Keep ISS Alive

"Lee" wrote:

The point being a country has a limited amount of resources/wealth at its
disposal.

There's a science called 'economics' that you might want to look into a
little more deeply. Resources are not equivalent to wealth. Wealth is
not limited the way you seem to think it is.

If a country spends more than it takes in from its citizens in the
form of taxes it acquires debt. This debt must be paid. Now a country could
borrow money from its citizens or from another country or it could sell
resources oil, coal, land or any government item, whatever has value. In
anycase, too much debt limits a countries choices.

I think you might be confusing the terms 'country' and 'government'.
I'm also a little curious about how much valuable government property
you think the US has at its disposal. There's not a lot of 'industry'
included.

Here is the full text:

I read it the first time. I understand it the same way I did then.

Figures as high as 600 billion dollars to put humans on Mars isn't exactly
chump change [1]. Yeah, and the war in Iraq isn't cheap either. A few
billion dollars here a few billion there and pretty soon it adds up to a
bankrupt country.

I can see it now in big headlines the "US space industry is sold to China to
cover its debt". Yes, it's far fetched, and the US people wouldn't allow it,
but you get the point.

Repeating it doesn't make a point appear where there was none before.

Z 1 Y 0 N 3 X wrote:

You all must have miss-read my message. I essentially said why keep
building it until 2010? We have a dockable space station as it is. Is
much more really going to happen to it in 3 years? I didn't say destroy
it.

I think some of you are still stuck on the fact it currently takes 6
months to get to Mars. By the time we would have made camp on the Moon,
we would have technology already to cut that time to a 6 week journey.
There are far too many bonuses about Mars than there are the Moon. I've
read so many articles about why we should be going to Mars instead of
the moon.


Sounds like a nuclear thermal rocket of some kind. Which is
perfectly all right with *me,* but there's no serious program to pick up
where we left off with NERVA, and I see plenty of political fallout (pun
intended) if we try to re-start such development...

And in any case, we should make it possible do both.

Exploration is a parallel thing, not a one-planet-at-a-time thing.
After all, we stll send robotic probes to both of those places, among
many others. And those who say things like; "We did that six times
already." seem to be under the illusion that somehow our understanding
of the Moon must be complete because of that. (Hell, there are things we
still don't understand about *Earth,* and as I noted in another thread,
I suspect we'll still be working on some issues about the nature of this
planet, even when the first probe heads for Alpha Centauri...)

It's only a matter of cost (and, as implied above, propulsion
technology, which would reduce many of your other problems) that we
don't send humans to almost all the places we've sent machines.

Some see that as a reason to *always* send machines.

I see it as a reason to work on reducing the cost of sending humans.

--

Frank

You know what to remove to reply...

Check out my web page: http://www.geocities.com/stardolphin1/link2.htm

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the
human spirit."
- Stephen Hawking

"Lee" wrote in
link.net:

Figures as high as 600 billion dollars to put humans on Mars isn't
exactly chump change [1].

[1]
http://maroon.uchicago.edu/viewpoint.../mars_whats_60
0_billi.php

That figure is bogus and Dwayne Day has done an excellent job debunking its
origins.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/119/1

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
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"Z 1 Y 0 N 3 X" wrote in message
ps.com...
You all must have miss-read my message. I essentially said why keep
building it until 2010? We have a dockable space station as it is. Is
much more really going to happen to it in 3 years?

Yes. The last flight doubled the electrical generation capability of the US
segment. Unless I'm mistaken, the plan is to double that one more time in
the next three years by adding two more sets of US solar arrays.

Plus there are the European and Japanese research modules. What's the point
of a space station unless you can acutally use it. I don't think we've
launched Node 2 yet, plus there is Node 3.

Here's a pretty good table of what needs to be launched:

http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/eng/iss/assembly/default.asp

And here's a graphic which shows the different segments in an exploded
assembly view (note that this is not the current configuration):

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/...ration_new.jpg

It looks like there is a lot to do to get to a six person, permanently
manned configuration. Right now, most of the time spent by the current
three person crew is maintenance. There is little time for research.

I didn't say destroy
it.

I think some of you are still stuck on the fact it currently takes 6
months to get to Mars. By the time we would have made camp on the Moon,
we would have technology already to cut that time to a 6 week journey.
There are far too many bonuses about Mars than there are the Moon. I've
read so many articles about why we should be going to Mars instead of
the moon.

"The chances of the crew actually reaching Mars are slim; returning
to earth is even worse. Hell, outerspace is a dangerous place. Humans
to
Mars is a wrongheaded drunken pipe-dream a fantasy that can't happen,
at
least not in this century."

Good thing you aren't and won't ever be an astronaut then? And don't
get started on being a realist, thats pessimism.

And I remember someone earlier posting something about god actually
existing. Oh, and that he gave us a Moon. Thats pretty funny. God gave
us life and animals and water and fire too, didn't he? Screw evolution
and combustion, and those darned scientists proving daily that he
doesn't exist, he does...

Lee wrote:
"Alan Anderson" wrote in message
...
"Lee" wrote:

I can see it now in big headlines the "US space industry is sold to China
to
cover its debt". Yes, it's far fetched, and the US people wouldn't allow
it,
but you get the point.

Actually, I don't think there's a valid point to be got. The US space
industry isn't exactly owned by the government, so selling it wouldn't
exactly help cover the government's debt.

The point being a country has a limited amount of resources/wealth at its
disposal.

At any given point but we manage to grow our resources over time and
always have managed to do so. It isn't just a matter of the glass half
full or half empty as the numbers back me up.

If a country spends more than it takes in from its citizens in the
form of taxes it acquires debt. This debt must be paid. Now a country could
borrow money from its citizens or from another country or it could sell
resources oil, coal, land or any government item, whatever has value. In
anycase, too much debt limits a countries choices.

Here is the full text:

Figures as high as 600 billion dollars to put humans on Mars isn't exactly
chump change [1]. Yeah, and the war in Iraq isn't cheap either. A few
billion dollars here a few billion there and pretty soon it adds up to a
bankrupt country.

No one stated that we plan to send an office building to Mars, so your
initial premise is BS. The current NASA budget is ~ $16 billion, and no
one expects to spend 37.5 times the annual NASA budget to put a few
humans on Mars. Period! If we can't do it for ~ $50 billion or less
then we shouldn't try. So whoever stated $600 billion is being
intellectually dishonest and giving people like you the disinformation
to try and make a case for glossing over the war.


I can see it now in big headlines the "US space industry is sold to China to
cover its debt". Yes, it's far fetched, and the US people wouldn't allow it,
but you get the point.

Kneejerk crap! Who will the Chinese depend on to buy their goods if
they own us?
You're a terrible disinformationist using lousy disinformation.


[1]
http://maroon.uchicago.edu/viewpoint..._600_billi.php

And by the way, have a nice day.

Who wrote that load of crap and where is their reference to costs?

Eric

Jorge R. Frank wrote:
"Lee" wrote in
link.net:

Figures as high as 600 billion dollars to put humans on Mars isn't
exactly chump change [1].

[1]
http://maroon.uchicago.edu/viewpoint.../mars_whats_60
0_billi.php

That figure is bogus and Dwayne Day has done an excellent job debunking its
origins.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/119/1

Lee, here's your cue. Please respond, here...

Eric


--
JRF

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check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
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Don't forget that increasing the manpower from 3 to 6 will increase the
time available to do science many times!

Jeff Findley wrote:

Yes. The last flight doubled the electrical generation capability of the US
segment. Unless I'm mistaken, the plan is to double that one more time in
the next three years by adding two more sets of US solar arrays.

Plus there are the European and Japanese research modules. What's the point
of a space station unless you can acutally use it. I don't think we've
launched Node 2 yet, plus there is Node 3.

All correct. Spaceflight Now has a good schedule:

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st.../manifest.html

"Chris Bennetts" wrote in message
...
All correct. Spaceflight Now has a good schedule:

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st.../manifest.html

Very nice. I've bookmarked this one. The pictures are the best part. ;-)

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

I agree, keeping ISS alive and worth doing something constructive is
what should happen.

Instead of pushing it into the somewhat lethal and otherwise
interactively pesky moon L2 zone, I was rethinking of my previous
notions of moving ISS into the Venus-L2(VL2) halo zone of supposedly
1,014,290 km away from that geothermally active and thus somewhat newish
orb, is by far the best for all things considered.

Parking ISS within Venus L2 for the likes of being fully staffed seems
doable because, as such it should become perfectly human DNA survivable
for the 19 month stint, although one hell of a killer commute could be a
factor.

Upon average, I believe VL2 could be cooler for ISS than currently
orbiting Earth, and there'd be less cosmic and obviously no moon
radiation factors, and even somewhat less solar contributed flak of
radiation to deal with.

I don't believe there's even any significant amount of those nasty
trapped radiation belts to deal with.

As compared to orbiting Earth, I tend to believe there shouldn't be 10%
the station-keeping demands per month upon reboost or other reactive
thrusting demands for having to sustain the orbital halo requirements.

One good resupply of fuel per 19 months should be sufficient, along with
a few less tonnage deployments of other essential supplies (beer and
pizza) getting delivered up to +/- 6 months worth of each 19 month cycle
(however, a +/- one month window would be most efficient).

Actually, utilizing a solar--steam powered form of reaction thrusting
via all that beer should provide sufficient thrusting, all by itself.
-
Brad Guth


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