NASA Considers Abandoning ISS 543
mbstone writes "MSNBC is reporting that NASA is threatening to mothball the International Space Station unless Russia coughs up its share of the money for maintenance and support missions. NASA is now making "contingency plans" to leave the station unoccupied for as long as a year. What I want to know is, why a contingency plan? Didn't NASA already have a plan in place? Are U.S. taxpayers going to pay millions extra to develop new mothballing equipment and procedures that could have been designed-in at far less cost?? Also, I would be glad to house-sit, I use very little oxygen."
If NASA is serious (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If NASA is serious (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If NASA is serious (Score:5, Funny)
They (russians) just lost a comm satellite yesterday, launched it into LEO (low earth orbit), insted of GSO (geo-stationary orbit).
Mind you, when it comes flaming back into the atmosphere and kills some cow in Auckland, it'll be geo-stationary.
Re:If NASA is serious (Score:3, Informative)
On launch perhaps, but they did lose a crew of three on a reentry depressurization. (And public knowledge of losses during the Soviet era is scarce. I say public because I'm sure the US alphabet agencies have a pretty good idea.)
Re:If NASA is serious (Score:3, Informative)
What kind of comment is that exactly? Really, I think there are people out there that like to take random shots our government for fun because they can't comprehend that a government can do both good and bad things at the same time. Besides, our government hardly has anything to do with wether something like this would be covered up in the US. People can go watch the launches in person here, and have always been able to (from a distance anyway). They're also televised. If the thing blows up, the government isn't going to be able to cover it up.
Besides, I said nothing about the current Russian government or society, I was talking exclusivly about things that happened before the end of the Soviet Union.
Re:If NASA is serious (Score:3, Funny)
Or they could use them to test re-entry angles
Re:If NASA is serious (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Exposure to vacuum (Score:2, Interesting)
Aha! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Exposure to vacuum (Score:3, Informative)
Your flesh has enough cohesion to hold itself together, even in a vacuum. When people climb Mt. Everest, where the pressure drops about 40%, they do not explode.
IIRC, the US Air Force has some data on it (too lazy to search right now). The results would be a lot like "the bends" that divers get. Although your blood would not instantly boil, many of the gasses would come out of solution and cause bubbles to form in your blood vessels. This gas would increase the pressure in your blood vessels, damaging the more delicate ones exposed to the vacuum (such as lungs and eyes). As the gas comes out of solution, your internal pressure rises and the process reaches equilibrium. However, you have bubbles in your blood and torn capillaries in various critical regions. This combined with the lack of oxygen is ultimately what would kill you in a vacuum.
Re:Exposure to vacuum (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Exposure to vacuum (Score:3, Informative)
(i.e., do you asphyxiate before you freeze to death?).
Considering that vacuum acts like an insulator, you'll long be dead before you freeze to death.
Re:Exposure to vacuum (Score:5, Informative)
-aiabx
Dangerous? (Score:2, Funny)
I hope none of those space-moths make it down here, they sound like nasty little blighters.
Why not lease it out instead? (Score:2, Interesting)
"C"
Re:Why not lease it out instead? (Score:4, Interesting)
Think of it this way: would you ever leave your workstation, your baby, to be used by your computer illiterate aunt while you were going on a summer vacation?
I'm personally happy they don't lease it out.
As for mothballing, moth ball away... given the current economic trend of the world, the space program makes little sense anyways. Things have to be fixed down here before they can be sent up, IMHO.
WRONG! (Score:2, Insightful)
If more people had the same wrong-headed attitudes as you, we wouldn't have moon cities or the solar power satellites that freed us from dependance upon the kill-crazy Saudi Muslims.
oh, wait...
Re:Why not lease it out instead? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why not lease it out instead? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah... Israel needs more US taxpayer money [globes.co.il]. They are much more important than any space program.
Sigh...
Re:Why not lease it out instead? (Score:3, Insightful)
commercialism (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:commercialism (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:commercialism (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it can be profitable, it just requires companies to think long term on the prospects of moving to space.
Re:commercialism (Score:3, Insightful)
But space exploration isn't just moving over to a new continent that is already supplied with air, water, soil, and exploitable inhabitants. The Spanish achieved a net profit in a time shorter than the 'space age' has already existed.
Moreover, technology advances faster these days than it did then, so commercial interests *should* have shorter time horizons. The appeal to 'long term thinking' is often a refuge for ideas that just can't offer a competitive ROI.
Re:commercialism (Score:3, Insightful)
Because, of course, companies that focus exclusively on short-term returns have consistently demonstrated that this approach is best for their employees, customers, and long-term viability.
Reality changes too quickly...
Last time I checked, reality was actually pretty stable over the long term.
The Apollo program was a ten-year plan, and it worked as advertised. Or are you a Moon Hoaxer?
Long-term planning goes on all the time. Good long-term planning, less often. But that doesn't make the idea of long-term planning foolish in every case.
STS and ISS aren't basic scientific research...
I don't really know enough about these projects, or what you mean by "basic scientific research", to respond to this, except to say that I expect that they're more likely infrastructure--a foundation on which basic research can be built. They could also, in the context of a long-term plan, be effective practice for even more extreme endeavors. Whether or not that qualifies as your "basic research", I don't know.
The best things in life may be free, but a lot of the really good stuff is pretty expensive. The Hoover Dam. The MRI scanner. The Internet. &c. Just because it's expensive, that doesn't mean it's useless. Although, as I did point out, the current projects all seem pretty aimless, and I'd rather not see the money spent at all, than to keep spending it they way we are right now. Meanwhile, it's been pointed out numerous times that there's no real shortage of resources. In that sense, these projects aren't very expensive at all.
Re:commercialism (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:requires companies to think long term (Score:5, Funny)
Re:commercialism (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry to be crass about it, but these are very difficult situations. In no way does space harber the readily exploitable economic bonanza that did the New World, and much of other investment there is on faith or the gee-whiz factor, not any assurance of long-term gain.
Also, Columbus's expedition was not a Star Trek like project as the myth paints it. It was intended for profit, acquiring new trade routes, real estate, resources, and, on later trips, slaves. (As we head into thanksgiving, recall that Squanto learned English when he was forcibly removed to Europe as a slave. When he made his way back to Massachusetts, infection had destroyed his tribe
Finally, Columbus never made it to what we thing of as America, unless you count finding a American Virgin Island or two. In five trips he never set sight on the mainland. And it's false that everyone though the world was flat! Aristotle determined it wasn't. Columbus's error was he significantly underestimated the diameter.
I'm not suggesting anyone in particular was a bad guy we need to be ashamed of, but protest substituting a caricature of the past, and especially basing our future decisions on that caricature.
Re:commercialism (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't think that corporations (and individuals) find Earth oppressive? In space, no one can smell you pollute. On one hand, you can't just dump your junk out the "window", on the other hand, you can feel free to fire it into the sun.
There is money to be made in space. Well, not so much in space at this point, as on earth, with stuff you get from space. Also as the ability to do things in space increases the demand will rise, and costs will come down as new technologies are developed to exploit the demand. This, of course, happens in any market. But the point is, there ARE things that can't be made at 1G which can be made in free fall. Also there's an awful lot of metal up there circling the earth and it's already in orbit so if you want to do something with metal in space (basically, anything you do in space) that's the place to get it. I think that logically the first operation we really need to get space-based manufacturing going is therefore mining and refining. Whether we do it with asteroids or on the moon is worth some discussion but is outside the scope of this comment.
Yes, and early explorers (including columbus) could have capsized or never found what they were looking for (tee hee) or been eaten by giant sea monsters as far as they knew at the time (given that giant squid supposedly can't make it to the surface alive, doubtful, but they didn't know that then) so there was no assurance of long-term gain. It was a gamble, a hope, it almost didn't provide any revenue. Just like most investments.
You know, I am a product of the California public school system, and I still learned that in elementary school - The idea was to open a trade route. That's like the first thing they tell us about Columbus (besides claiming that he 'discovered' america... I don't know if that's changed lately, this was a couple decades ago.)
Earth isn't ready to fund a Star Trek-like exploration until we do two things; develop FTL travel and do away with money. In other words, probably never. The other thing that could get us to do it might be proof of other life in our galaxy, but that wouldn't be a rapid process.
Re:commercialism (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a textbook myth. You can find info about Columbus and his contemporary science online. It was pretty much impossible to be a sailor and not notice the round earth. I think C estimated its diameter at about 4,000 miles, so he was waaayyy off in his estimate of the distance to India, plus he had no idea of the intervening continent unless he was hanging out at the Viking bars. (The intervening continent turned out to be worth a lot, though.)
I don't know where these idiotic ideas of flat earths and cherry trees come from. As a starting point you might enjoy the book "Lies My Teacher Told Me." It has a web site [uvm.edu]; with a quiz!
Re:you're right.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:commercialism (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that it shouldn't happen in the future en mass, and I am in favour of the Russians leasing a seat on the Soyuz to qualified people for non-commercial gain.
Re:commercialism (Score:3, Interesting)
Who's this "they" you're talking about? Do you know any NASA employees? Have you actually spoken to them about their work, and why they do it, and what they hope for from the future? I'll bet you'd discover that the vast majority of NASA personnel, from the director level on down to the receptionists, are highly motivated to do useful things "with space". Certainly all the NASA employees I've met are not tiresome bureaucratic drones whose imaginations are so stunted that they can't think of anything better to do than waste your money. You don't have a monopoly on wisdom, common sense, professionalism, or enthusiasm, you know. And by the same token, isn't it a bit naive to expect that NASA should be magically free of PHBs and bureaucracy, simply because your romantic notion of "space" is offended by such things?
Re:commercialism (Score:3, Funny)
It's just so darned expensive that probably only giant companies could even consider the whole field. Companies like... Oh, God. I just had a horrible thought:
Microsoft Space Station.
Just imagine it in that insidiously friendly font they always use... *Shudder*
Dangers of commercialism of Space (Score:3, Insightful)
I really can't believe that somebody is seriously suggesting the commercialism of Space, you clearly have not considered the consequences of even this first apparently small step. There is good reason that the commercialisation is illegal under international law and treaty. You only have to look at the actions of the old Colonial Charter Companies to see the dangers. They ran riot over large parts of the globe and where only constrained by finite space of the Colonies.
New Space based commercial entities are a genie that once out of the bottle are never likely to be every constrained again, they would grow unchecked by earth bound morality, law, or nation, any unchecked at all by an essentially infinite space. They exhibit exponential growth and would quickly become more powerful than you could ever imagine, driven by one overwhelming factor; the accumulation of resources on an near infinite scale, an accumulation that would redefine the term greed.
The resulting 'Companies' would make the Commerical enties of SCI-FI look like cartoon kittens.
Re:Dangers of commercialism of Space (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember, thoughout history, goverment weren't any better than companies. In fact, they were mostly the property of a selected bunch of individuals, and that's still the case today. Regarding companies, as long as they are not granted monopolies from the states, they usually tend to favour developement and empower the people.
Moreover, it the was motivation that opened up the way for the modern states, as you'd recall from when you studied history.
Re:Dangers of commercialism of Space (Score:3, Interesting)
Now maybe I grew up reading too much C.J. Cherryh, but I can't help but think that this is a good thing overall. While bad things (tm) are generally done during the expansion phase, once you become stable in a certain area morality starts creeping back in whether you want it or not. Personally I welcome the chance to live by my own morality, or at least to have a wider selection of moral codes to choose from when I'm picking a place to live.
Face it, this mudball isn't big enough for everything humans want to do. At some point you have to leave it. You can't just tell people "No I'm sorry earth has reached its carrying capacity, we're going to have to sterilize you" -- Which is what we are moving toward. One of the sci-fi-esque predictions I don't want to see come true is the tight global control of child-rearing. A system like that won't work without a global government anyway, a prospect which I find highly unlikely given the various disparate moral codes found on earth.
To not move industry -- especially polluting industry -- into space is short-sighted. Power generation would definitely best be done in space. Any other kind of heavy industry which creates a lot of pollution, likewise. Mining asteroids (and/or the moon) for metals would allow us to stop strip-mining large portions of our planet because there would simply be no need.
While it's easy to take the coward's position, you wouldn't even be able to express it on a computer without the prior "unchecked" expansion of companies that we love to hate. What new technology will commercialization of space bring us?
Re:Dangers of commercialism of Space (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this underlines my point rather than undermining it 'the expansion phase' would last an unimaginable period of time as the rim of known space was expanded indefinitely. I think there is little doubt these companies would claim ownership of the space within there rim and seek to utilize it, indeed maximise its utility. Therefore unless you were a major stakeholder in that company your chance to live by your own morality is near zero.
Face it... Which is what we are moving toward.
Come on the rest is a strawman, my post does not advocate any of it; Indeed I strongly agree that sitting back and abandoning the exploration of space is not a credible option if we wish to survive the remaining universe as a species or meta-species. I strongly support a momentous effort to pursue the exploitation of space. I do not object to commercial utilisation of space or space based resources, providing they are within the rim of our governed space.
I oppose indefinitely the commercial exploration of space for the very specific reason raise in my initial post, because once release, the unchecked consequences are too dangerous. (AIH I also oppose the release of von-nueman machine for much the same reason). However I do not even suggest this ban would last forever, just indefinitely because I also have to believe we can evolve past the problem.
Re:Dangers of commercialism of Space (Score:3, Insightful)
If it underlined your point it would only be because it is based on false assumptions, IE that all of known space would be considered a single system and that all of known space is interesting.
First of all, I think it's safe to say that in the absence of FTL the only places we're going to go are in our solar system. So the expansion phase as it relates to us directly most likely goes no further than pluto. Odds are pluto will be interesting only from a scientific standpoint so we won't even see commercialization that far out. Everything we're interested in is well within that orbit.
Second of all even after the development of FTL it is likely that it will consume enormous quantities of energy and so travel between systems will still be impractical for all but the most significant purposes. So each of those systems can reasonably be seen as their own entity. Each of them is going to need a certain number of humans to operate, and those humans will enforce their will against the system.
The 'simple' way to avoid this is to simply not allow corporations to claim ground. In order for them to claim it, they must claim it in the name of a government, at which point they are subject to enforcement and the laws thereof. Of course some countries will operate like a ship's registry; Do whatever you want. But I don't imagine that the other countries will sit idly by and let that proceed, either. In the end I expect it will be business as usual, except in space.
Now with that said, you must realize what is going on here, now -- Big Industry really runs the world, by a complicated system of bribes to government officials. For example Big Oil is one of the most powerful groups in the US economy, they (essentially) control when we go to war for example. We don't let them form a cartel (ALA OPEC) so they have to manipulate the government into manipulating OPEC, because OPEC's oil prices set OUR oil prices. So basically, the gulf war really WAS about oil more than anything else. Your point about possible abuses of human rights is insignificant in the face of modern reality; we have no rights. We might as well have no rights in space.
I don't follow your logic here. My values include a fair wage paid for work done, and the right to do whatever I want as long as I'm not hurting anyone else. I think that there are plenty of companies which would be happy to provide me an environment like that, especially since corporations tend not to have morality as governments do.
But you are neglecting the fact that it is not lucrative for a government to pursue space-related activity except in very special circumstances. IE, a space race which is intended to break the bank of another nation, or in order to deploy space-based engines of war. Anything else is hard to sell to the people, and therefore difficult to implement. You have to convince people that NASA is a worthy place for their money to go, and most people just aren't equipped to understand the idea of all the plastics which came out of space research, let alone the more vague connections between what we learn by doing something new, and the seemingly unrelated advances in science that come from it.
So basically, except war-related scenarios, governent has no incentive to explore space. Business doesn't have much more, but it does have some. If we are going to get into space in any significant way (IE, other than some orbits and maybe the occasional visit to Luna to pick up some rocks) then it's going to have to be commercially-driven. I am not advocating a lack of governmental control but I do think that it should be fairly light.
Finally, the usual appeal; One comet could wipe us all out irrevocably and we wouldn't know anything about it until it was too late. It's time to put our eggs in separate baskets; Not now, but yesterday. Given a lack of a way to do it yesterday (or earlier) I'd say now is the time, by any means necessary as long as we aren't destroying our planet in the process. Indeed, by not going into space for keeps, we are destroying our planet.
Re:commercialism (Score:4, Funny)
You can't take 1000 people there at $10000 a head. NASA would need to find, say, 10 people willing to pay $1000000, and they're a much more rare.
If they'll take a cheque from me and promise not to try cashing it until after I land, can I go?
Re:commercialism (Score:5, Funny)
Russia (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Russia (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Russia (Score:2, Insightful)
We may get a choice, Russian participation in the space program or security for their stockpiles of weapons grade neuclear material. You choose.
Re:Russia (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice criticism. Now, take a moment to think about it. The russians can not economically support their space program, so they fly VERY rich people to space to defray their costs. Our space agency is now becoming strapped for cash so NASA GIVES UP and mothballs the ISS.
The russians win this space race IMO
Was I the only one... (Score:4, Funny)
Now I *know* I've been reading slashdot too long.
Haha (Score:2)
Charge people 100 Million a week to live on there. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Charge people 100 Million a week to live on the (Score:3, Funny)
Nah, just charge them 100 thousand - but.... (Score:5, Funny)
First flight - Michael Jackson, Rosie O'donnell, Jack Valenti, and Hilary Rosen.
Still believe in that thing? (Score:4, Funny)
Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Also at New Scientist (Score:5, Informative)
It would be a great shame to lose the manned presence in space, even if the amount of research they have been able to do is heavily restricted by having a very small crew up there at any one time. The crew is limited by the size of the escape module - currently a Soyuz. It looks like it'll be 2012 by the time the planned NASA replacement escape craft is ready, so they're going to have to come up with something different in the meantime, or the ISS isn't going to fulfil anywhere near it's potential for research.
Paul.
For what it is worth (Score:4, Insightful)
I think (1) for the space station is costing us, and (2) what it is costing us to put their asses in space, and (3) for the potential benefits of a larger crew, it would be more than worthwhile to station a larger crew there, even if there is no way for them to escape in case of catastrophe. I mean, look at Mir - all the shit in the world happened to them and they never had a fatality.
Re:Also at New Scientist (Score:3, Informative)
The Pirs module has two docking ports which can accomodate either a Soyuz (3-person emergency lifeboat) or the Progress (unmanned resupply ship), so if there were 2 Soyuz docked to the ISS, then it would be impossible to resupply the ISS (except with the shuttle and that would be bloody expensive).
Here [russianspaceweb.com] is some good information
ISS Costs (Score:5, Insightful)
Shut it down for now, until more money gets passed to make the ISS valuable. Perhaps NASA should redirect more of its money from the ISS to new propulsion technologies (nuclear etc) to reduce lift costs (yes I know you probably wouldnt want to do a launch from the ground to LEO with nuclear rockets, but perhaps other avenues could be approached).
Re:ISS Costs (Score:2, Informative)
Things like this? [space.com]
Re:Just abandon it for good (Score:3, Informative)
The space shuttle was originally supposed to be good for 100 missions per copy, at about $100 million turn-around cost. Now it's 25 missions per copy (unless they blow up earlier) at $500 million and up turn-around cost.
The whole space program - from Mercury to Apollo - cost only $25 billion, and it did REAL science.
Cant get blood from a stone... (Score:2, Funny)
I mean, buying or creating the technology is one thing, but maintaining and supporting it is another.
That's why russian submarines end up at the bottom of the ocean (or sold to a cocaine smuggler), and their nuclear plants meltdown and irradiate hundreds of square miles.
They may as well ask Eithiopia to cough up their share.
First hand experience (Score:5, Interesting)
They were willing to let you fly merchandise if you wanted to, so you could buy a space pen, or perhaps fly your uncle's ashes to outer space.
I left the meeting thinking that the ISS should never have been built, and this comes from somebody who is enthralled about space exploration.
I agree. (Score:2)
Re:First hand experience (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with not building the ISS is, that we would have had to come up with some other gov't project to keep all those former Soviet rocket scientists busy. There isn't enough commercial work for them all, and we couldn't very well have them being unemployed. A large number of starving weapons researchers let loose in a multipolar world is just a Dr. Evil-style disaster waiting to happen.
I would have preferred a moonbase, but I can also think of worse make-work projects that could have been chosen instead.
Re:First hand experience (Score:5, Interesting)
You can extract oxygen from moon dust. Mix with a little hydrogen in a fuel cell and you get electricity, heat, and water, all necessary for a moonbase. Then crack the water back apart via electrolysis using solar cells (or a small thermoelectric nuclear) and you've got breathing oxygen and hydrogen to use all over again.
Experiments on moon dust from the Apollo missions even showed that if you mixed water with moon dust and a few other things you could get pretty good cement out of it, and protection from micrometeorites and cosmic rays to boot. Silicon, aluminum, and even titanium are present in moon dust and could be refined along with other elements to make some inefficient but cheap solar cells to put all over the lunar surface. Who cares if they're inefficient when you can have a few square miles of them with no atmospheric attenuation to worry about?
We have wasted more than just money on the ISS, we've wasted time and we've wasted the legacy and inertia of Apollo. What a shame it would be if the last to set foot on the moon should die of old age before the next visitor should go there. Sad, and pitiful.
Re:First hand experience (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is it that you think it's possible to manufacture stuff on the moon? On earth, something as simple as concrete requires a relatively complicated proudction process. Raw materials need to be refined before they can be mixed together and there isn't much water on the moon anyhow. Once you've got concrete - what then? You need functional components, electronics, engines, a power source, air conditioning, water filtering, insulation and heating, not to mention a way of making the said concrete air tight and mostly radiation proof. Do you really think that a simple rover will do all that for you? Bootstrapping isn't viable with today's technology, so they only way you are going to ge a factory on the moon is by transporting the parts from Earth, which, as you said, is far too expensive.
I think that the simplistic attitude a lot of Slashdotters have to space exploration is based on wishful thinking and a naive outlook. Unfortunately, since this post will probably be modded to hell by the said people, I have no choice but to post as an AC.
Re:First hand experience (Score:3, Informative)
Also, you could have a fiberglass composite inflated structure (very lightweight) with a couple feet of rocks piled on top to protect from radiation.
Re:First hand experience (Score:3, Interesting)
Because there's stuff there, not just void. Granted, it'd be technologically difficult, but there is nothing that would need to be developed that seems impossible.
Let's take a simple moonbase, for instance - an area that is protected from solar radiation, large enough to live in, with a way to get in and out and send signals. Dig several meters underground, melting the sides of the tunnel into a solid wall (yes, there's no water involved - so what?). When you're far enough down that cosmic radiation is at Earth surface levels (blocked by all that lunar regolith), dig a cave at that point. Put in a ladder if you want (not an elevator, yet). Melt more regolith to make a couple doors, or maybe bring along an airlock, and seal the tunnel so you can pressurize the cave - slowly, using (in part) oxygen extracted from water ice. Bring a hydroponics facility with a few plants, and feed them with nutrients from the lunar soil you've been excavating. Use the plants to recycle carbon dioxide and human waste, and grow food (eventually, though you'd be importing food for a bit until enough plants grew). Put a solar oven up above to melt more soil, separating it into its components, then bring the refined ore down below so you can shape it by hand. Solar panels would be among the first things you build: sheets of silicon dusted with the proper impurities, with wires placed to capture the resulting electricity.
Granted, you'd have to import a fair buch of stuff at first. The point is to eventually transition to self-sufficiency.
Re:First hand experience (Score:3, Insightful)
Bootstrapping is entirely viable with today's technology. Consider the following:
- Inflatable living habitats are a reality. They've been tested in NASA's vacuum chamber and are suitable for orbital or planetary use. Lunar colonists could excavate a depression in the moon's surface (with a digging tool or explosives), insert the uninflated habitat, inflate it, cover with the same soil that you excavated, and voila! You've got a sealed environment that has micrometeorite protection, both due to the inflatable construction (remember it was designed for orbital use as well) and then you've got the insulation properties of moon soil.
- Cheap, efficient, compact solar cells are a reality. These could be deployed to recharge rover batteries, crack water into hydrogen and oxygen (for breathing, fuel, and later use in a fuel cell). Compact thermoelectric generators also exist that could provide additional sources of power.
- Environmental systems exist that could easily keep a team of people alive, warm, and healthy on the lunar surface for months. These systems are already being used to keep ISS astronauts in a shirtsleeve enviroment.
- The heavy-lift rocket technology exists to get all of the above to the moon -- it has, in fact, existed since the 60's in the form of a Saturn V. Russia's Energia could be pressed into similar service, and even the old Saturn could be built again, probably cheaper than the bill for the ISS is.
As for your comments about the lack of factories on the moon, you're being too shortsighted. Complex factories are needed here on earth to produce complex goods, like microelectronics. But producing a brick, or an iron bar, or growing food is altogether much simpler. Witness that bricklaying an metalworking have been around for millenia without any need of specialized equipment. Primitive materials can be used to make primitive building tools on the moon. It can be done. It has been done, albeit in earthbound labs with lunar soil brought back almost forty years ago.
It's not as hard as you might think.
Devil's Advocate... (Score:2, Interesting)
As long as the station lies dormant and routine maintence takes place, what is the worst that could happen to the ISS? The potential benefits are that we would be saving both American and Russian space program dollars that could be used on other projects. I'm sure we could still send up missions to add additional modules to the ISS, just leave the station uninhabited for a few years.
Maybe this sort of refocusing of our uses for the space station and immediate priorities is what is actually needed right now to give both American and Russian space programs a little bit of budget breathing room?
-James
Re:Devil's Advocate... (Score:3, Insightful)
It stays in orbit.
> The potential benefits are that we would be saving both American and Russian space program dollars that could be used on other projects. I'm sure we could still send up missions to add additional modules to the ISS, just leave the station uninhabited for a few years.
"It stays in orbit" is the worst-case scenario, because it means "...and we continue to waste money on it, get zero science out of it, and because we know that someday we'll have to bring it back online, we can't do any real science in the interim".
Which is essentially the status quo. Money-leeching zero-science space station (ISS) in orbit, extraordinarily-high-cost launch vehicle program (Shuttle) burning the rest of the budget to keep it there.
The best thing that could happen to the ISS is that it deorbits, and a chunk of debris takes out half the Shuttle fleet while it's still on the ground.
Then, we have no space station. Big budget savings, and no real loss - we weren't doing any science or satellite construction or interplanetary-probe-fueling in low earth orbit anyways.
And we have no Shuttle programme. Huge budget savings, and no real loss - for a while, NASA goes back to unmanned boosters, like Atlas, Delta, Ariane, and yes, even Energia, like anyone doing real work in space is doing.
With all the money you save, you develop a new cheap heavy-lift vehicle, while working on next-generation propulsion systems like nuclear rockets and ion engines for deep space activities.
You test these technologies out on faster, better, and not cheaper space probes. Europa orbiters/landers. Semi-autonomous Mars rovers. Lunar soil/ice probes. Insanely-Long-Baseline-Interferometry radio and optical telescopes to look for atmospheric signatures of planets around other stars. A Pluto/Charon flyby before the damn atmosphere freezes over, and with an ion or nuclear engine, maybe a flyby of another Kuiper Belt Object on your way to the heliopause.
ISS was the politically-correct renaming of "Space Station Freedom" once we realized the Cold War was mostly over, and we couldn't afford to build "Freedom" ourselves. Just like the race to the moon, "Freedom" (ca. 1986) was a space station that we had to have, not to do any science, but simply because the Russkies had just launched one named "Peace", and it was kinda embarassing for them to have a space station and us not to have one.
But hey, let's keep it in orbit. If you're a NASA administrator, and Congress has been giving you billions of dollars every year for 17+ years not to do science, isn't the perpetual continuation of ISS/Shuttle - and now you don't even have to build the frickin' ISS to keep the dollars flowing, so you're being paid to do neither science nor flashy PR projects - the kind of thing you have wet dreams about every night?
It must suck ass if you're a scientist, though.
The real question (Score:2, Funny)
Better living through elasticity.
Quitting is easy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, Russia owes us money...but why can't we just finance them for a while? Someday, perhaps, they'll be able to pay.
Another concern: How are the people going to feel who have put a lot of time and effort into this project? The shuttle launch was delayed twice, causing our astronaut on board to miss Thanksgiving. Shall we reward her by telling her that the last 6+ months she spent up there was all for naught?
My suggestion: Keep at it until it is finished. We should have known from the get-go that Russia is a broke country and we should have foreseen the fact that we will need to support them until circumstances change.
The Problem with the Space Station (Score:5, Insightful)
For each win we've had there we've suffered many setbacks.
85% [wired.com] of their time is required for maintenance.
Very little hard science has been done due to construction delays and retrofitting many of the parts.
Even the science [floridatoday.com] they have done hasn't been much.
Russia may be a joke about contributing, but they have the right idea on raising money. Send people who can afford to millions up there to fund further development.
mothballing? Is that like... (Score:3, Funny)
Two guys are sitting in a bar, and one says "you know, I kind of like the smell of mothballs."
The other guy replies "How to you get their little legs apart?"
I hate when nouns are turned into verbs.
NASA needs help! (Score:4, Insightful)
NASA is a great program, the best space program in the world. This is something the U.S. should be proud of. But continuous system failures and project cutbacks are tarnishing the image of NASA. NASA needs more funding, its running as on a diet of death, and soon, if the trend continues, our kids might not ever know of a U.S. space program. Send a letter to your senators/representatives today, tell them that NASA is not only the best space program in the world that needs more funding, but the best hope humanity has towards working for the future, instead of worrying about the present.
Just stick a couple of antennas on it... (Score:2, Funny)
Salvage rights (Score:2, Interesting)
Like NASA is any better themselves (Score:5, Informative)
If it was not for the Soyuz that's attached there now, the ISS would not be inhabited at this time. What do they want now, have the Russians cough up a second Soyuz, so at least a crew of six could stay, because they are not up to their part of the CRV?
And by the way, this is no treat at all for the Russians, they were the first to suggest this, when NASA started complaining about the CRV.
Whip round? (Score:2)
If SaveKaryn.com can generate ~$14k in donations, I'm sure a high profile begging project like this can generate some serious cash
-psy
A siren song (Score:2, Interesting)
I am not against the space station, I just think it was ill concieved, thats all. I agree with a previous poster: Let's rent it and move on to other, more interesting things.
Some fun links (Score:4, Informative)
The Space Station's Cost [spaceprojects.com]
INITIAL DESIGN PAPERWORK -- $10 billion
HARDWARE -- $25 billion
SHUTTLE SERVICING COSTS -- $20 billion
MAINTENANCE -- $41 billion
YEAR 2001 COST OVERRUN (disclosed immediately AFTER the presidential election of 2000): $5 billion.
Scrap the Shuttle Program [spacedaily.com]
documents how the USA slipped to just 29% of the world's launch market share in the year 2000, even though we had 48% of it in 1996, and apparently all of it the decade before.
How did this happen if NASA has a larger space budget than all other civilian space agencies combined, as well as its Congressional mandate to: "seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space"? How did some countries evolve from non-players in space two decades ago into dominant commercial players today?
Perhaps NASA should build a "Sea Station" 1000 feet below the sea and use submarines to take foreigners and other salaried government tourists on "missions" to conduct "experiments" and set "endurance records" while "improving international relations". This idea may seem crazy, but it would be much cheaper than the shuttle program and accomplish just as much.
Imagine what could happen if the $4 billion a year and 30,000 shuttle experts were diverted to R&D?
I just can't help but feel the whole ISS and Shuttle Programs are a waste of money. I'm much rather see NASA's time and money spent researching other ways of getting into space.
Political Brinksmanship (Score:5, Insightful)
Shutting down the ISS is probably not likely. If it comes to that, however, I would not mind sacrificing a couple of years of 3 man station occupation in order to spend that money on getting a 6 or 7 man crew onboard sooner. Twice as large a crew should yield a lot more than twice the science.
The way such byzantine things work they may actually be after something completely different, like Russian support for a particular postwar Iraqi governmental structure.
Re:Political Brinksmanship (Score:3, Interesting)
In Richard Feynman's book "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" he mentioned something about the space program's scientific value. Specifically, he said that he kept hearing about various experiments being performed in space, and people learning things and making scientific advances, but he never saw any studies or results published in any scientific journals. To him, this meant that whatever they were doing didn't have enough scientific value to be subjected to peer review, and the only reason that they were going on about "experiments" was to make people think that the space program wasn't a giant waste of money.
The experiments I've heard about sounded like nothing more than glorified science fair projects: "How Do Plants Grow in Zero Gravity?" "How Do Animals Behave in Zero Gravity?" etc.
The whole story (Score:3, Insightful)
1) What's wrong with mothballing ISS for a year or two? Well, if it's anything like Mir, and by which I mean it has people on board, it will, if not properly maintained, fill up with fun things like fungus and mold. Mir had problems where a computer would short out, and they'd open up panel to fix it and find that all of the circuit boards were covered in a sticky, stinky blue-green mold. Or they couldn't see out of the windows because of the layer of film growing on them. Not fun. No wonder the crew spends so much time cleaning.
2) Wonder why only 3 people are on board a station designed for at least 7? How abour the fact that congress ccut the budget for a new 7-man escape module, so all they've got is an old 3-man Soyuz capsule lashed to the side of the station to get them out of trouble. And unlike the proposed and now cancelled escape craft, which would have been automated, the Soyuz needs a cosmonaut to bring it down, so the station must have a Russian pilot on board at all times doing housework, as opposed to someone useful like an ESA scientist would would have been on board anyways if they had a big enough escape pod.
3) Ever wonder why a station build and finance almost entirely by America has two Russians on board compared to one American. Is it because of their years of experience fighting mold and electrical fires on Mir, or is it because the State Department ordered NASA to through the Russians a bone. You be the judge!
4) Speaking of throwing the Russians a bone, the entire history of this station has been littered with decisions made solely to appease the Russians. Remember, the station is years behind schedule because some of the corecomponent modules had been assigned to the Russians. And the Russians were taking their sweet time putting said modules up. they kept claiming that money was a factor, but the fact of the matter is all of the Russian modules were paid for almost entirely with American funds. Sometimes a module would be on the pad ready to be launched and the Russians would hold on putting them up until they got even more money. the worst part is this was a State Department decision, not a NASA one. In fact, NASA at the time had a duplicate of every Russian module built and ready to go up 2-3 years before the Russians actually put them up, but were ordered by the American government to not use those modules and instead had to wait on the Russians.
5) What about money from space tourists being used to help save the station? Well, that might work if NASA allowed space tourists on their end, but they don't. It might also work if any of the money from spce tourism actually made it to the Russian space agency, but that doesn't happen either. I don't know the breakdown on where the money went from the two space tourists Russia has already sent up, but I do know that when the Russians put a giant Pizza Hut ad on the side of one of their rockets, the fee for the placement agency was 90%, and most of the rest of the money went staight into the pockets of the space agency heads. (BTW, a standard placement fee for advertising like that is around 10%).
The moral of this story: modern day Russian is full of corruption and graft, and is nowhere close to the technological creativity they displayed in the 1950's. They do still have, however, many nuclear weapons, so the United States gives them a reach around at every opportunity. I wish the Americans would evict the Russians from the station and replace them with the Europeans and the Japanese. Then we might actually see the station be good for something other than video clips on the news. Or news stories buried on page A72 of the paper describing how two male cosmonauts spent 6 months sexually harrasing a female American astronaut, and how NASA told her to shut up about the whole matter. YEAH RUSSIA! Make rocket go now!
What if MTV were to purchase it? (Score:3, Funny)
James gets angry as Kara's juice is always floating towards him due to his large gravitational effect. Rick and Julio's ongoing power struggle leads to the inevitable...taking it outside.
Studies in Maintenance (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA could stop sending up identical copies of the gyros and oxygen scrubbers that break every week, and start sending up experimental items to find one with a better failure ratio (while of course keeping spares handy to avert disaster, I'm sure).
Maybe this way, when a cheaper space vehicle or space station comes about, they'll know how to keep it working.
Re:Studies in Maintenance (Score:4, Insightful)
To a more technical person, I would suggest developing and launching more experimental products that have longer lifespans and greater margins of error. Find the thing (maybe it's a fan blade in an oxygen pump) that broke, design a better fan blade or a better oxygen pump, and connect it to the space station to see if you can actually get a better lifespan out of it.
I would like to imagine the ISS as a gigantic workshop where the issues of manned spaceflight are gradually being solved and better approaches are being developed. However, I suspect that this is not the case; all the design work was probably done during the first few years of the nineties. Most likely, when a part fails today, Nasa simply pays their contractor another $5 million for a replacement part and throws it on the shuttle. That's the safest approach; but it makes each shuttle trip just another fix-it mission.
My suggestion would be, why not pay the $5 million for a spare part, and also put $1 million into designing a jury rigged replacement that might prove an interesting design concept? I'd expect most of these jury rigged replacement parts to fail, but every once in a while you might discover something ... and then you'd have more knowledge to build better parts in the future.
Don't Know Why Anyone is Surprised (Score:3, Insightful)
It was clear when the Bush administration nominated a bean counter to run NASA that science and exploration were no longer matters of public policy. I'm just surprised it's taken them this long to find an excuse to end it.
How much do you want to bet that the next NASA budget will severely curtail manned spaceflight activities? They'll use the excuse that the shuttles are too old, and that they're waiting for the X-37 to come out.
Tune in next week … (Score:3, Funny)
Possible outcomes: (Score:4, Interesting)
$$$ saved:
1. ISS scrapped or mothballed long term.
2. Shuttle upgrade program scrapped - expires at end of current lifetime.
$$$ spent:
1. Money allocated up-front to be spent on fast-track development of low cost, manned, VTVL reusable launcher (a la Roton, DC-Y, ISAS RVT, PHOENIX, etc.) with incremental build-and-fly development. Orbital 2-man demonstration vehicle to be flight ready by end of 2006.
2. VTVL design licensed to multiple commercial implementers (Boeing, MD, ArianeSpace, ISAS, etc.) Commitment to buy cargo space from cheapest bidder, starting 2008.
3. Award commercial, fixed price contracts for operating local spaceports (Mojave, Utah, etc.) If your state has a pro-space senator, then they can set up local jobs in space!
I've got the perfect solution... (Score:4, Funny)
Just think - Earth could be N'Sync free for a whole year and NASA would have somebody to water the plants.
The Problem is NOT the Space Station: (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, even though the Hubble telescope has proven invaluable as a research tool, in it's original deployment, it was a national joke. Even today, it's historical scope pales in comparison to the lunar landings.
What I propose, is an international effort between private and public corporations and civilian space enthusiasts. Currently, what exists is a massively disorganized scattering of individuals and individual groups trying their own thing, truly only sharing two things: A massive interest in space, and a large amount of enthusiasm. What is needed, however, is a common ground to operate on, and the organization to build with.
We need a largely centralized system to incorporate the best of the best concepts in space technology, independant from any government organizations or interferance. Governments beget beaurocracy, and beaurocracy begets stagnation.
As for financing, it isn't THAT difficult. If we could just get 1/10th of the world's population to contribute $10, then that would be sufficient to get the first manned launch vehicle off the ground, complete with launch facilities, administration et al. It wouldn't be a space plane per se, but a manned two or three person capsule. Perhaps one could even sell a seat on the capsule with a raffle system, which would make an incredible incentive for large donations.
Pilots and experienced space veterans are, frankly, a dime a dozen, I'm certain some of them would love the opportunity to be directly involved in a pioneering space program once more, one that'll influence it far more than any government controlled system today.
Experienced scientists are a dime a dozen as well, first off, there's many in aerospace who, while they exceed many requirements of the space programs, aren't taken in due to budget constraints, or because they simply don't know the right people. Additionally, grab as many whistle blowers as you can. Why? Because they not only knew what was wrong with the current system, but they *acted* on it. That is what we need. Instead, NASA and the Russian space administration would fire them or kick them out, resulting in the continuing backslide both organizations have been experiencing. And that, in fact, would give us an edge.
This is what needs to be done. Stop hoping and wishing for "space welfare" to come to the rescue, join forces and start your own space program! At the least, there's 2-3 million people around the world who want to go to space, and want to build rockets so they can do so, at least 1/4-1/3 of which are capable of doing so.
All that NASA and Russia have, is a couple hundred thousand who're hobbled by beaurocracy and ineptitude in the very same government, that, for the ol' Slashdot tie in, consider file swapping as theft and viewing your DVD on another operating system as hacking (and subsequently a major felony deserving of a life sentance, thanks to one of the new riders on the Homeland Security Act). How can anyone in their right mind expect these same people to see any scientific viability in space programs?
Re:Boot the Russians Out (Score:5, Informative)
Evict the Russians if they are not willing or able to pay,
Unfortunately, it's the Russians that provide the Soyuz spacecraft (the only means for escape if soemthing goes wrong) and the unmanned Progress spacecraft. The ISS could not operate without either of these (especially the Soyuz).
Is emergency escape really needed? (Score:3, Insightful)
It may sound heartless, but do we have nobody in this country (or any other) willing to explore like they did 100 years ago? Lewis and Clark didn't have an emergency return system... but that didn't keep them from exploring the Mississippi (though there aren't any alien guides this time around).
Another example. In the 1700s, Captain James Cook lost several men each time he journeyed to unknown lands -- sometimes to hostile natives, often to disease, and not infrequently to accident. In fact, his journeys blow NASA's whole idea of long-voyage "I love you, you love me" compatibility to pieces: Cook was a fair captain, but did not hesitate to use the whip when it was needed.
Another interesting note in Cook's explorations: Free (as in beer) Beer! According to an interview with Cook biographer Tony Horwitz [bookweb.org] on the local PBS station, the rotten conditions on board ship were made tolerable by the large quantities of strong beer in the hold. This led, of course, to some of the death-by-accident statistics (such as sailors falling off the "comfort seat" -- the gangplank with a hole in it for use as a toilet).
I don't mean to paint too drab a picture of future exploration, and I wouldn't want to see the whip making a return on board ship... but until we're willing to lose more than a half-dozen explorers in 40 years, we're not going to get anywhere.
Re:Use very little oxygen? (Score:2)
Funny. I have a feeling you'll get a job writing for Will and Grace.
Re:What... (Score:2, Funny)
In Soviet Russia, SpaceStation abandons You!
Re:America is suffering from a loss of vision (Score:2, Interesting)
Just relax one party is in power now and hopefully we'll have a vision soon(for better or worse).
Actually we could have been to mars by now but the moon was doable quicker so we did that instead. It was Kennedys fault we didn't get to mars. He decided we had to beat the russians to the moon. Meanwhile Von Braun wanted to get to mars but was told his dreams were to big and his plans were foolish by politicions.
Not quite... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why was the ISS built? Was it so NASA scientists could perform all of these hi-tech crystal expieriments & gravity tests? NASA lists a set of reasons here [nasa.gov]. Some goals are noble... "To create a permanent orbiting science institute in space capable of performing long-duration research in the materials and life sciences areas in a nearly gravity-free environment", "To conduct medical research in space", "To develop new materials and processes in collaboration with industry"
No, why was it really built? Two more "reasons" are more ominous (and really, the only goals that suceeded). "To forge new partnerships with the nations of the world." and "To sustain and strengthen the United States' strongest export sector-aerospace technology-which in 1995 exceeded $33 billion." In retrospect, we now know that that "export sector" was selling long range rocket diagrams & targeting systems to the Chinese, some of the more ethically dubious actions of the Clinton administration. ISS was a shortcut for the US government to funnel money out to other First World nations, which bloated the national budget and artifically increased our Gross Domestic Product... a surprising correlation to Wall Street's activities over the same time period.
So, where is America's spirit of exporation today? In my opinion, it's not outward to the stars, but inward... the Internet. We're working to build a world of interconnected services, where a doctor can telemeter themselves accross the country to perform operations, or have digital paper, or communicate in virtual worlds (EverQuest & now the Sims Online). Each new network discovery has the same effect as throwing another satelite in space, for a much smaller cost.
What will it take to rekindle the spirit to go to space? Money. Show me where I can make a profit, when the transportation costs are negligible, or maybe asteroid mining to find pure crystals of metal, or terraforming
Re:Tax payer's response (Score:4, Insightful)
Five orbiters? Dream on. (Score:3, Informative)
Discovery is down for maintenance and upgrades right now, which leaves three. Columbia is too heavy to fly to the space station with any amount of useful payload on board, so she flies research missions that don't dock with the station -- the next flight will be a research mission, actually.
That leaves two: Endeavour, in orbit now, and Atlantis, which is being processed right now to carry the next bit of the station up. When Atlantis is up, Endeavour will be in processing.