On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 03:07:31 -0400, John Doe wrote:


The ISS has already yielded many valuable returns. All the R&D done for its
construction will serve for long duration ships to Mars. NASA has also
learned, to some extent, to work with other partners who have different ways
of working.

The overall prob with ISS is the same one that NASA has always had,
over selling a project and what we ultimately end up with is a mere
shadow of what was promised at ten times the cost.
IMHO for now, forget planning for manned moon and mars missions and
concentrate on building a craft that can get to orbit reliably and
cheaply. When that's achieved build a true space station that's not
undermanned and working on a shoestring and a prayer.
Then and only then start thinking about manned missions beyond LEO.
From what I've seen so far it's the same old story, we're making grand
plans that will ultimately be scaled back to a ridiculous extent or
canceled altogether, after we've spent billions and wasted even many
more years.

Botch