[July 4th]

What was it built for in the first place.

Science and end-of-the-Cold-War cooperation.

The hell with it. If we're going to have a space program, let's make it our own national mission to get to Mars, or some other lofty goal. You don't need any mission beyond that, like "science" or "cooperation". The act of building all of the necessary components will reap scientific benefits along the way, and like Apollo, the advancements in technology will eventually work their way into our everyday life. Just to see if we can do it is the ultimate goal.

[org.whodat]

The hell with it. If we're going to have a space program, let's make it our own national mission to get to Mars, or some other lofty goal. You don't need any mission beyond that, like "science" or "cooperation". The act of building all of the necessary components will reap scientific benefits along the way, and like Apollo, the advancements in technology will eventually work their way into our everyday life. Just to see if we can do it is the ultimate goal.

That's what I was thinking, the space station is nothing more than a fish bowl. When we should be putting most of the money in a program to go somewhere. And building something that will get us there and a rocket is not the way to get there from here.