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International Space Station: Canada to the Rescue?
Apostata writes "The following story from the Globe and Mail outlines a proposal of the head of the Canadian Space Agency to seek renewed funding for the recently stripped-down NASA budget for the ISS. He makes an interesting point that - contrary to the belief that the ISS is a NASA brainchild/braintrust - many countries have poured $billions$ into it's development and should thus have a say in whether there should be any cutbacks.
Read all about it here."
Actually, I meant to say what I did. You infer via paranoia that I'm implying that there's only one currency in the world and that it's all a plot to subjugate your philosophy...which has nothing to do with the subject of the article or outer-space in general.
For the record, I'm Canadian. Get stuffed.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
I can think of two simple benefits off the top of my head.
;) )
First, you can have experiments that are easily monitored, altered, and corrected. It's probably cheaper to have an astronaut do the work than to design (and pay for the lift of) the mechanics to do so.
Second, by having experiments inside the permanent structure of the station, you don't need to reproduce the wheel every time you send up an experiment (shielding for radiation and dust, airtight containment, temperature control, etc etc). The station provides all that.
A lot of this could be done with the shuttle - but only as long as it doesn't take too long. I think the max time on orbit for a shuttle is only a couple of weeks, but I'm probably way off. Using the station, you can run a three month long experiment or more... which is really handy if you're studying something like the effect of microgravity on successive generations bred and raised in it.
(As an aside, how they get the mice to have sex in zero g, I'll never figure out.
Although I support the efforts of the ISS and orbital research from what I've heard there is in fact not a lot of good research they can do in weightlessness. Personally I think it says something when you're accepting experiments from junior high schools to do in space that probably converts to thousands of dollars of time and resources on the part of the space agency. Does anyone know of useful research being conducted by astronauts (i.e. no Hubble or exploration vehicles) or that has been proposed?
I stole this Sig
But it's true that NASA involvement is now crucial, and on that point the decision of Congress is sovereign. If you are a US voter and you disagree with Congress's decisions on NASA funding, you know what to do.
On the bright side, I don't think space is going to go away any time soon, and not only are there still many delightful things to explore on earth, outer space itself is becoming far more accessible in the form of robot probes and orbiting telescopes.
Whilst curtailment of the ISS would be bad news for manned space flight in the short term, I don't think it would necessarily be bad news for science as a whole. There is just so much else upon which it would be at least as sensible to spend the science budget of any country.
Keeping in mind... if Slashdot WERE to post EVERY form of currency invested into the ISS, the story would be about 3 times longer than it need be.
Besides... The US Dollar IS the de facto standard on which all other currencies are compared to.
Proud to be Canadian, but mindful of the rest of the world.
Bah.
Too many people here are bashing USA, and saying "oh, we're better than USA because of *reason X* or *reason Y*"...
To those of you who are doing this, take a second and think. Are we really that much better? Do we have to take our argument to an international forum and play the patriot?
The USA, despite it's flaws, is not as bad as a lot of people think. If it was such a bad place, they'd have all moved out of there by now! Besides, the USA is where Megatokyo comes from, and it's also where a lot of anime and video games are distributed from.
And Canada HAS flaws. Sure, our Prime Minster, the Right Honourable Jean Chretien was seen choking and throwing a potential assailant... Sure, Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Chris Jericho, Alex Trebek, etc. come from Canada...
But to those who believe in the right to bear arms up here - we can't. To those who believe that we have freedom of speech? Freedom of the press? Not in Canada. The government can censor you if they so choose.
The point is: It's the holidays, friends. Break out the egg nog, or beer if you prefer, and let's celebrate life. We're friendly neighbors... why not ACT like it for a change? We should like each other despite our many flaws.
Happy Holidays to one and all.
NASA must feel like a little kid when mommy and daddy are fighting in public.
I'm on Canada's side for sure. More power to them for giving NASA and the U.S. Congress the kick in the ass they deserved. NASA is an (somewhat) unwitting overspender and Congress is right to want to reduce their funds. But a committment was made. Backing down on that committment will have an exponentially dimishing effect on the project which equals a waste of the starting investment.
And it'll make the station less neat.
-DiggsBiggly
There is nothing wrong with a good audit over NASA's budget. That budget is what a Butt Head Astronomer would describe as billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars. The Mars Climate Orbiter was just one obvious sign of NASA waste. Getting someone in the accounting field might just be able to help NASA maximize the funds it has and achieving more with the same.
Since the head of NASA is not going to greet the great beyond, he really need not be a scientist. Just someone who is effective running a massive organization funded by taxpayer dollars. As Dennis Tito has shown, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to make it into space. In fact, being good with money and budgets was what lead him to the stars.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
You're right. What we need at NASA is a grown-up Trekkie with a fire in his belly to put us on Mars in 10 years and taking day-trips to Venus in 15. Somebody who will do nothing but talk about space and space exploration, damn the cost.
You'd better be more careful in showing so much scorn, or I might figure out how many starving children the failed Climate Orbiter could have fed if those wonderful engineers of yours had excercised some form of due diligence (oooh.. a dirty, nasty accounting-type term...)
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Also, while other countries may have poured billions of dollars (US) into the project, note that even according to the article this is a small percentage. The article states that the Canadian robot arm cost $1.4 billion and gives them 2.3 % of the research space. The European module is quoted as costing the same. That means Canada and Europe, total, have 4.6% of the research space. Assuming Japan's contribution isn't vastly more expensive, or there isn't some other big player the article didn't mention, that means about 90% of the research space, and presumably the budget, came from the US.
If there were treaties to prevent the US from doing this, then the US should be constrained by them. If not, the US should at least be willing to provide use of launching facilities and shuttles at a reasonable cost. But beyond that, pay up. "He who pays the piper calls the tune"--and that includes telling him to go away. Unless otherwise negotiated, the US has no obligation to let other people piggyback their space efforts on its own.
We screw up about 90% of the money we spend on land, and only about 50% of the money we send to space. Come on it doesn't take a statistics major to realize we might as well blow it on something worth the odds :)
We've grown too lazy to actually directly care where our money goes. It goes to interest groups who we assume will put it where it's needed, which is, granted, mainly attacking small 3rd world countries.