"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 01:43:09 -0600, "Revision"
wrote:

It looks to me and some others that the ISS was a project devised to give
the Shuttle something to do. In hindsight, the ISS is a rather grandiose
project. Perhaps the number of launches budgeted for ISS was determined
at
a time when STS launch rates were expected to be higher.

And when the orbit was to be 28.5 degrees, giving Shuttle something
like 40% more lift to the Station than it can haul to 51.6, requiring
fewer flights (modules launched fully loaded, more or less.)

No doubt. Using a bunch of MPLM flights to outfit a module is a terribly
inefficient way to outfit a module.

I think, again in
hindsight, that ISS might have been done about as well with 5-6 modules
and
a few solar panels.

That was the plan. US Lab, US Hab, Kibo, Columbus, and 2 or 3 Nodes.
Plus the Truss with two extra sections handling propulsion (P2 and
S2).

President Clinton killed that.

But he told us all it would save us money! ;-)

Actually, it was clearly a foreign policy move that had nothing to do with
saving money. NASA didn't have much of a choice, but the nice thing was
that partnering with the Russians meant that NASA didn't have to develop a
crew return vehicle just for ISS. Just buy Soyuz flights!

And here we are today with nothing changed. The shuttle program is ending
and the US is still going to have to pay the Russians for Soyuz flights.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein