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Space Science

NASA Consider "Demanning" Space Station 360

Posted by Hemos from the planning-for-the-worst dept.
Heartbreak writes "James Oberg, in an article for MSNBC, says that NASA is making contingency plans to leave the International Space Station without a permanent crew for up to a year if the Russians can't deliver the required Soyuz and Progress spacecraft to support it. A serviceable Soyuz is required to evacuate the crew in an emergency when the US Shuttle isn't there, and Progress is needed for resupply. The Russian space program is doddering on the edge of financial collapse after several recent setbacks, including the failure of Lance Bass to pay up. What SF writer could have imagined that humanity's dream of exploring space would be brought to the edge of extinction by the financial irresponsibility of a pop music star? It would be a boring and depressing story, at best." Of course, some would argue that the space station was a boondoogle to start with.
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NASA Consider "Demanning" Space Station More

NASA Consider "Demanning" Space Station

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  • Stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:43PM (#4899550)
    Exploring space is one of the most inspiring things mankind can do. Giving up on the space station might easily become permanent (once congress discovers they are paying a lot of money to have NO PEOPLE AT ALL in orbit); at that time we will have lost our only stepping stone towards the stars.

    In order to get to other worlds we need better technology. Better technology does not grow on trees, it must be created. Without a manned space program we will not create that technology, and arguably without the space station there is not much of a manned space program left.

    Stop this madness, before it is too late!

    • Re:Stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by raytracer ( 51035 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:15PM (#4899805)

      The basic problem with this view is its starry eyed idealism.

      The ISS isn't our stepping stone to the stars, or if it is, it is like saying your front porch is your portal to the rest of the world. Stepping out on your front porch isn't a significant help to getting half way around the globe, and the ISS isn't anywhere close to getting us to the stars.

      This wouldn't be all that bad, except that our ISS stepping stone is a very expensive stepping stone. It costs real money to maintain, money that could be available for other projects, projects that would more reasonably allow us to fufill our goal of reaching out to the stars. The luxury of storing soft squishy humans in orbit is just that: a luxury. In these tough economic times, it makes sense to reconsider spending on luxury items.

      I'm just about as gung-ho on space exploration as they get, but I'd like to see more bang for the buck from our science projects.

      • Re:Stupid! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Cujo ( 19106 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:29PM (#4899968) Homepage Journal

        Well said. There are serious problems with the ISS in concept and in execution, but its biggest problem is how much it has cost and is likely to cost in the future. And NASA has NEVER had a good handle on what those costs will be. Congress has bigger fish to fry, but sooner or later they're going to get infuriated at all the flim-flam

        I think the best thing to do is de-crew the ISS for a year or two, with 2-3 shuttle flights a year to check it out. Everyone else stand down, and no more damn presidential commissions - let's get serious about deciding what to do with this thing and what it's worth paying for.

        That said, I don't think the justification needs to be purely scientific. The critics of manned space flight have always had the argument that for the short to medium term, better research can be done for the same money. It's a good argument, if the only return you're looking for is scientific.

      • I disagree. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by PaleBoy ( 564594 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:30PM (#4899975)

        First and foremost, there is no problem with idealism. Idealism is not a bad thing. Idealism is what pushes people to change the world.

        Secondly, the front porch IS the portal to the rest of the world. I am currently on crutches, due to an accident, and just getting myself to the front frikkin door of my building requires work, some pain, and ingenuity. But it's a start. And if I figure out a new crutching technique while hitting those stairs, well, things have just got a little easier next time.

        In fact, stepping out on your front porch is a NECESSITY to getting halfway around the globe.

        I believe that Tolkien is in my corner for this one:

        "...there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

        I know, not exactly a scientific authority, but I think it speaks to my viewpoint- if we take that first step out the door, the stars don't seem so far away.

        LOTR! Two Towers! Two days! Oh man!

        I digress.

        I believe that the space station offers us the challenges of surviving and working in space, in a very real, day to day way. We will encounter problems, setbacks and innovations that we simply wouldn't get just from unmanned satellites and on-Earth experiments.

        As far as it being a waste of government money, I can think of plenty of off-topic things that the geovernment wastes it's resources on, that are far less valuable, interesting and inspiring as the ISS.

      • Re:Stupid! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:33PM (#4900019) Journal
        Stepping out on your front porch isn't a significant help to getting half way around the globe

        So what do you do, climb out the window?

        The ISS may not be the a literal 'stepping stone' in that respect, but there's still a lot of technical hurdles that need to be tackled before manned space exploration becomes really viable... and the ISS is (or was intended to be) a great place to develop that technology.

        I say we find a way to make it profitable. Everyone knows that once there's money to be made development takes off (no pun intended). Maybe NASA should consider bringing tourists into space just for the extra revenue!
        =Smidge=

        • Re:Stupid! (Score:3, Interesting)

          by gorilla ( 36491 )
          But it's not developing any new technology. We've already proven that we can live in space for a period of up to 437 days. We did it on essentially 70's technology. It would probably be possible to do it even on 60's technology, if that had been the focus then. Going up to LEO and sending supplies every so often isn't a big problem in the scheme of things. Making a ship which can actually go somewhere is a very different problem, and something that we've never even tried to tackle.

        • Re:Stupid! (Score:3, Informative)

          by Peter T Ermit ( 577444 )
          I say we find a way to make it profitable. Everyone knows that once there's money to be made development takes off (no pun intended). Maybe NASA should consider bringing tourists into space just for the extra revenue!

          Yeah, right. Do you have any idea how much the ISS costs? $100 billion. Each shuttle flight costs $400 million. Even a Soyuz costs $100 million, and the Russians take a tourist only when they have an unused seat on the flight.

          At the current going rate of $10 million a tourist (and $10 million tourists are pretty rare), you'd need to get 10 in every Soyuz (capacity 3) and 40 in every Shuttle (capacity 7) to break even on launch costs alone. Then throw in the cost of the space station... ha, ha. Profitable -- not in this lifetime. But then again, since "everyone knows" that there's money to be made, these numbers *must* be wrong.

          • Re:Stupid! (Score:2, Informative)

            by afidel ( 530433 )
            How about we reduce the cost of launches to something more reasonable then the aging shuttle fleet? Did you know the shuttle flies on a mules butt? Well not literally, but the width of the solid rocket boosters which are built somewhere outside of south florida for political reasons is limited by the width of railroad tunnels, which are based on the width of train tracks, which are based on the width of a team of mules rears. It costs ~10X as much to lift cargo with the shuttle as it would have with any of the next generation replacements but for some reason NASA decided to keep flying shuttles rather than spend some capital on the future. With a 1/10th cost things like space tourism start to become realistic. Taking that $10million dollar tourist now covers almost 1/4th of your launch costs and he is nowhere near 1/4 of your cargo capacity (or he is and thats fine too because you are running a small lean launch vehicle with an even smaller launch cost).

            • Re:Stupid! (Score:2, Informative)

              by 2short ( 466733 )
              "...but the width of the solid rocket boosters which are built somewhere outside of south florida for political reasons is limited by the width of railroad tunnels, which are based on the width of train tracks, which are based on the width of a team of mules rears."

              This is an urban legend. The theory goes that trains were designed based on wagon hardware, and hence the size of a mule team. But there were several competing guages in the early days of rail, so it doesn't fly.

              None the less, being able to transport your parts by rail makes sense (they aren't shipped in one peice in any case, they're too long) and there is certainly no evidence that making the boosters wider would reduce launch costs. It may cost 10X as much to lift cargo by shuttle as by the estimates of the contractors who want to build the "next generation replacement", but that still doesn't make space tourism realistic. By your numbers, just to break even, each launch needs 4 tourists paying 10 million a peice. How many launches do you expect to fund this way?

      • More practical than it seems, Grasshopper... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by meepzorb ( 61992 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @03:27PM (#4901005)
        Well, let's see what some of the practical requirements are (for example) for a manned mission to Mars:

        (1) A solid understanding of the effect of long-duration (3+ years) exposure to space in closed habitation.

        (2) Development of self-sustaining ecologies for said closed habitation.

        (3) Psychological and health studies to maintain crew safety and performance during said mission.

        (4) Development of technologies to allow us to construct large structures on-orbit (since no Mars-bound vessel will be small enough to fit on the end of an Energia booster).

        (5) Development of long-term logisitics support for these types of mission.

        (6) Development of practical management techniques to effectively manage large, long-duration, multi-national space programs (dont underestimate the importance of managment science... Apollo was as much about figuring out how to MANAGE a moon mission as it was about actually getting to the moon).

        Now, how, exactly, could we learn ANY of these things without having a space station?

        Granted, the current ISS has been poorly managed, but dont go calling it 'useless' since we need to learn quite a bit before we can move on to interplanetary manned missions.

    • Re:Stupid! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Apathy costs bills ( 629778 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:19PM (#4899855) Homepage Journal
      Space technology is our only answer against all extraterrestrial threats, from comet impact to solar flares to asteroids. Without interstellar space travel, our species is eventually doomed to extinction. Therefore all development of space technology is a step towards survival.

    • Re:Stupid! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dslbrian ( 318993 )

      Agreed. If we can spend billions on a retarded program to monitor our own citizens (Total Information Awareness), we can certainly spend what it takes to keep the space program alive.

      Space exploration is an investment in the future of humanity, and its benefits are not only to extra-terrestrial activities. Many of the materials and products used today rely on things invented in the space program.

  • Re: NASA Consider "Demanning" Space Station (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dunark ( 621237 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:43PM (#4899553)
    So give Lance a ride up to the station for free, then present the bill when it's time to go back home. If he doesn't pay, let him walk.

  • good riddance (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:44PM (#4899562) Homepage
    The ISS has never done any science. If there was ever any hope that it would, that hope is gone now that the number of crew has been lowered -- they're being kept busy full-time now just doing what's necessary to stay alive.

    A fair way to handle the fiasco would be to force all NASA programs to compete in the same kind of peer review that's required for NSF and DOE science. This would have the effect of killing off the crewed space program, while steering more funding to uncrewed probes, which are what actually do the science.

    • Re:good riddance (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:59PM (#4899631)
      Um, excuse me, but you've missed one very important fact - the ISS is still under construction and will be for at least 2 more years! You can't expect a research facility to produce at 100% capacity when it isn't finished yet. And Nasa never had any intention of expanding crew sizes past 3 until after core complete, i.e AFTER construction is completed. Your criticism isn't based on facts.

    • Re:good riddance (Score:4, Funny)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:08PM (#4899730)
      The ISS has never done any science.

      On the contrary, the ISS is a great science aid. As it orbits the earth, it proves that Newtonian physics applies even to very big, heavy, oddly shaped objects. Fortunately, this valuable validation of Newton's theories works equally well whether the station is manned or not.

      I look forward to the ISS orbiting for many years as it helps to show the time invariance of Newton's laws of nature.

    • the crewed space program

      That's a typo, right?

    • The reason NASA keeps trying to sell the ISS as a research platform is because they -- and Congress -- lack the imagination and courage to lay out an honest plan to build a capability to travel in space. And, by "travel", I don't mean going around in circles in Earth orbit.

      The science hook, in any case, invariably fails because, short of finding giant Clarkeian monoliths floating in space, the research that is done is yawningly invisible to everyone but the participants.

      Science will happen in space, just as science happened when the aircraft industry built a global capability in the 30's and 40's. Remember, this, though, PanAm didn't start flying paying passengers across oceans for research purposes.

    • Re:good riddance (Score:3, Interesting)

      by sh00z ( 206503 )
      The ISS has never done any science.
      Exqueeze me? What about the list you can see in the right-hand column of this page [nasa.gov]? Are you claiming that these experiments never happened? And remember, this is with the reduced crew that has to spend an awful lof of time on vehicle construction and maintenance. Read the links, and get back to me again with the "never done any science" BS.

  • A bit trite? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mccalli ( 323026 )
    Of course, some would argue that the space station was a boondoogle to start with.

    Would they? Who? And why?

    I find it a little trite to dismiss the effort of the International Space Station with a quick phrase that has no backing. Reasons? Well then, suggest 'em!

    Cheers,
    Ian

    • Re:A bit trite? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by yog ( 19073 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:12PM (#4899777) Homepage Journal
      Right. Some would also argue that manned missions to the Moon were a total boondoggle. After all, what did we get for it? A bunch of rocks. All that money should have been invested in the War on Poverty instead. Think what a nice society we'd have today. No microcomputers or internet, but at least there'd be a bunch of public housing projects and a whole lot of social workers to keep their inhabitants docile.

      I think the U.S. has dropped the ball on space exploration. Without such a national mission, we are reduced to such worthwhile causes as "providing affordable housing", prescription drug insurance and other European style goals that do nothing but drain the treasury.

      The U.S. will sink back into the '70s morass if it drops the space ball. It's primarily through great national projects that the great technological achievements occur. I say, pour money into the ISS and damn the naysayers. Send a manned mission to Mars within 10 years. Build a permanent station on the Moon. The tech exists; all it needs now is political will.

  • He's got guts... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eagle7 ( 111475 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:44PM (#4899566) Homepage
    You wouldn't find me not paying the Russian government - what with the KGB and all. Not to mention all the corrupt Generals who are probably now looking to make a name for themselves by freeing the world from the likes Lance Bass. He is either very brave, or very stupid.

    All I know is that when I'm building a bomb shelter in my backyard becuase Lance caused another missile crisis, and we're counting on Junior to save our asses, I'm gonnd be hella-pissed.

    • No moolah. Nada. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Subcarrier ( 262294 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:55PM (#4899608)
      He is either very brave, or very stupid.

      He's broke, on account of being ripped off by those nasty P2P criminals.
    • Okay, first of all the idea that the Russians would want to retaliate against Lance Bass for failing to pay up is absurd. He didn't pay, so they didn't take him, simple enough. It would be like the cashier at your local convenience store offing you because you didn't have enough money to pay for all the things you brought up to the register, so you had to put some back.

      Second of all, there is no more KGB. They were officially disbanded back in '91, after the attempted coup. The Russian spy agency is now the SVR, though much of the personnel remains the same.

  • Give me a break! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Yoda2 ( 522522 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:46PM (#4899570)
    Like anyone was really living in space to begin with. Sounds like the studio is just kicking NASA out to make way for another reality TV series.

  • geesh (Score:5, Funny)

    by greechneb ( 574646 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:46PM (#4899572) Journal
    I have to wonder, who made the decision to depend upon the russians for financial support.

    I mean how bad can it be that you have to financially depend on a group that depends upon Lance Bass for financial support?

    somebody oughta get fired for this one....

  • ISS? Should be USS... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by swfranklin ( 578324 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:47PM (#4899575) Journal
    for US Space Station. NASA should never have embarked on a "cooperative" project without having the wherewithal to go it alone should the partners have to bail out. I'm all for cooperation, the Soyuz/Apollo missions were great. US astronauts working on Mir, and Cosmonauts on Spacelab (had it lasted) are great ideas... but someone needs to be in charge, and capable of running the project by themselves if need be.
    • ... but someone needs to be in charge, and capable of running the project by themselves if need be.

      Um, you seem to be under the impression that the US has this capability. The point of this whole "cooperation" dealie wasn't to patronize other countries, it's because their help is necessary.

      • The point of this whole "cooperation" dealie... it's because their help is necessary.

        Sure, to do it on the scale it is being done. My point is that we need to either (a) scale back to a project we can afford, or (b) increase the budget to support the project we want to do.

    • US Space Station would be USSS. On the USSS they could have a BBBQ. The extra B is for BYOBB.

  • Well Thanks, Lance. (Score:4, Funny)

    by forged ( 206127 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:47PM (#4899576) Homepage Journal
    So not only is Lance a Plague to Earth [slashdot.org], but he has just indirectly become a plague to space as well. Thanks......

  • Not the death of space travel (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mothra the III ( 631161 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:47PM (#4899580)
    Reducing the amount of resources devoted to this project should actually benefit other projects in the long run. While the ability to study the long term effects of living in space has been very helpful in documenting what will be needed to support people for long trips, what other real breakthroughs have been made? Maybe now NASA can take a real look at trips to Mars.

  • ISS: largely worthless for science (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Apostata ( 390629 ) <apostata@NOSpam.hotmail.com> on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:49PM (#4899587) Homepage Journal
    As a docking facility/point-of-departure, the ISS is a great (if premature) idea. As a ground-breaking testing lab for space-related sciences, it was a dud from it's conception; is there anything they can/could do on the ISS (aside from the ol' "how long can someone stay in space" trick) that couldn't/hasn't been done on any one of the NASA/Russian orbital missions?

    To put it very briefly - as I already have (puts on fireproof suit) - the sooner we focus on the exploration of space, the sooner we retain the excitement and imagination of exploring, which is what we do best.

  • of course (Score:3, Funny)

    by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:50PM (#4899590) Homepage Journal
    I knew this would happen. It's always a bad idea to be rushin' space modules. They're complicated.
  • The space experience would have been lost on Lance - he's a nimrod of the first stripe.

    We should take up a collection and send up someone who would at least be entertaining to watch in space:

    OZZY!!!
  • What is the point of he ISS? If NSA's actually ging to use it for somthing other than a pretty light the sky, then keep it going, oterwise no. Whateverhappenedto all this research that could be done in zero-grav. I haven't seen any of it. All that asie, i'd still be happy to runte lae wile nasa's gone. I usthope Dominos delvrs up there. Who wants to bet on the number of "in soviet russia" posts this one gets?

  • NASA Consider "Demanning" Space Station (Score:4, Funny)

    by spakka ( 606417 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @12:58PM (#4899621)
    In related news, the Russians are considering 'demanning' Lance Bass
  • It's strange that nobody (afaik) is planning to redesign the launchers to include cheaper parts. The technology is very specific, but there may be other uses for it that would (hopefully) allow mass production, reducing the total unit cost.

    Ok now where's my rocket engine powered car?

  • Bad idea to begin with? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:02PM (#4899664) Journal
    I'm one of those people that didn't think that the space station was a good use of NASA funds to begin with. I am a space buff, having been inspired to promote the exploration of space by the late Carl Sagan, but I just think that the funding would have been better spent in different areas. Having a lab outside of the atmosphere has obvious advantages, true, but spending billions on robotic research, research drones to the outer planets, and/or manned missions to Mars instead would have been more fruitful, IMH-astronomy education coming from Barnes and Nobles-O.

  • Irresponsibility & blame (Score:4, Funny)

    by JonKatzIsAnIdiot ( 303978 ) <.moc.oohay. .ta. .0002_1624a.> on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:04PM (#4899683)
    What SF writer could have imagined that humanity's dream of exploring space would be brought to the edge of extinction by the financial irresponsibility of a pop music star?

    What SF writer could have imagined a government that would make a significant portion of humanity's dream of exporing space dependant on an irresponsible pop star?
  • I just dont understand why space flight is so expensive. Is it all the people working on it? Could it be bad budgeting of NASA, you know $400 toilet seats and $200 haircuts, etc.? Do they use some rare materials that are hard to produce. I just don't get it, can anyone that has worked around the space program give some insight.

  • Regression. (Score:5, Funny)

    by CaseyB ( 1105 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:08PM (#4899728)
    It's been 30 years since we've had a man on the moon.

    Now, we're bringing home everyone from orbit.

    Give it another few years, and we'll be crawling back into the oceans.

  • of course... (Score:3, Funny)

    by mikers ( 137971 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:09PM (#4899745)
    " ... Of course, some would argue that the space station was a boondoogle to start with..."

    Hmmm.. I'd say its more of a space-dongle (and poorly implemented at that).

    m

  • Edge of Extinction? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by johnbr ( 559529 ) <johnbr@gmail.com> on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:09PM (#4899746) Homepage
    My goodness you people must be young. History doesn't end. There is no plausible scenario that would ensure that we "never go back into space". It's like when I tell my 5 year old that he can't have ice cream for dessert and he falls on the floor wailing "I'll never get to eat ice cream again!!!".

    The journey into space is a journey. It will take a long time, and there will be plenty of hiccups along the way, but it will happen. The first pioneer from New York who wanted to settle California probably didn't make it all the way - he probably stopped part way, and helped establish a town, and the next guy coming through was able to get farther.

    Maybe the ISS isn't the right answer. Maybe space elevators are the right way to enable large-scale space travel. No one knows. But claiming that we're going to stop going into space because of a relatively minor setback is foolish. Where else are we going to go?

  • The key is commercialism (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Woogiemonger ( 628172 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:10PM (#4899754)
    The very success of the United States proves that capitalism is the only answer. Compare the exponential advancement of computer technology to the thirty year old space shuttle technology. If NASA worked 98% to inspire commercial space ventures, working to help the nation's state of space technology rather than focusing on discovering if life ever existed on Mars, then we'd soon see space hotels orbiting between Earth and Mars, colonies on other planets, etc. Research would be far easier to manage given a better platform, rather than this "smarter, cheaper, faster" stuff that NASA and it's international counterparts are trying to come up with together. The average American says "Wow, space, that'd be a wild experience." That's how to get the public funding, and once you get public funding, and by public I mean general public, not crazy millionaires, then the sky is the limit, as computer technology has discovered. The X-prize [xprize.org] is a very nice start towards this way of thinking, but we'll need much more focus on manned space technology and space tourism before we have serious competition in orbit.

  • Skylab Redux? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Snowgen ( 586732 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:11PM (#4899765) Homepage

    This kind of like Skylab all over again, isn't it?

    Skylab was never intended to be abandonned permanantly. The shuttle program was supposed to be done in time to boost Skylab's orbit and reoccupy America's first "space station." But budgets and schedules being what they are... The shuttle launched late, and Skylab's orbit decayed early.

    So, when they say they're going to "temporarily" un-man ISS, I woner how temporary that would be...

    • Re:Skylab Redux? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gorilla ( 36491 )
      Budgets and schedules weren't the problem. The problem was that NASA transformed itself into a giant burocracy machine. Instead of a bunch of engineers and pilots determining what should go into the vehicle, instead there will 5 years taken to write a huge report to an advisory sub-committee, who will take 2 years to read it, then send recommendations to the main committee, who will decide that the political climate has changed, and the original proposal should be redesigned.

  • demanning slashdot, too? (Score:5, Funny)

    by gambit3 ( 463693 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:16PM (#4899826) Homepage Journal
    In related news, reports are beginning to surface that demanning slashdot.org might not be such a bad idea, given that computers would be better than humans at spotting duplicate stories. [slashdot.org]

  • ..Lance Bass guy not paying up? I understand he's a member of this boy band n'sync or what the foot. Now, I also know that he took part in training at the cosmodrome in Russia. Did he not even pay for the training, or did he pay for it, but pulled out from the actual flight?

    I would be surprised, because I saw him boasting on the TV, how this has been always his dream, since his childhood (which was last year).

    So what's the straight story here?

  • The 120 Mile High Club (Score:5, Funny)

    by kitzilla ( 266382 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .gorfrepap.> on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:20PM (#4899858) Homepage Journal
    "Deman" ISS by sending up a crew of hot-looking Russkie and American women. Install webcams everywhere, and charge by the hour. Boom! Instant solvency. I bet even Lance Bass will subscribe.

    It would produce some unique science...

  • Why don't we just foot the bill.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xchino ( 591175 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:20PM (#4899865)
    Look at the amount of money we've sunk into this, and then compare the prices that other countries are expected to pay (and stil don't). It seems to me we just expect money from them as more of a membership due than real financial support. So why not just cover their debts and take over the ISS completely? It'd be expensive, but I think that even the threat of United States Space Dominance might motivate Russia to shell out a few more ruples to stay in the game..

  • In related news.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:21PM (#4899881) Homepage Journal
    "...the RIAA recently declared MP3 music sharing led to the failure of the International Space Station, as reduced CD sales left Lance Bass unable to purchase his flight to the orbiting rathole."

  • And the loss would be? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bgfay ( 5362 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:22PM (#4899885) Homepage
    The ISS hasn't done one of the most important things any space program can and must do: generate interest. It's not that NASA has to do a May sweeps thing, but they need to do something sexy and exciting (e.g. the Mars Rover) and do it well. One of the things that attracted all sorts of positive media attention was that the Mars Rover mission was cheap. The public ate that up. "We get all these cool pictures of Mars, a neat little robot to look at, and it didn't cost that much? Wow! Give me more of that." Of course, then someone mixed up inches and centimeters and the life went out of that balloon. Oh well.

    The point is this: landing men on the moon was sexy. People were desperate for it. The goal wasn't just NASA's but was that of the entire country. And the goal of the ISS would be? Would be? Beuller? Beuller?

    Why did we go to the moon? I would wager that part of the reason we went was because it sounded cool to do. I know that's simplistic and there was the whole cold war to think of, but basically, it was really, really cool as in, "dude, we walked on the moon." In the process a whole slew of stuff happened, was discovered, was improved...and we're better off because of it. (Of course, we never really went to the moon and only a fool believes otherwise , but the point is still the same.)

    NASA _should_ scrap the ISS, now. Don't OS/2 it. (Pardon me while I put on the flame retardant suit.) Sure, a lot of money has been dumped into it. Fine. Leave it there for a while and if we can figure out a way to use it well, then go ahead.

    Okay, now for the controversial part: Ground the space shuttles. The shuttle builds the ISS. The ISS is no more. The shuttle is needed no more. There are better ways to put satelites in orbit.

    Without the ISS, NASA can concentrate on "cool" missions again. Send a probe to Pluto, to see if we can. Send rovers to the moons of Saturn, to see if we can. Do cool stuff that will capture the minds and hearts of the public who foots the bill.

    Without the shuttle, NASA could concentrate on creating a "cool" and "inexpensive" manned spaceflight vehicle, one that doesn't need to blast off.

    Not that any of this matters. I teach public school which isn't that different from NASA. Schools don't change even when they know they should---they don't change because they fear change. NASA, seems to me, is about the same.
    • Kill ISS and the Shuttle and you have destroyed the manned spaceflight program at NASA. It would save a lot of money. It would also throw away a large amount of individual expertise and institutional knowledge, making it more difficult and expensive for NASA to ever put people in space again.
    • > Okay, now for the controversial part:
      > Ground the space shuttles.
      > The shuttle builds the ISS. The ISS is no more. > The shuttle is needed no more.
      > There are better ways to put satelites in orbit.

      Never heard of a classified shuttle mission, eh?

      Those other missions, the "sexy" ones, make a nice excuse for spending all that money to fly the shuttle.

      Ever wonder what else they're up to up there?
  • The ISS was conceived during a time when Soviet Russia had just collapsed, and Russian rocket scientists were freshly out of jobs. So I'm sure someone in the US government figured out a way to keep all those scientists employed so they wouldn't go off and design nuclear rockets for "rogue nations" like Iraq, Iran, North Korea, etc.

    Nowadays the situation has stablized quite a bit, and I figure that the US doesn't feel quite as threatened by Russian rocket scientists. Maybe they actually saw the quality of work these guys (don't) put out, and decided that they weren't as big a threat as first thought. So, with the threat gone away, so has the need for a giant lumbering science project to keep those scientists happy.

    As it is, I can't really think of a useful purpose for this space station. People said all sorts of things it could do when the project started, like be a research platform, or a jumping-off point for more manned moon missions, or a large "symbol of international unity and cooperation," but have any of those things happened? Especially the whole "unity and cooperation" thing...it's like the US and Russia are roommates who aren't getting along, and Russia isn't paying the rent.

    Where's a better place for US to spend its money? Perhaps we should fold up NASA, shift its budget to balancing the budget deficit, and allow privatization of space. That way, the money being lost in space won't be my taxpayer money. Now, if only I could pull my money out of ol' Dubya's little desert expedition...
  • Why, Douglas Adams of course! Who else?
  • NASA is a wonderful place, they do accomplish a lot, but they have no business running what should be a civilian funded venture. These guys are holding up the works. They should shoot for core complete on the ISS and then sell it to the highest bidder. How much do you think Bill Gates would put up to own his own space-station? You'd have billionaires at each other's throats (always a good thing). It'll get the nitwit Delphi and Oracle CEOs to invest in something useful as opposed to World Cup yachts (losses 1 billion and counting). There are Universities and private materials companies who would sell their souls to use this facility. Better yet, get the government out of it completely and let a non-profit like Battelle administer the program. NASA should be folded imto the DOE and the Air Force, where it belongs. They've been allowed to be a road-block to the exploration of space long enough. Whatever is left of NASA can charge rent for laboratory space on the ISS and the profit will fund the space exploration side. Okay, flame away. [-)
    • NASA is cheap. Today NASA costs a fraction of what it did in terms of GDP vs the 60's-early 70's. Even then NASA wasn't so expensive. In fact it terms of percentage of wealth the trip to the moon was a bit cheaper then Christopher Columbus's trip to the new world. Exploration of new boundries has always costs about the same percentage of a nations wealth since the time of the Romans. If we can not foot the bill for even NASA of it's current size what does that say about us as a nation-state? Commercial interests are not always the best ones to partake in dangerous endevors with unforseen profits. Indeed capatalism is by nature risk averse, capatalists put in the bare minimum to get the maximum return. Billionare playboys are not the way to fund a program as their fortunes come and go as does their proclivities. Besides even Bill Gates couldn't have funded the ISS, he doesn't have enough of his wealth in liqued funds to pay for it and it would have been too high a percentage of his wealth if he did. NASA is the way to go but the need to change their current very expensive manned program to be more inline with what they did with the probes, cheaper faster better.
  • You know, my urge to go into space is directly proportional to how many chicks are up there. Thank you, NASA!

  • In Soviet Russia (Score:3, Funny)

    by njchick ( 611256 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @01:52PM (#4900224) Journal
    Space station considers "demanning" NASA

  • It's all lance's fault? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Capt Dan ( 70955 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @02:03PM (#4900344) Homepage
    "The Russian space program is doddering on the edge of financial collapse after several recent setbacks, including the failure of Lance Bass to pay up"

    Yet one more reason to hate 'Nsync.

  • I think it was widely known the ISS would never come to scientific fruition in the bowels of appropriation committee meetings and planning commissions. The ISS has become and I think was intended to be-politically-a means to grab taxpayer dollars and stick them in the pockets of Congress people and their wealthy constituants.

    A pork barrel is a project that puts federal dollars in the hands of Congress people in charge of the projects or appropriation committees for said projects. The best pork barrels are projects you can trick a lot of people into thinking are useful for the greater good so they don't ask any probing questions. An example would be a Represenative from a district in Vermont appropriating money for a project in that district some friends of his run a business in. For making them rich they cut said Congressman in on the fat of the "pork" for buying midgets to do battle or whatever it is rich people do. Sometimes pork barrels can be good for the people at large, a project could bring a bunch of jobs to a job poor district and then those people can eat and the country at large benefits from said federal project.

    The ISS is starting to look more and more like this every day. The billions of dollars spent on the thing are going somewhere. It isn't like the solid rocket boosters of the Shuttle are lined with five dollar bills, not literally anyways. Before we had our ever impotent "War on Terror" to provide a means for getting public money into private hands the ISS was a perfect project to pork. It had a tenuous scientific basis, it would do JUST enough hard science for data to trickle in so it didn't look like a waste. As an added bonus the EU, Russia, and Japan could get in on the act and make it look to everyone like it was a giant shiny peace symbol in the sky. It's also a project that certain states *cough*California, Texas, and Floria*cough* would have a major hand in both developing and manufacturing. Billions of dollars means lots of cushy raises for government contractors. A pie in the sky science project that may or may not actually work as intended provides sweet CYA material for hearings later on.

    You may or may not ask why was the ISS funded when we coulds have gotten more hard science out of smaller space projects and still bilked money out of them in particular Congressional districts. The answer is publicity. You can't go outside and take fricken pictures of the Mars Rover with a high powered zoom lens. You can take a picture of that megabright collection of aluminum cans flying around the planet. Also unlike probes launched from disposable rockets the ISS is something that needs to be maintained. Ron Popiel doesn't have a MagicStation where you set it and forget it. The ISS is a pork barrel that could have lasted for a decade or more had it been viable to do so. That's more than ten years of government contractors selling a $500 space toilet to NASA for $500,000.

    Whatever dreams the ISS was supposed to fill for geeks and engineers don't matter to politicians, only the beaucoup cash that comes from those dreams matters. The ISS/Freedom/Alpha may have started as a cool science mission with attainable and useful goals but once it got into the grubby hands of Congress it turned into one giant government contract after another. As I said, now that we've got a "war" against nobody and maybe even a real war with remote control bombs and lasers on 747s the ISS isn't much needed anymore by the government. Why milk NASA's measly 14 billion when you can milk the DOD's uberbillions?

    The ISS's failure is the fault of Congress and the people looking to make megabucks off taxpayer dollars, not Lance Bass. You can still despise him resoundly and wish he we eaten by wild battling midgets or whatever you want done to him but his inability to generate investor interest is not dooming the ISS.
  • I think that simply being out there and trying to get somewhere is vastly important to expanding ourr reaches. While we may be going nowhere quick, we are still going. I think that our first goal should be to put a station on the moon simply for the shere idea of having one there. While it would provide vast scientific research opportunities it would also be that first big step towards branching our from earth. Any effort is needed if we are going to get anywhere. It's like the lottery, if you at least try then you have some small chance of hitting it big, if you don't chance the risk, then you have absolutely no chance.

    I realize the monetary problem in this whole issue, but I still think it is vital to the moral and unification of the world. It worked for Star Trek!! Let's just forget about the whole WWIII though.
  • Folks it is time to de-man that thing and use it to start staging for a mars mission. Start sending up fuel and supplies for the mission and storing it on the station.

  • Check your anime... (Score:4, Funny)

    by jolshefsky ( 560014 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @02:28PM (#4900566) Homepage
    What SF writer could have imagined that humanity's dream of exploring space would be brought to the edge of extinction by the financial irresponsibility of a pop music star?
    Ask anyone who knows anime, and they'll tell you that it takes a popular teenage girl singer to save a space station. It is natural to assume, therefore, that a popular teenage boy singer would destroy one.
  • I found that whole fiasco to be so incredibly stupid. He wanted to go on the station for a cool 25 million. Great, theres something to do with your money when you have too much. Then the next day you find out he wants people to SPONSER him and pay his way up there.

    First off, no one likes him. No one. Nada. Not a single person. When his name is mentioned our heads start to hurt. So why would he even CONSIDER asking people to pay for him.

    Second, if you announce that you want to go, and go through all these tests, WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU EXPECT TO PAY FOR IT YOURSELF YOU WORTHLESS POS. Why bother? Why waste everyones time and hopes?

    The expression "god die" is so much of an understatement it isn't funny.

    Ow, my head hurts.

  • I'd like to explore more of our planets, maybe start a moonbase or two. But I really don't think any manned expedition will be anywhere near self-sufficent. Better robots that can do some real work (not just dial home and tell about it) to that end would be great. For one thing, I really really wish they would put a radio telescope on the far side of the moon. Then we could listen for E.T. and don't have any interferance with anything except maybe a few Voyager probes. Not like SETI which really has a problem with this.

    Kjella

  • What's all this "in Soviet Russia" crap?



  • I think that rather than having the station sit empty out there, we should send up harmless monkeys up there to conduct experiments. We could even give them funny names from the movie "Gladiator", like Maximus, Lucius and Cornelius.

  • Does NASA itself want the space station? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tiohero ( 592208 ) on Monday December 16, 2002 @04:04PM (#4901215)
    Is it possible the the people at NASA aren't so enthusiastic about ISS either? Maybe NASA's administration WANTS to shut it down. ISS has been a continuous drain on NASA for 15 years. I suspect that many people at NASA would like to move on to more interesting things.

    IMHO, carefully allocated government support of the aerospace industry is a good investment since being a leader in any industry is good for the United States' ability to compete in a global economy. The shuttle, the hypersonic "space plane" (abandoned), other launch systems, and remote planetary exploration are examples of truly challenging projects. "We choose to go to the moon... and do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

    ISS does not seems to capture the same sense of challenge.

    The US seems to be losing its "edge" in the development of space related technologies that it worked so hard to acquire during the 60's. This has allowed Russia, ESA, and now even China, India, and Japan to gain significant ground. Similar things are happening to the US semiconductor, supercomputer, and aircraft industries. That is not good for "our" future economy.

    Personally, I am very disappointed by NASA's decision to mostly abandon research on the air-breathing hypersonic "space plane" since it would have led to significant advances in materials, fluid dynamics, computational physics, aerospace engineering, and would ultimately lead to lowered launch costs. (It clearly had a significant utility for military purposes as well.)

    ISS keeps many people employed, but a lot of those bright folks could find work on other projects.

    What is the feeling about it inside NASA?

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