(Derek Lyons) wrote:

:"Fred J. McCall" wrote:
:
:The sort of 'space stations' we're doing now don't do anything for a
:Mars mission so far as I can tell.
:
:Experience in long term operations, logistics, etc. (That's not to
:say that the ISS is the ideal (by any measure of ideal) platform.)

But 'long term operations' and logistics in Earth orbit with constant
resupply aren't even the same model you have to follow for a Mars
mission. How does this help?

What we've learned (from this station) so far seems to be that we
should count on the crew dying on the way to Mars as things break
faster than they can fix them, particularly with no constant
availability of spares.

Spending this much money to get THIS station is, to my mind, simply a
waste of resources that we could have spent elsewhere.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney