[samtheman]

A friend of mine who used to work on monitoring Soviet/Russian nukes said that the ISS was a make-work program for Soviet/Russian scientists, giving them something less threatening to work on. He wasn’t justifying the ISS, just saying what he thought was the thinking in our government over the years.

[oh8eleven]

the ISS was a make-work program for Soviet/Russian scientists
ISS is another good example of WASTED taxpayer dollars. A "joint" venture with the Russkies that we paid for, and since 1998 what have we gotten in return? Not a damned thing.
Most Mars missions are the same thing. How many multi-zillion-dollar rovers do we need to discover - nothing?