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International Space Station Turns Two
RedWolves2 writes "Today is ISS's second anniversary of Operations. Two years ago today NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev first boarded the ISS. In two years the station has grown to more then 200,000 pounds and has had 112 visitors."
Yes, maybe - but imagine that it took over an half century of space travel to get these guys working together. Ofcourse it is better now that 3 years ago - but just think if for example US and USSR could have co-operated before the USSR space program and the whole country collapsed. We would be much more far away now.
***plug: Here's an analysis of the slashdot effect.
If we hope to ever estabilish a permanent moon base or go to Mars (or beyond) we will certainly be building upon the lessons learned in constructing the ISS (pun inteneded).
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
You wouldn't want to live in a space station for 10 years and go back to earth to find out your bones have dissolved, because you didn't need them.
zero gravoty might sound fun, but it's a killer in the long term
Also, if we had started earlier(before the collapse) then the USA would not have to be paying for the vast majority of the Russian cost.
At least at one point in 2001, NASA estimated America's portion of the ISS cost to be US$100bn (i.e. how much America will have spent when the station is completed). Let's suppose nasa is wrong, and that it is actually triple that, US$300bn.
GW Bush's propsed 2003 military budget is US$378bn, which is something like US$43bn more than last year.
And what do we have to show for our military spending? We successfully (?) bombed Serbia during peace-time. The Pentagon couldn't even protect itself from relatively slow-moving passenger aircraft, even when given a 30 minute warning. We bombed the hell out of Afghanistan, including first aid warehouses and wedding parties, and it appears that terrorist organizations still have the upper hand.
At least with the space station there are many nations *talking* and *cooperating* to at least some extent. That is, ISS does much more to make friends than the B2 stealth bomber does.
Why do we spend so much money to protect ourselves from enemies when making friends is so cheap? I think the ISS is a damn good investment.
-Paul Komarek
If Bill Clinton had done his job as President, the attacks on the US would not have happened (at least not in 2001). Bill Clinton drastically cut the US military budget. It will take years for the military to recover from that. Thus, it is outrageous for you to blame Bush's 2003 budget for the 2001 attack.
While it is true that $270 billion is drastically less than $380 billion, it does not necessarily follow that $270 billion is insufficient.
Unless it can be demonstrated that another $100 billion would have prevented the destruction of the towers, the point stands.
George's current buget is simply the most recent figure in a long line of military bugets that can best be summarized by the word "large". I think you read too much into the fact that the quoted value was for the current budget.
The enemies of Democracy are
you have some incredibly ignorant, right-wing views, my friend. i suggest travelling outside the US and reading some books instead of swallowing CNN and US propaganda.
i lived in denmark for 6 months - it describes itself as a "socialist democracy", which could be best paraphrased as "we look after the people first". seriously, you do not see the poverty and crummy state of civil infrastructure that are commonplace in certain parts of the states, you just don't. everyone has automatic access to health care, noone starves on the streets, violent crime is incredibly low. how is that bad?
the US spends more money on defense than the next 9 in the top ten list combined. i would think that equitable access to healthcare is more important than having the most bombs, wouldn't you agree?
Sadly we now have an enormously expensive station that requires the crew to spend almost all their time maintaining it instead of doing science experiments. The amount of money spent on the station and the shuttle is so enormous that many other valuable missions have been cancelled.
If slashdot could give measurements in SI units?
This is supposed to be a reasonably technical site after all, and most other countries did away with imperial measurements years ago.
Its people like you that get mars probes crashed.