[buccaneer81]

Two areas right off the bat... material science

We sure got a lesson in cold welding.

[DManA]

Cold welding. Good. The only way we could have figured that out is by investing billions in NASA?

And what has cold welding have to do with exploring the universe?

[LibWhacker]

Right! We haven't learned everything space has to teach us. Not by a long shot. And since these lessons could result in us losing entire crews and missions later on if we're not prepared for them, it's best that we keep probing for unexpected properties of space, the vacuum, the solar wind, etc., until we have a better handle on things... But never, ever, ever join in with the russians on anything in space ever again. Such things should not cost us as much as the ISS Russians did, imo.