Phil Karn wrote:

Basically, the space station -- as conceived and especially as built --
is pretty much useless for all of the magical things it was once claimed
would do. Acting as an interplanetary way station is just one of them,
and the people who said it would should have known better. It's an
incredible scandal.

Well, one might be able to get around this by launching into a highly
elliptical orbit, changing plane at apogee, then leaving orbit with
another burn at perigee. Seems awfully complicated though, and it
adds at least two more passes through the radiation belts.

Paul