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NASA Considers Abandoning ISS
mbstone writes "MSNBC is reporting that NASA is threatening to mothball the International Space Station unless Russia coughs up its share of the money for maintenance and support missions. NASA is now making "contingency plans" to leave the station unoccupied for as long as a year. What I want to know is, why a contingency plan? Didn't NASA already have a plan in place? Are U.S. taxpayers going to pay millions extra to develop new mothballing equipment and procedures that could have been designed-in at far less cost?? Also, I would be glad to house-sit, I use very little oxygen."
It would be a great shame to lose the manned presence in space, even if the amount of research they have been able to do is heavily restricted by having a very small crew up there at any one time. The crew is limited by the size of the escape module - currently a Soyuz. It looks like it'll be 2012 by the time the planned NASA replacement escape craft is ready, so they're going to have to come up with something different in the meantime, or the ISS isn't going to fulfil anywhere near it's potential for research.
Paul.
"What if they're using IE?" "I've dumbed Mozilla down to cope with it." - BOFH
Evict the Russians if they are not willing or able to pay,
Unfortunately, it's the Russians that provide the Soyuz spacecraft (the only means for escape if soemthing goes wrong) and the unmanned Progress spacecraft. The ISS could not operate without either of these (especially the Soyuz).
Yet Another Web Site
If it was not for the Soyuz that's attached there now, the ISS would not be inhabited at this time. What do they want now, have the Russians cough up a second Soyuz, so at least a crew of six could stay, because they are not up to their part of the CRV?
And by the way, this is no treat at all for the Russians, they were the first to suggest this, when NASA started complaining about the CRV.
The Space Station's Cost
INITIAL DESIGN PAPERWORK -- $10 billion
HARDWARE -- $25 billion
SHUTTLE SERVICING COSTS -- $20 billion
MAINTENANCE -- $41 billion
YEAR 2001 COST OVERRUN (disclosed immediately AFTER the presidential election of 2000): $5 billion.
Scrap the Shuttle Program
documents how the USA slipped to just 29% of the world's launch market share in the year 2000, even though we had 48% of it in 1996, and apparently all of it the decade before.
How did this happen if NASA has a larger space budget than all other civilian space agencies combined, as well as its Congressional mandate to: "seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space"? How did some countries evolve from non-players in space two decades ago into dominant commercial players today?
Perhaps NASA should build a "Sea Station" 1000 feet below the sea and use submarines to take foreigners and other salaried government tourists on "missions" to conduct "experiments" and set "endurance records" while "improving international relations". This idea may seem crazy, but it would be much cheaper than the shuttle program and accomplish just as much.
Imagine what could happen if the $4 billion a year and 30,000 shuttle experts were diverted to R&D?
I just can't help but feel the whole ISS and Shuttle Programs are a waste of money. I'm much rather see NASA's time and money spent researching other ways of getting into space.
I did a quick websearch -- Nasa had a page up (which has since disappeared), but there are copies floating around out there. Interesting reading though.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Vacuum only acts as an insulator as far as conduction of heat is concerned. You will still radiate away all of your heat, and pretty quickly too, though probably not as quickly as you would asphyxiate.
-aiabx
Just this guy, you know?
You will not explode in a vacuum, provided you exhale before depressurization. In space, you would remain concious for about 10 seconds (this happened to one person who was accidentally depresurized during training.) and you would live for about 2 minutes. It takes a long time for the blood in all of your tiny little capillaries to boil off and cause swelling, long enough for you to die of asphyxiation before you have to worry about that.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.