't needed to.

      GMD


      • it is still in service but it gets practicaly rebuilt after every flight.
      • What exactly don't you like about the shuttle? Why is it a piece of shit?

        It seems to me that the major problem with the shuttle is that it's a white elephant. It's horribly inefficient at doing various jobs like launching satellites. It costs half-a-billion dollars to get it off the ground. It's much cheaper to do things with unmanned disposable rockets.
      • I think only 1 of the shuttles has had its avionics and computer systems upgraded. And its not because 'they haven't needed to.' It is the red-tape nature of the government project buerocracy that it moves so slow as to be locked into old technology. The ISS crew uses laptops, but they are x486 based, because that was what was spec'ed at the time. They are very expensive now, because nobody makes 486 laptops any more, but you can't just go buy new off-the-shelf laptops. Thats not how the government buys things.

        There are plenty of good things about the shuttle program, but the bad thing about the shuttle program is that everything else that NASA does revolves around it. The HST was put into low orbit so the shuttle could deploy and service it, which limits it's usefullness. The Chandra x-ray telescope had to be designed to fit in a shuttle cargo bay and be launched from the shuttle's top altitude, which isn't very high. You can launch a satellite with a rocket for cheaper than you can launch it with the shuttle. We spend and have spent a lot of money on this tool (the shuttles) and so we are locked into useing them even if they are not the best thing for the job.

        I'm not offering an opinion on what we should be doing, just my understanding of the facts.

      • Re:The Space Shuttle (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Tackhead ( 54550 )
        > What exactly don't you like about the shuttle? Why is it a piece of shit?

        It's a good way to get astronauts into LEO and back.

        The only reason astronauts need to get into LEO and back is to build the ISS.

        It's shitty because it's an expensive way to get things into orbit. Because astronauts are fragile things, needing air, water, and life support systems, if you wanna launch something with the shuttle, you're gonna pay tens of thousands of dollars per pound to lift 1500 pounds of human meat, thousands of pounds of life support systems to keep the meat alive, and a big honkin' pair of wings to let the meat come back. Comm satellites, space telescopes, and interplanetary probes don't run on meat. They don't need wings or life support. As far as the science missions are concerned, most of the Shuttle is dead weight.

        It's also a shitty way to get heavy things (Hubble, ISS components, fuel tanks for space probes) into orbit, even if cost is no object -- because of the mass penalty for life support systems, it's got a small cargo bay. That's a horrible design constraint on unmanned satellite and manned ISS module alike.

        And because of both of these factors, it's an even more shitty way to get anything (light or heavy) beyond earth orbit. "Lousy cargo capacity" plus "huge mass penalty" equals "no fucking way you can launch something with enough fuel on it to get to the outer planets, or even Mars, in a reasonable timeframe"

        It's a "space truck", and was designed as such -- and for that purpose, it's adequate.

        Unfortunately, "doing science" typically requires lifting heavy things (like space telescopes) in orbit. Or accelerating lighter things (like space probes) to well beyond escape velocity. For these tasks, the Shuttle is the wrong tool for the job.

      • The shuttle is not just expensive for launching stuff in low earth orbit (LEO). It is not just very expensive. It is not just extraordinarily expensive.

        The shuttle is obscenely expensive to operate.

        Way back when the shuttle was supposed to lower launch costs. But now it is the most expensive means to launch anything, by a large, large margin. It requires a tremendous amount of effort to refurbish between flights.

        All this is because they had many conflicting goals when it started out. The STS is the most complex launch system ever designed, and it shows.


    • since the early 80's we haven't done crap
      Magellan - USA Venus Orbiter - 3,545 kg - (May 4, 1989 - 1994)
      Galileo - USA & Europe Jupiter Orbiter/Atmospheric Probe - 2,222 kg - (October 18, 1989)
      Hubble Space Telescope - USA & Europe Telescope - (April 25, 1990)
      Ulysses - USA & Europe Solar Flyby - 370 kg - (October 6, 1990)
      Mars Observer - USA Mars Orbiter - (September 25, 1992)
      Clementine - USA Lunar Orbiter - (January 25, 1994)
      SOHO - Europe/USA Solar Probe - (December 12, 1995)
      NEAR - USA Asteroid Orbiter - 805 Kg - (February 17, 1996)
      Mars Global Surveyor - USA Mars Orbiter - (November 7, 1996)
      Mars Pathfinder - USA Lander & Surface Rover - 264 kg (lander), 10.5 kg (rover) - (December 4, 1996 - September 27, 1997)
      Cassini/Huygens - USA & Europe Saturn Orbiter/Titan Probe - (1997)
      Lunar Prospector - 295 kg - USA Lunar Orbiter - (January 6, 1998)
      Deep Space 1 (DS1) - USA Asteroid and Comet Flyby - (24 October 1998)
      Mars Climate Orbiter - USA Mars Orbiter - (11 December 1998)
      Mars Polar Lander - USA Mars Lander - (3 January 1999)
      Deep Space 2 (DS2) - USA Mars Penetrators - (3 January 1999)
      Stardust - USA Comet Sample Return - (7 February 1999)
      IMAGE - USA Space Weather Satellite - (25 March 2000)
      2001 Mars Odyssey - USA Mars Orbiter - (7 April 2001)
      Genesis - USA Solar Wind Sample Return - 30 July 2001
      CONTOUR - USA Fly-by of three Comet Nuclei - 4 July 2002

      I'd like us to do even more, but I'd hardly characterize the above as "crap".
      • > [extensive list deleted]
        >
        >I'd like us to do even more, but I'd hardly characterize the above as "crap".

        Magellan - shuttle - 1994
        Galileo - shuttle - 1989
        HST - shuttle - 1990
        Ulysses - shuttle - 1990

        Everyting from 1992 through 2002 inclusive:

        NEAR - Delta 7925
        Mars Observer - Titan 34D
        Mars Pathfinder - three Delta 7925 launches
        Clementine - Titan 2
        SOHO - Atlas IIAS
        Cassini/Huygens - Titan 4B
        DS1 - Delta 7925
        Mars Climate Orbiter - Delta 7925
        Mars Polar Lander - Delta 7925
        Stardust - Delta 7925
        IMAGE - Delta 7925
        2001 Mars Odyssey - Delta 7925
        Genesis - Another Delta
        CONTOUR - Another Delta

        OK, so we've done some cool shit since the '80s. But I think I'm noticing a trend here in terms of whether we need the Shuttle to do it.

        (Source for all launch vehicle data: Astronautix.com index of spacecraft [astronautix.com].)

    • Yes, the space shuttle is a piece of crap. It's definitely time to replace it. I think maintaining a space station is an important step to really controlling our system, but I think we need a much larger station; IE, we need to be mining asteroids and doing smelting and manufacturing in orbit, NOW. Not later. Building things in space would drop the costs significantly, even if the only things we built were the structure and skin.

      As for why our space program is so limp now; we have no competition.

  • NASA wasn't born with scientific research in mind. (Score:4, Informative)

    by jazzmanjac ( 92458 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:06PM (#3867310)
    NASA was formed to one up the Russians, not to do scientific research.

    From http://history.nasa.gov/brief.html

    "... Formed as a result of the Sputnik crisis of confidence, NASA inherited the earlier National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and other government organizations, and almost immediately began working on options for human space flight. ..."

    • (* NASA was formed to one up the Russians, not to do scientific research. *)

      This is actually a good thing, perhaps.

      It has been suggested that battling it out with space accomplishments reduced the chances of physical conflict on the ground by focusing aggression and ego toward the space-race instead.

  • Rename Discovery as SponsorShip (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kaz Riprock ( 590115 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:10PM (#3867335)
    It's time to slap a logo on the ISS and turn a buck. It could be Hershey's K-ISS or Sw-ISS M-ISS. Anything to put some money into the system in the name of science. It's not like anyone should be affronted by the idea of corporate sponsorship and science intermingling. It happens all the time. Check any biology lab or methods section of the scientific papers that come out these days and you're bound to find someone shilling for some company's enzyme or centrifuge. As long as the sponsor is just happy having their picture on NasaTV and isn't making decisions on food supplements or spacesuit fashion, I say go for it.

  • Mars (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Crowhead ( 577505 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:12PM (#3867355)
    hey, isn't that about enough for a manned Mars mission?

    The Russians are going to try to do it for 20B [bbc.co.uk]

    • Re:Mars (Score:2, Funny)

      by BabyDave ( 575083 )
      I'll do it for £50 plus the cost of 20 million Sodastream canisters!

  • Shit 30 billion? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jonny Ringo ( 444580 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:23PM (#3867416)
    Man, you know how many beers that could have gotten me at the baseball game? ...Like 4.

  • Overhead ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WndrBr3d ( 219963 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:35PM (#3867480) Homepage Journal
    I'm curious out of that $30,000,000,000 cost for the ISS, how much actually went into PARTS for the Space Station and how much went to pay for people's paychecks ?

    It'd be interesting for organizations such as NASA and other government bodies to actually be accountable to 3rd party auditing firms for their spending. I mean, could you imagine how much was spent on engineers who get paid over $145,000 a year just to design a better O-Ring for the base of the toilet ?!??

    I think when an issue like this comes up, NASA should not only plead for more money and complain that they are not getting the funding they need, but also VALIDATE these reasons with actual COST and EXPENSES they incur and actually how much more money they'll need with validation for that as well.

    It just frustrates me how government agencies will complain that an amount of money like 30 BILLION dollars isn't enough to fund a project, but refuse to be accountable to anyone other than themselves for their spending habits and business practices!
    • there is a lot of corruption in NASA's spending, but i dont think overpayed engineers are a big problem. Space engineers arent that well paid afaik, and they are quite necessary.

      i think corporations that overbill the govt are more of a problem.
    • (* I mean, could you imagine how much was spent on engineers who get paid over $145,000 a year just to design a better O-Ring for the base of the toilet ?!?? *)

      Hey, if *that* O-ring fails, imagine the cost of cleaning fecal matter out of thousands of contaminated parts.

      Your budget proposol is risking a lot of shit, literally.
    • Designing a better O ring for the base of the toilot is most likly one of the much better things that you might find as waisted money. I would be more instrested in finding out what people are paid $200k+ because they are just assigned to the project and not actually do anything.

      When someone is actually doing something liek O ring development that is atleast going into the research and development. Its the people that are only there because they want their input into the program and they have the money/power to do it.

      There really does need to be a unity of command on some of these projects. Panels are only usefull as advisors there still needs to be one person that dictates how it all gets done in the end. Panels start to push and pull political games until the entire thing flops.

    • Re:Overhead ? (Score:2, Informative)

      by sunking2 ( 521698 )
      Actually, the company I work for makes the space toilet [hsssi.com], as well as the space suit [hsssi.com] and several other systems for for the ISS. I can assure you that very few, if any, of the engineers are making $145,000. The head of Engineering probably makes about that much.

      You make it sound like there is absoulutely no accountability, this couldn't be further from the truth. Financials are due every month and quartlery major programs have full reviews. Things are expensive because they are manufactured in extremely low volumn. Go ahead and look at what these systems are designed to do and how reliable they need to be, then take into the account that you are only producing maybe 3 or 4 of them.

      Mass production is what makes things cheap. Virtually all of the work for these things, from tooling to wire harnesses to assembly, are done by hand.

  • The super-conducting super-collider was purposed several years ago. This was going to be the largest particle accelerator ever built. The benefit to science would have been enormous. However, the project was dropped because it was too expensive. Now the International Space Station is costing the United States a lot more money, and the benefit to science is questionable. Kind of makes you mad at the government for masquerading the International Space Station as science.

  • Science Officer? (Score:4, Funny)

    by anonymous_wombat ( 532191 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:43PM (#3867519)
    Should the international space station have a full-time science officer?

    Yes, preferably one with large breasts.

  • the article does not say that currently the space station is not able to do much meaningful research, but it says that it cannot do enough.

    Also the heading suggests that the space station is failing as a tool of science and that is just not true - it is completely capable of being a tool of science with increased funding. And that increased funding seems to be much less than the initial 30 b cost.

    As far as mission to mars is concerned, considering NAsa's track record of cost overruns, a manned mission to mars will cost much more than 30 B.

    • One of the biggest problems right now is that the program to make a new reentry vehicle was a complete failure. So there are these very old Russian cargo pods that deliver supplies, and they keep one around all the time. They put garbage in them and send them back to earth when they get full. They can hold 3 people. If there is a big fire or something else catastrophic, the plan is get in the garbage can and ride it down. Without a larger lifeboat vehicle, and nobody knows what it would cost to make one, or how much development time it would take, the permanent crew is limited to 3 people, which isn't enough to do very much real science. It might take less than 30 billion to make a "new shuttle/lifeboat" but I wouldn't count on it.

  • wealth (Score:2, Funny)

    by pyrrho ( 167252 )
    I think the real sign of wealth (besides how many times you can buy the library of congress) is this:

    Bill Gates is actually Rich Enough to build and travel to his own Moon Base.

    The interesting thing about people that get that rich is: they don't want to go to the moon or mars. Afraid of attracting the attention of Bond, James Bond, perhaps?

    • Re:wealth (Score:4, Insightful)

      by John Miles ( 108215 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @06:06PM (#3867673) Homepage Journal
      The interesting thing about people that get that rich is: they don't want to go to the moon or mars.

      I've thought a lot about that question ("Why doesn't Bill Gates do something really cool for humanity, like fund a private Mars program? Man, if I were Bill, I'd be spending my summers on Olympus Mons already.")

      At this point, I think I understand the answer. Bill never wanted to build a moonbase or go to Mars, any more than he wanted to become the President of the United States or a Bond-esque archvillain. He wanted to become the richest dude on Earth by running the world's biggest software company. That's it. That's all he ever wanted, and he obviously wanted it more than anything else, because that's what he got.

      Paradoxically, if Gates had ambitions in other directions such as funding a private space program, he'd likely never have achieved a position in life that would allow him to do those sorts of things. He'd have retired to go play with rockets after making his first few hundred million, a la John Carmack. This is why the only people who could take space exploration private won't.

      Which sucks, but I'm pretty sure that's the way it is.
      • That's what venture capital is all about. You see, there are these dudes whose only ambition is to make money. They don't particularly care how they get it (within certain ethical constraints - they don't want to become the next Mafia, for instance). They go around funding these other dudes who have dreams but little money, like the guys who would actually go set up a moonbase. The problem is that these other dudes have to come up with a way for it to pay, and the major one everyone thought of - satellite launches - simply wasn't profitable enough. Only recently have other good paths - like space tourism, or (for when you're not quite orbit-capable) hypersonic cargo delivery - been explored.
        • That's what venture capital is all about. You see, there are these dudes whose only ambition is to make money. They don't particularly care how they get it(within certain ethical constraints - they don't want to become the next Mafia, for instance).

          Tsk tsk...Somebody hasn't been watching CNN lately....

      • Why doesn't Bill Gates do something really cool for humanity, like fund a private Mars program?

        Because instead of doing something cool, he's people who don't even know what Mars is [gatesfoundation.org] because all they think about is their starvation and the deadly diseases that plague them.

        He wanted to become the richest dude on Earth by running the world's biggest software company. That's it.

        We all have our own interests, as well as opinions on what's valuable for humanity. How dare you judge someone just because they don't share the same values that you do.
  • Everytime a government agency doesn't get it's way or desired budget they always bring on the doom and gloom stories of civilization ending and all scientific and social advancement coming to a halt.
    • (* Everytime a government agency doesn't get it's way or desired budget they always bring on the doom and gloom stories of civilization ending and all scientific and social advancement coming to a halt. *)

      Is that any less than the spin a commercial company would put on something similar?

      I personally think that in the not-so-distant future, small-time terrorists will be able to destroy entire nations in one blow.

      There is sort of a Moore's Law of Terrorism that says that the number of people a given (fixed sized) terrorist group can kill doubles every X years. (Estimates for X range from say 10 years to 100.)

      If this trend is accurate, then we better start putting eggs in other baskets, because this one will get nuked or poisoned on a large scale.

  • stifeling humanities exploration in out of space, and scientific research, is money.. then maybe we should reeveluate the principles our society is based on? :/

  • Bob Park has been saying this forever. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gdyas ( 240438 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:51PM (#3867576) Homepage

    American Physics Society head Robert Park has been saying that there's no research of any consequence going on in the ISS since its inception. Most science was cut out of the budget because of all the cost over-runs, Russia & US inability to synchronize production timelines, & other ISS bullshit. The Mars Pathfinder mission alone provided more new information about space & Mars than the ISS at a fraction of the cost.

    Practically, being on the ISS is hell. You've got to wear ear protection because the noise of the machinery is like sitting front-row at a Metallica concert. It's smaller than you think due to missing modules that haven't been put in place yet, and you spend so much time putting it together and keeping it a safe, clean place to live there's no time to do anything else. It's like a tiny house that's so poorly designed all you can do is clean & fix it all day. Basically, without pouring tons MORE cash into this yawning vacuum of funding, it's a dead horse. Unless someone steps up to the plate with money, probably the US, this thing'll be abandoned within the decade. Good riddance. Fund more satellites & probes like Pathfinder.

    Fat budget-heavy projects featuring humans simply aren't feasible without the confluence of factors seen in the 60's. With all the smart engineers in NASA it's troubling that they're still so driven by publicity & flash at the expense of real science.

  • Page 32 of the August 2002 issue of Popular Mechanics (arrived in the mail yesterday):
    Despite its physical growth, the value of the ISS as a research platform has plummeted. Budget-pressed NASA says it cannot afford to keep seven astronauts on the ISS. Only three will fly at a time, and most of their work will involve maintenance, not science.
    Reminds me of the story of the kid who bought a car to get him to work, and now he works to put gas in the car to get him to work to put gas in the car to...

    NASA's spending billions of dollars just to maintain the ISS because it can't afford to do anything else with it.

  • No, the AP doesn't editorialize, they were simply reporting on a report by a panel. Slashdot is well-established as a commercial operation, can't we have a little bit of professionalism?
  • Everything NASA has ever done has been underestimated and underfunded. What makes you think someone would have gotten that $30B figure correct? What makes you think NASA's first-ever on-time on-budget project would be its most ambitious one ever?

  • Why not give it to the russians? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by neurojab ( 15737 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @07:48PM (#3868150)
    Let's scrap NASA and come up with something better.

    I think we ought to give the ISS to the russians, and scrap the shuttle. Let's give 40% of NASA's budget to the russian space program, 10% to fund a civilian auditing organization (to stop the fleecing), and 50% to US contractors to build a cheap, reusable launch vehicle. Let's leave the heavy lift vehicles to the russians.

    The russian space program, though beaten down by their new economy, is much more efficient, dollars to rubles, than NASA will ever be. They're unencumbered by the massive buracracy, have far fewer regulations, will sell space flights for money (the horror!). Basicially they can do for 1 Million what the US can only dream of for 50 million. Our money is better spent on their program. Hell, they could even launch harmless nuclear payloads without worrying about braindead idiots in the US protesting the poisoning of outer space.

    Once the new vehicles are tested and in place, we can think about using ISS as a gateway to MARS! That would be truly cool, and well worth taxpayer's money. We'll just never get there under NASA's current (very heavy) thumb.

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