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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."
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.
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.
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.