For the cost of I.S.S. so far....

Rod Mollise wrote:

There do seem to be a string of scientific projects going on, many
relating to 'bioastronautics' which would lend itself to the planing
of longer distance manned missions, and generally spending longer in
space. Microgravity stuff.

Hi:

SOME research goes on. Much of it, though, duplicates what's already been done
by Shuttle Crews or on Mir.

Much as I tend to think ISS has turned into a political money sink, there
will be some serious uses if we're really headed beyond LEO anything
like soon. Some of the lessons/results of Mir were not satisfactorily
documented, to the horror of the NASA stepchildren who headed to
Moscow during the Shuttle/Mir (alias ISS phase I) program.

The major problem(s)? First, the ISS was intended to be manned by a
seven-person crew. Unfortunately, between the cancellation of the Habitation
Module and the Columbia loss, it's become pretty clear that the ISS will never
host a permanent crew of seven. The only time more than three people will be
onboard is when (if) a Shuttle is docked to it. At this time and for the
forseeable future it appears that much of the crew's time will be taken up by
housekeeping/maintenance tasks. Also, frankly, science was never the main goal
of ISS. It was to further cooperation in space between the United States and
the Soviet Union. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the world has changed a lot
since the ISS was conceived.

"Midnight basketball for Russian missile engineers". On the other hand,
the one justification that made sense could never be sold to Congress -
"We believe humanity has a long-term future in space, and we mean
to be part of it". This ends up sounding rather more positive than
I really feel, but there are things to be learned given that ISS
is there. In fact, oddly enough, it seems more useful now that there
might be long-duration flights for which we need to test equipment
and procedures so the logic goes beyond completely circular.

(None of which should be construed as indicating that I did not write and call
assorted Alabama congressfolk and senators about the HST SM-4 cancellation...)

Bill Keel

Richard wrote:

You could have funded around 200 Mars landers.

One might have dome that; I would have funded 20 lunar and
interplanetary probes and four different re-useable launcher
developments, and then groups like the National Geographic Society would
be going to Mars on private subscription.

You can't have your space station and complain about how expensive it is
too, folks.

I'd rather not have it, and have the money to spend on something else.

Clear Skies

Chuck Taylor
Do you observe the moon?
Try http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/
And the Lunar Picture of the Day http://www.lpod.org/
************************************

wrote in message . com...
(gswork) wrote:

I'll try to stay optimistic on the eventual 'return' from the ISS,
though i'm not sure if it's the best option for this kind of science.

Don't be naive.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17011

http://www.house.gov/science/park_4-9.html

http://groups.google.ca/groups?q=ISS... le.com&rnum=1

Many many many more. The ISS is a massive sink-hole, an astronomical
barrel of pork. It stands for everything that is hideously wrong with
NASA.

Is the ISS just repeating science allready done to the extent it needs to be though?

I'm not hyping ISS, just endeavouring to see a positive side too.

(Rod Mollise) wrote in message ...

There do seem to be a string of scientific projects going on, many
relating to 'bioastronautics' which would lend itself to the planing
of longer distance manned missions, and generally spending longer in
space. Microgravity stuff.

Hi:

SOME research goes on. Much of it, though, duplicates what's already been done
by Shuttle Crews or on Mir.

The major problem(s)? First, the ISS was intended to be manned by a
seven-person crew. Unfortunately, between the cancellation of the Habitation
Module and the Columbia loss, it's become pretty clear that the ISS will never
host a permanent crew of seven. The only time more than three people will be
onboard is when (if) a Shuttle is docked to it. At this time and for the
forseeable future it appears that much of the crew's time will be taken up by
housekeeping/maintenance tasks. Also, frankly, science was never the main goal
of ISS. It was to further cooperation in space between the United States and
the Soviet Union. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the world has changed a lot
since the ISS was conceived.

If the habitation module eventually came to be would you be more
confident about the ISS and it's potential contribution to science?

half the problem with the ISS seems to be that it remains unfinished.

(gswork) wrote in message . com...

I haven't really kept up with the ISS. Shame it's being so expensive,
as it'll be ammunition for those against national investment in space
technology.

No, I wouldn't put it that way. It is ammunition against trying to
sustain human life in space -- and damned good ammunition too. If
the ISS costs this much, just imagine how expensive it would be to
maintain a semi-permanent base on the Moon, with shipping costs
multiplied by a factor of 10 or more.

Basically, the ISS is a successful experiment. Question: is it possible
to maintain a semi-permanent human presence in space at reasonable cost?
Answer: no! How much more money do we have to throw away before people
will accept that fact?

Of course, true believers will never accept it; they will always blame
it on government waste, or niggling naysayers like me, or fifth
columnists of one stripe or another. True believers are like that;
empirical evidence flows off their backs like water off a duck.

I'm sure the ISS is wonderful for the astronauts who go there; living
in space must be sublime beyond my imagining. People are willing to
risk their lives to climb Mount Everest, so of course they will always
be willing to risk their lives to go to outer space; I understand that
perfectly. But not on my tax dollar, please.

- Tony Flanders

If the habitation module eventually came to be would you be more
confident about the ISS and it's potential contribution to science?

Hi:

I doubt that module will ever come. Even if it did, I think the science returns
for the money will be frighteningly small.

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
Like SCTs and MCTs?
Check-out sct-user, the mailing list for CAT fanciers!
Goto http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index.html

On 22 Apr 2004 19:41:09 GMT, (Rod Mollise) wrote:

Also, frankly, science was never the main goal of ISS.

In the beginning it was. I worked on the project when it was Space
Station Freedom in the early 90's. There were several core systems
designed for the laboratory module to directly support experimenters.
I worked on several.

Unfortunately, it became clear that some of these systems were too
complex to build to meet every need of every experimenter. For
example, how can you be sure when you design a vacuum dump to space
for all the racks that nothing from any two racks will react in the
dump lines? Endless studies were done on that subject alone, then the
concept was abandoned.

Other systems were technically feasible such as ultrapure water
source, pure gases sources, high speed data/video comm, etc.

Then it was "discovered" (big surprise here) that the station would
not be the ideal microgravity environment due to all the perturbations
of the equipment, crew, and docking shuttles.

The project got mired in a bunch of political garbage that was
basically due to power struggles between the various major US
contractors to achieve maximum profit. In my opinion, most of this was
due to the fact that nobody inside NASA had the expertise or authority
to tell the contractors what to do -- one NASA center would listen to
one contractor and the other NASA center to another -- and then
everyone would fight about the issues. As an engineer, you were
forbidden from direct contact with a contractor from "another work
package" even if the info was required to do your job (complete
idiocy). Nothing would get done...

During all this (literally years) an obscene amount of money was spent
and nothing was produced. Schedules slipped. At some point, NASA
apparently decided that the Russians could do a better job of
producing some of the space hardware than our own greedy US companies
(perhaps they were right), and then the "international cooperation"
tag became more of a selling point.

Honestly, if the Russians had not been brought in, I don't think much
more than a truss assembly would be flying today.

But all of the original designs for support of scientific applications
got canned from what I saw. The cost per rack also grew so large that
few experimenters were going to be able to afford to fly on the
station anyway.

---
Michael McCulloch

What is needed to make the US space program "go" are leaders with the
practical experience, engineering expertise, and dogged determination
to make something happen. Unfortunately, such leaders are in short
supply nowadays within NASA or US companies.

What should have been done for the space station is to realize that
much scientific research is and was necessary as a foundation for the
project.

The Russians should have been contacted at the beginning and brought
into the project. Armies of translators should have been translating
the vast information resource possessed by the Russians regarding
human endurance, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, etc. Classes should
have been held to teach the knowledge gained from the US space program
of the previous decades to the new generation of engineers and
scientists. Laboratories full of scientists should have been
constructed to churn out useful research on various critical topics to
better determine the areas where a space station could provide real
benefit. Engineers should have been allowed to create real testbeds
from the start to test and perfect ideas and systems.

Instead, what we got for our money is hoards of unexperienced people
shoved into pretty office buildings writing "requirements documents"
and generating schedules. "Viewgraph engineers" is the term I like. We
(as a nation) did this because we are fat and lazy and think that
putting our butts in a chair, holding meetings, and typing on the
computer all day accomplishes something. It doesn't do anything but
waste money.

Mountains of paperwork have been generated for the billions spent on
the station project and in the end we got exactly what we paid for:
mountains of useless paperwork.

Space flight is hard work.

---
Michael McCulloch

(Tony Flanders) wrote in message m...
(gswork) wrote in message . com...

I haven't really kept up with the ISS. Shame it's being so expensive,
as it'll be ammunition for those against national investment in space
technology.

No, I wouldn't put it that way. It is ammunition against trying to
sustain human life in space -- and damned good ammunition too. If
the ISS costs this much, just imagine how expensive it would be to
maintain a semi-permanent base on the Moon, with shipping costs
multiplied by a factor of 10 or more.

I always thought the moonbase idea was to involve a relatively small
setup base followed by gradual expansion using materials available on
the moon. It's asking for some pretty heavy industry though, and i
don't see how we could get a base going without some very heavy
equipment being flown up from earth and shipped out to the Moon. Then
there would be the costs of shuttling people back and forth.

I'd hoped, as a younger less skeptical person, that a moonbase was
achievable somewhere in the decades following the appollo missions,
and so apparently did many authors of popular books on astronomy at
the time! I watched the first launch of the Space Shuttle on tv in
awe thinking variations on this reusable spacecraft would one day be
used to shuttle to and from the moon and who knows where else,
whereupon Science and technology would greatly benefit us as a race.

Sadly, i now tend to think such a base is not for our generation, or
perhaps not for centuries if ever. I take no pleasure in the loss of
that seemnigly naive optimism of youth either.

Being here in the year 2004 it sometimes feels as if being in
Galileo's time, snatched out and given a view of the manned moon
missions and then thrust back into his own century and told "well, not
in your lifetime buddy, that's just a glimpse". I know that's not
realistic, but there was a lot of expectation built up following
Apollo and it just ain't happening.

Basically, the ISS is a successful experiment. Question: is it possible
to maintain a semi-permanent human presence in space at reasonable cost?
Answer: no! How much more money do we have to throw away before people
will accept that fact?

Permamently? Retreat from space now, and forever or be moderate now
and expansive later, holding out for 'saviour' techs that keep costs
low, and if so, how will we know if not by trying?

Permamently won't cut it unless you're not remotely bothered by human
extinction happening at some point in the far off future. The sun
gently heating up will make life on Earth increasingly difficult, but
this won't even be significantly threatening for a couple of hundred
million years, and could be defended against I guess, so there's no
rush to space I suppose!!

Anyway, I digress, perhaps you have the view that humans in space is
not for now and not forever. Stick to Earth and accept the ultimate
fate. Speculating that far into the future is, well, speculation!
It seems a bit defeatist to stop at virtually the first hurdle though,
but then how can we project our concerns and values of our short lives
now against humanity in general and the (hopefully) millions of years
ahead.

Of course, true believers will never accept it;

for the purpose of this discussion let's not chacterise either view as
belonging to an implied irrational group of "true believers", i think
it's an open topic and worth discussing from many views.