POLL: Do You Think The ISS is Worth $100 Billion?

[vulture4]

The ISS was finally funded only when the Russians joined. The justification that got it through Congress was not science, it was that it would keep Russian rocket scientists employed at a time when they might leave for Iran and North Korea to build missiles. Even today the ISS is fairly effective as a catalyst for international trust and cooperation. That is why China should be invited to join; not just to ease tensions between the US and China, but also the building tension between China and Japan, which may soon cause Japan to "go nuclear".

 

[Valcan]

Vulture,

The problem is that the chinese use everything as a weapon. EVERYTHING. And they care nothing about what we consider our rights. Any technology they get from use (which they will get) any hand up will be used against us. They also export weapons to places like Iran and others that have a problem with us.

So no dont invite china. Also they are hurting our economy horribly by keeping their currency so low.

Japan with a nuke? No problem. Like israel they dont threaten genocide or my nation. Come to think of it the only people they seem to hate are north koreans.

Jordan for example has a nuke program for power. Heard anything about it? Nope because its entirely civilian in nature and they arent a problem but a good force in that area of the world.

 

[vulture4]

Vulture,

The problem is that the chinese use everything as a weapon. EVERYTHING. And they care nothing about what we consider our rights. Any technology they get from use (which they will get) any hand up will be used against us. They also export weapons to places like Iran and others that have a problem with us.
So no dont invite china. Also they are hurting our economy horribly by keeping their currency so low.
Japan with a nuke? No problem. Like israel they dont threaten genocide or my nation. Come to think of it the only people they seem to hate are north koreans.
Jordan for example has a nuke program for power. Heard anything about it? Nope because its entirely civilian in nature and they arent a problem but a good force in that area of the world.

It's quite true that most Chinese value stability above what we consider to be individual rights. But it is nonsense to suggest that they are about to attack us; we are their biggest customer. Name a country China has invaded in the last twenty years. How many countries has the US invaded? Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, how many others? However it is shortsighted and dangerous to ignore the rising tension between Japan and China, which could easily lead to a disastrous war. To say that the only people Japan dislikes are North Koreans is absurd, not least since the statement assumes all Japanese have the same viewpoint. As to your statement on Israel, a Palestinian or a Lebanese might have a different point of view, and with reasonable cause. America must share the world with China, a nation which may well be wealthier and more powerful than America within 20 years. It will be a safer world if we learn to do it as partners rather than enemies. If you adopt a simplistic view of the world which divides it only into friends and enemies, you can never achieve peace, and eventually you will be on the losing end in a conflict.

Apollo was funded as a substitute for a perilous nuclear arms race. ISS was funded as a catalyst for international trust and cooperation. If all we want is to help nations we like and hurt nations we dislike, we don't need human spaceflight to do it.

 

[RockyComet]

Worth every penny and then some. Wouldn't it be good to have another station in Lunar orbit? A platform for future Lunar exploration and a stepping stone to Mars would inhance our ability to get there. As far as the cost, a drop in the bucket of our future. Mankind's progress has always been atributed to an unquencing need for exploration and expantion. When do we begin the building of a wheeled station like the one in the 2001:A Space Odessy. Permenant habitation with artifical gravity and a greater chance of going to space. It's good to dream.......... :roll:

 

[bdewoody]

I didn't see anyone posting the fact that no matter what the exact figure is on money spent on the ISS it was money paid to individuals to do work here on earth. The money is not on the ISS orbiting the planet. It was paid to technicians and engineers who in turn bought homes and food and clothing and cars and boats. My point is that the money stayed in circulation down here on earth and was not shot into space to be forever lost.

 

[RockyComet]

Any money that can be squeezed out of our failing Congress for space endevors is worth it. We need to keep our techs and heavy thinkers employed. Doing so will not only keep us moving forward in space, but will also create new break thru's from R&D. This could solve the weight to launch problem. Just making the effort will make problems solved. When we set our minds to it we do overcome. When Apollo 1 burned up on the pad we lost 3 hero's but came back with a superior system that got us to the moon. All the money spent for the R&D that went into our space ventures has come back to us in ways we don't even relize or take forgranted. Yes it also supports communities infrastucture and that is always a good thing.

 

[SJQ]

I didn't see anyone posting the fact that no matter what the exact figure is on money spent on the ISS it was money paid to individuals to do work here on earth. The money is not on the ISS orbiting the planet. It was paid to technicians and engineers who in turn bought homes and food and clothing and cars and boats. My point is that the money stayed in circulation down here on earth and was not shot into space to be forever lost.

Bdewoody is absolutely correct. It isn't the money that gets launched.

There are those who decry NASA as merely a "jobs program". To a certain extent, these people are correct - but that happened only after the paper-pushing deadweight infested NASA.

Back in the beginning, when the whole space program was the definitive crap-shoot, the people on NASA's pay-roll weren't worried about whether they were green enough, or the Muslims were happy, or some blow-hard politician got to pork-barrel some more. These people were worried about the "spam in the can" coming home unharmed. Correspondingly, NASA consisted of people who added value through their publicly-funded jobs program.

Constrain NASA's budget if you must. But spend all of the money on the people who actually do something useful (hint: these people are not the ones incessantly setting NASA's new direction). The same budget will then put us a hell of a lot further out, for real this time. NASA's "grunts" are not the problem: give 'em a goal, give 'em a budget, and then stay the hell out of the way! Magical things will happen.

 

[Sweetpea2]

Yes, the space station is worth 100 billion. The problem with NASA is that it's a politically run organization. If you get the president out of it and run it with contractors it would be much better. Every time we have an election the incoming party changes NASA. Sometimes in a big way. Politicians (or the military) should not be involved in technical programs. NASA would be better if it stayed focused on one agenda - space exploration. In the future when we have used up the earth's resources we will have to live in space.

 

[JETSETTER]

Yes i think it's costly, but the work it's doing is excellent, because of it's work and the progress from that we can appreciate that it's worth what it is....

 

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

The development, research and experience in on orbit operations have taught us a lot. One of those things is that some things we thought would be inexpensive or trivial are not and other things we thought would be complex and expensive need not be. For those things that don’t need to be complex or expensive like the habitat modules, we found out that the assumptions that were made don’t hold up. Bigelow has taught us that these modules can be built a lot cheaper than they were and also a lot lighter with more volume. We thought space construction and repair would be more difficult, but new tools such as robots have decreased their difficulty significantly. We also found out that things break down some more often than thought and others hardly at all.

The ISS was all about how to build a better space station. The next generation space station goal won’t be about how to build a space station but how to use it efficiently and economically. With all the lessons learned the next generation of space stations will be much more capable for significantly less costs. This is what made the ISS worth it, knowledge! Something we would not know unless we tried it.

 

[Skyskimmer]

I think the frame work, and abilty to get large amounts of money is worth while. It's like being a kid and everyone on your street was able to get money to buy tickets for cancelled concert, the point wasn't the concert but to proove in the future that these resources will still be availible. Or more directly hey mom you gave me 75 bux last week for something that didn't happen gave you give me 20 this week for a sure bet.

 

[FictionBecomesFact]

We already had a space station on orbit when they built ISS at taxpayers' expense:

http://www.spaceprojects.com/Mir

Predictably the NASA clique jealously sabotaged it however it could...

 

[vulture4]

The MIR was unmaintainable. The air conditioning and insulation were insufficient and huge pools of water formed behind the panels. ISS is the next stage of the Shuttle/MIR program. ISS was funded only when the Russians joined the program. The central Russian module of the ISS is in fact the MIR II. The ISS can expand forever. It's worth a lot, as the anchor for many different launch systems. But it was designed to work with Shuttle, and will be less useful without it. Does anyone remember what STS really meant? it stood for "Space Transportation System" and it had three major components, the Shuttle, the Station, and the Space Tug which would provide reusable transport from the station to GEO. Without the tug or even the Shuttle the ISS will lose a great deal of its utility. But it's still worth maintaining, and it is still inconceivable that Mike Griffin eliminated Shuttle and tried to eliminate Station so he could re-enact Apollo, apparently because he was bored with the real work of developing ways people can do something useful and practical in space. It may be decades before the permanent damage Mike Griffin did to NASA and the space program is fully appreciated.

 

[Skyskimmer]

The MIR was unmaintainable. The air conditioning and insulation were insufficient and huge pools of water formed behind the panels. ISS is the next stage of the Shuttle/MIR program. ISS was funded only when the Russians joined the program. The central Russian module of the ISS is in fact the MIR II. The ISS can expand forever. It's worth a lot, as the anchor for many different launch systems. But it was designed to work with Shuttle, and will be less useful without it. Does anyone remember what STS really meant? it stood for "Space Transportation System" and it had three major components, the Shuttle, the Station, and the Space Tug which would provide reusable transport from the station to GEO. Without the tug or even the Shuttle the ISS will lose a great deal of its utility. But it's still worth maintaining, and it is still inconceivable that Mike Griffin eliminated Shuttle and tried to eliminate Station so he could re-enact Apollo, apparently because he was bored with the real work of developing ways people can do something useful and practical in space. It may be decades before the permanent damage Mike Griffin did to NASA and the space program is fully appreciated.

The shuttle was a huge waste of money, and far as space tugs it hasn't been ruled out.