[Jaysun]

The shuttle programme began to be wound down, aspirations for the International Space Station were scaled back......

Can someone please tell me the point of that Tom Joad shitwagon? Is it a floating tree house designed to help us hang out with a couple of Russians? I currently live in Huntsville Alabama which is where the Marshall Space Flight Center and the US Space and Rocket Center is located. I have several friends that work in the industry and I can't get a straight answer to my question. I get a lot of BS answers about testing the effects of space on this or that substance, but that's it. Nothing has come of it so far as I can tell.

And I don't know what we've spent all the billions upon billions on. The International Space Station is so low-rent, the only thing missing is a pink flamingo and a clothes dryer on the porch.

[saganite]

You can pretty much ignore anything NASA related in this post as they won't accomplish anything mentioned. The real news is the private sector moving into space in a big way.

[cripplecreek]

I get a lot of BS answers about testing the effects of space on this or that substance, but that's it. Nothing has come of it so far as I can tell.

Those things are important but I agree that we need to see some results.

Personally I think we should be working on shielding against radiation for longer duration missions outside the cocoon.

[supercat]

Is it a floating tree house designed to help us hang out with a couple of Russians?

What does the ISS have that the Shuttle doesn't, aside from larger stores of habitation supplies and generators?

[burzum]

Can someone please tell me the point of that Tom Joad ****wagon? Is it a floating tree house designed to help us hang out with a couple of Russians? I currently live in Huntsville Alabama which is where the Marshall Space Flight Center and the US Space and Rocket Center is located. I have several friends that work in the industry and I can't get a straight answer to my question. I get a lot of BS answers about testing the effects of space on this or that substance, but that's it. Nothing has come of it so far as I can tell.

No need for vulgarities.

The ISS does serve some purposes, but it certainly isn't worth the ~$100 billion lifetime development cost. The research and engineering knowhow that it will teach probably isn't worth more than $5 billion. To summarize the ~$5 billion usefulness of the ISS: it teaches us how to build and assemble complex 10-20 ton life-support components that are launched into space with with about 3 Gs of force. This is certainly important, but overrated. It serves three purposes: 1) it helps us with our next generation of 20 ton component space stations (perhaps around the Moon or Mars), 2) it gives us a little technical knowhow if we want to start launching 100 ton components with a 5 G rocket, and 3) it gives us a little knowledge on how to make a life support compartment for an interplanetary mission.

It is useful to acknowledge that when the Ares V program comes online, the US will no longer be required to play with 10 shuttle flights to assemble and provide supplies for 8 15-ton components. A 130 ton (or optionally higher) Ares V rocket could do that in one launch. The final mass of the ISS, for example, could be put up with 3 Ares V rockets. The biggest winners from the ISS program will be the Russians and the Europeans--the ones who are paying less than half the cost.

[FreedomPoster]

NASA has become welfare for engineers and managers.

Disband it, use the money for prizes (like in the early days of aviation) for demonstrated accomplishment by private groups.

[SunkenCiv]

It's a kum-bi-yah, diversity in action, wet dream, just as it was intended to be in the first place.

It hasn't produced anything worthwhile that required a crewed station, and primarily was a taxpayer subsidy for the Russian space program. We need to pull the plug now, since the Russians are making loads of cash off their hydrocarbon sales, and selling rifle factories and advanced fighters to Venezuela.

But we won't.