Nice. We'll declare it a "National Laboratory" just in time to close it down, or, hopefully, turn it over to other countries willing to support it, so we can use the money to finance the return to the moon. Or .... we'll spend tens of billions to replace the Shuttle with the CEV, which has virtually no life science payload capacity, then cancel the return to the moon so we can use the CEV as a taxi to the ISS.<br /><br />I do not see any funding attached to this agreement. NIH already rejects over 90% of qualified proposals, many of them real medical advances that could really save lives, and NIH research funding has been flat under the current administration. Does anyone seriously think NIH has the spare resources to devote to something as expensive as the ISS? I would suggest that the many researchers who have put blood, sweat and tears into NIH proposals and been rejected would not think so. <br /><br />NIH has previously signed partnerships with NASA that have produced little of substance, and it is difficult to see how this is anything more than an attempt to get favorable publicity for both agencies. Hey, I'm not getting cynical again, am I?<br />