Arty Hues wrote in
rver.com:

There are an infinite number of possible orbital planes in low Earth
orbit, and ISS occupies only one. It is prohibitively expensive,
fuel-wise, to change planes once in orbit. Requiring that all manned
spacecraft be able to abort to ISS is tantamount to demanding that
all manned missions be planned for ISS in the first place. It is
thinking such as yours that got the Hubble servicing mission
cancelled. It is thinking such as yours that would prevent us from
ever returning to the Moon, or travelling to Mars.

Yep. I can see the ISS has only one orbital plane. So, what is so
wrong, to require all manned spacecraft be able to abort to the ISS?
Demanding that all mannned missions be planned in some way for ISS?
Hubble is near it's end. And who's planning a return to the moon, or
a trip to Mars?

In case you've been hiding under a rock since January 14, the United States
is.

'Prohibitvely' expensive? Here's who died during STS-107:
Rick D. Husband
William C. McCool
Michael P. Anderson
David M. Brown
Kalpana Chawla
Laurel Blair Salton Clark
Ilan Ramon
Jules F. Mier, Jr.
Charles Krenek

And what a wonderful legacy you would leave those nine: a timid space
program forever confined to the safe, suffocating embrace of 51.6 degree,
400 km Earth orbits. If that's all that lies ahead, it's not worth it - you
might as well bring Mike Fincke home and leave the Russians to run ISS. I
don't believe that's what those nine would have wanted. In fact, in the
cases of Husband, McCool, and Chawla, I *know* it's not what they would
have wanted.

Put as many words you want in front of 'expensive'. I don't care
about the hardware cost. How can you tally, those lives, vs. cost?

It's easy. Insurance actuaries do so every day, for a living.

Send them up; then give them a lifeboat.

Exploring frontiers inherently means going beyond the point where lifeboats
can help you. It was the case for the age of sea exploration, the
colonization of the New World, the early air age, and now the space age.
And all the ages of exploration before them. Lives were lost, but our lives
are all the richer for their sacrifices. Had Homo sapiens evolved with your
attitude, humanity would still be scratching out a living in Olduvai Gorge,
forever afraid to risk lives to see what lies beyond the next hill.

As a recently departed former president said while eulogizing another lost
space crew, "The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted; it belongs to
the brave." You can feel free to continue to be meek. I'm told your kind
will eventually inherit the Earth.

The rest of us will inherit the stars, or die trying.

--
JRF

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