Keep ISS Alive

Keep ISS Alive


Los Angeles, CA - September 21, 2006 Anyone who has ever been around
children, or perhaps even been one, knows the different stages of
growth that lead to adulthood. We begin with wonderment and exploration
- usually in the form of play. New things are tried, tasted, tested
and discarded as we grow. Each new toy, game and experience grows old
quickly as we develop. Over time the things we learned yesterday
through play begin to apply more and more to our lives, and we are not
so quick to discard them. Eventually, as we move into adulthood, they
become ever more permanent. We gain expertise in areas we need to
survive and prosper. From games to hobbies to study to business and
career, our horizons grow longer. Our material possessions go through
this shift too, from toys to transportation, from shared bed to dorm
room to renter to home owner. Eventually, we become adults, and are
ready to start the next generation.

This analogy fits the opening of space well. Reaching upwards to touch
its edges with tentative hands, ever higher we have risen to explore
and experience its promise. With shiny complex toys we have ridden out
into it, leaving trails of discarded parts behind us. With great
excitement we raced each other to the Moon and tottered across its
surface on unsteady legs, until that game grew old and we went home.
With proclamations of seriousness we built ever more elaborate play
forts, abandoning them when they grew boring. With endless patience our
believing cultures bought us a stream of new toys, which we used and
discarded, over and over again. And now we say we are serious yet
again. Just as childhood flows into adulthood, perhaps we are now ready
to shift from play to life beyond the protecting arms of mother Earth.
Perhaps we are at last ready to move outside of our home to begin the
next stage in the expansion of the family of man.

And there it is. The key and defining moment when a child becomes an
adult, when toys are no longer toys, but tools, when games have taught
their lessons and play becomes the work of survival and prosperity. But
if this is so we must stop acting like children.
We are on the threshold, but to step beyond it, we must learn the harsh
realities of life. We can no longer look to that endless stream of tax
dollars from mom and dad to pay for our play. In particular, we must
realize the only thing about the "expendable" space program that is
"expendable" is the idea itself. Our job is to break free. To come up
with the mortgage we need to lower costs and create wealth and jobs in
space. We must create an industrial economy in orbit.

Instead of elaborate and expensive toys and forts made to be thrown
away, we must design technologies and facilities that are useful and
useable, robust and reliable. Instead of built in obsolescence, we must
build for real permanence. We cannot leave trails of cast-off parts
behind us, as if magic money will appear to buy us more. We must learn
how to make machines and structures last for as long as possible, and
go further, planning in advance how to recycle them once their first
purpose is done, and how to pass them on to others for new purposes. A
lunar lander, a space station, a Moon base - anything that is carried
into space has immense value, simply by being there. And there is
always someone ready to do something with it. This is the way of
enterprise, the way of the frontier.

As I write this Americans and Russians are circling overhead in a space
station I opposed. The international space station (ISS) cost too much,
is imperfect, too complex, in a bad orbit and I am told it smells
funny. But it is there.

Now I hear some want to throw it away. The folks gave us almost $100
billion to build it, and I don't think they would like that. It holds
air, has power and is made of tons of processed high-value material
that if it isn't up there already, someday someone else would have to
carry it up or manufacture it. Once before I and others tried to save a
cast-off toy from our childhood in space called Mir. We were too late,
and faced too much opposition from those who wanted a shiny new toy.
Now we have it. This time we have the time to make it useful. Let's do
it.

One building does not a community make, be it Mir or ISS or Bob
Bigelow's facility. Economies of scale apply, the more the merrier.
There is much more to be said and decided regarding how to do it in a
way that helps all, both public and private, but let's decide to do it
now before it is too late once again.

Keep ISS alive.

http://www.space-frontier.org

Well written! I agree! Keep it alive!

But we have to finish it first, (and don't forget the Hubble)!

This is not the Swann Song, it is will be a stepping stone to the
stars!

Carl

:
: Well written! I agree! Keep it alive!

But, connected to all those machines.
Would it *want* to live like that?


Wayne Throop http://sheol.org/throopw

wrote in message
oups.com...
Keep ISS Alive


Los Angeles, CA - September 21, 2006 Anyone who has ever been around
children, or perhaps even been one, knows the different stages of
growth that lead to adulthood. We begin with wonderment and exploration
- usually in the form of play. New things are tried, tasted, tested
and discarded as we grow. Each new toy, game and experience grows old
quickly as we develop. Over time the things we learned yesterday
through play begin to apply more and more to our lives, and we are not
so quick to discard them. Eventually, as we move into adulthood, they
become ever more permanent. We gain expertise in areas we need to
survive and prosper. From games to hobbies to study to business and
career, our horizons grow longer. Our material possessions go through
this shift too, from toys to transportation, from shared bed to dorm
room to renter to home owner. Eventually, we become adults, and are
ready to start the next generation.
....

Blah, Blah, Blah. What a lode. The ISS, a gimmicky method to transport
taxpayer dollars to the elites within the space industry. Read Robert Parks
book, "Voodoo Science" and get an education. Any science coming from the ISS
if any can be acquired far less expensively without exposing humans to the
hazards of outerspace. Yeah, I'm a taxpayer and that's my opinion.

Blah, Blah, Blah. What a lode. The ISS, a gimmicky method to transport
taxpayer dollars to the elites within the space industry. Read Robert Parks
book, "Voodoo Science" and get an education. Any science coming from the ISS
if any can be acquired far less expensively without exposing humans to the
hazards of outerspace. Yeah, I'm a taxpayer and that's my opinion.

ISS has no real purpose other than as a diplomatic effort

Show we can work with russians while they sell nuclear bomb technology
to Iran

NASA should be a exploration agency never just go round and round
wating what 8 billion a year? being a jobs agency

"Lee" wrote in
link.net:

Blah, Blah, Blah. What a lode. The ISS, a gimmicky method to transport
taxpayer dollars to the elites within the space industry. Read Robert
Parks book, "Voodoo Science" and get an education.

What you and Robert Park don't understand is that science is not the only
reason we do manned spaceflight. It's not even the most important reason.
It never has been. And it never will be.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

(IMHO) The ISS is a huge waste of time. Yeah, it's the first of it's
kind and it was cool for a while, but if you think about it, what the
hell are we going to do with it? Super, we have a lab in zero-g. We
would be much better off going to Mars right now. Screw the moon, the
only plus about colonizing on the moon is that it is close to us. Mars
has far more minerals, an atmosphere (for what it's worth), and water
to some extent. Waiting until 2010 is a waste of time, and billions of
dollars spent on the ISS every flight is a waste of money as well.

I dunno, I guess we might need to rely on private enterprises to get us
to where we really need to be going. I'm rooting for the Space Elevator.

Z 1 Y 0 N 3 X wrote:

(IMHO) The ISS is a huge waste of time. Yeah, it's the first of it's
kind and it was cool for a while, but if you think about it, what the
hell are we going to do with it? Super, we have a lab in zero-g. We
would be much better off going to Mars right now.

ISS is far more useful to go to mars than CEV. Consider all the
technologies and designs that have been developped for the ISS and
which can be used for the mars expedition ship (which would be
tantamount to an ISS with big engines, and a lander ship attached to it
as well as MPLMs for stowage of consumables. (as well as shielding for
the whole complex).

Consider the remote manipulator arm, the grappling point designs, the
solar array designs/technology (the deployment technique is really
neat). The CBM designs is most certaintly a good starting point for a
mars expedition ship (might need strenghtening for greater G force with
bigger engines).

Consider environmental systems, and more importantly the experience with
them which yields MTBF which tells you how much in terms of spare parts
woudl be needed for a self-sustaining truly long duration expedition to
mars. Also, the experience on ISS allows crews to learn how to debug
systems, how to fix them.

For instance, I believe Don Petit even tried soldering in space to fix
some circuit board.

Another aspect is that of human health in 0g. A mars expedition needs to
be functional when they land on Mars after lengthy voyage in 0g. ISS not
only gives the ability to test certain exercise/nutrition regimes, but
also test equipment reliability under contant use, and which type of
exercise equipment is best. (Consider the fancy USA threadmil that had
caused many maintenance headaches. Hopefully the one for a mars
expedition ship would be built to be simpler, more robuts and hence more reliable.


And while watching crystals grow in a test tube may be more or less
useless science, those exercises allow one to measure how much time is
left after crewmembers have done the station maintenance, personal
hygiene/exercise and required "leasure time".

to some extent. Waiting until 2010 is a waste of time, and billions of
dollars spent on the ISS every flight is a waste of money as well.

Wouldn't you rather they test the equipment on ISS for a few years
before they build the mars ship to ensure it actually works in 0g ?

The USA has yet to activate its Oxygen generator in destiny. We know the
russian one isn't exactly reliable, but we also know that by thinkering
with it, you can make it work for couple of years before a replacement
is needed. Until they activate the US O2 generator, there is absolutely
no data available on how reliable it will be and thus, you cannot start
to plan a mars mission if you don't know how many spare parts and spare
generators you will need for such a long trip.


It isn't a waste of time. (What is a waste of time is the USA deciding
to postpone activation of the O2 generator).

"John Doe" wrote in message ...
Z 1 Y 0 N 3 X wrote:

(IMHO) The ISS is a huge waste of time. Yeah, it's the first of it's
kind and it was cool for a while, but if you think about it, what the
hell are we going to do with it? Super, we have a lab in zero-g. We
would be much better off going to Mars right now.

ISS is far more useful to go to mars than CEV. Consider all the
technologies and designs that have been developped for the ISS and
which can be used for the mars expedition ship (which would be
tantamount to an ISS with big engines, and a lander ship attached to it
as well as MPLMs for stowage of consumables. (as well as shielding for
the whole complex).


Snipped for brevity.

Ok, it's simple. Any attempt to put men/women on Mars is lunacy and
suicidal. Do the research, read the material do your own thinking. The cost
alone will run into the tens of billions of dollars--the numbers are mind
numbing. 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. Explore the cosmos yes, but with robots and a
mature sane plan that is sustainable. Just my two cents.

In article .com,
"Z 1 Y 0 N 3 X" wrote:

(IMHO) The ISS is a huge waste of time. Yeah, it's the first of it's
kind and it was cool for a while, but if you think about it, what the
hell are we going to do with it?

Use it as a test bed for space technologies? Use its resupply as a
driver of commercial launch services?

Super, we have a lab in zero-g. We
would be much better off going to Mars right now.

What for? It's much too far away for any serious development, and even
a flags & footprints mission would be ridiculously expensive (and
dangerous).

Screw the moon, the
only plus about colonizing on the moon is that it is close to us.

Right, and that's a HUGE plus. If God had wanted us to colonize space,
He would have given us a large moon. Oh wait, He did...

Mars has far more minerals

Like what, exactly?

an atmosphere (for what it's worth)

....which is very little, though I'll admit it does have its uses.

and water to some extent.

So does the Moon, to some extent. Though it's easier to get to on Mars
-- it's just that Mars itself is ridiculously harder to get to.

Waiting until 2010 is a waste of time, and billions of
dollars spent on the ISS every flight is a waste of money as well.

"Waiting" until 2010? It's almost 2007 now. What's waiting?

As for ISS, it's got many problems, but it IS there and it has its uses.

I dunno, I guess we might need to rely on private enterprises to get us
to where we really need to be going.

This is the first sensible thing I've read in your whole message.

I'm rooting for the Space Elevator.

I'll root for it too, but I'm not holding my breath either.

Best,
- Joe