Plans for International Space Station Cut Back

Sajma writes "Reuters is reporting: NASA and its space partners on Friday approved a scaled-down International Space Station with fewer astronauts and less science so the United States can meet a 2010 deadline for ending shuttle flights, a top NASA official said. Space agencies in Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan gave unanimous approval to a NASA plan that means the orbiting platform, now about half completed, will never become the beehive of scientific and commercial research once envisaged."

Comments

NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[LostCluster]

There's a term in Washinton DC that comes straight into play here. "Unfunded mandate". When a government agency is told it has to do something it doesn't presently do, and not given a matching budget increase to cover the cost of that task, it's a big problem.

One of two things has to happen.
A: Existing programs are going to get slashed in order to move the money from existing projects to fund the new one.
B: The mandated project isn't going to go very well due to having not enough funding to get it done right.

While Democrats get accused of being "tax and spend" types at times, the Bush Administration seems to have taken on a "forget to tax but spend anyway" policy. NASA's budget just doesn't match its assignments right now, and that's what's leading to half-baked projects coming out of there.

NASA's got to get the shuttle program that's currently grounded back on its feet, meanwhile the Hubble Telescope is in need of a scheduled service visit and the IIS isn't completed yet. On top of that, Bush wants them working on a people to Mars project they didn't ask for. The Mars request didn't exactly come with a budget attached...

Would you like your taxes low or would you like NASA funded properly? It doesn't seem like you can have both.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[zors]

Would you like your taxes low or would you like NASA funded properly? It doesn't seem like you can have both.

Does it really have to be an either/or question? Couldn't we cut funding for something else, like say nuclear weapons research/maintenance, ( i mean we could get rid of the nukes, not just stop taking care of them.)? Just get rid of ICBMs all together, i mean, is it all that important that we be able to kill someone in 4 hours instead of 8 hours with a nuclear cruise missile?

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[lphuberdeau]

At least the station could be used to test the durability of the components, and humans, on orbit. They also learned that there was a great deal of maintenance to be made and that all the experiments that were planned in the first place simply were not realistic. It's closer to a space survival crash course than a scientific facility since 60% of the work time in space has to be spent to make sure everything is in order. It's quite sad they have to reduce the size of the project, but still, not everything is lost. Space science really improved with the project and all that knowledge will remain for others. The engineering work that has been made is simply amazing.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Bloodmoon1]

Wholly agreed. I believe (Not 100%, but pretty sure and don't feel like checking right now.) NASA's budget this year is something like $15.7 Billion, and I know next year it's getting scaled back to $15.1. But it's more or less been mandated they come up with a new shuttle, fix the current fleet to some degree, and keep the ISS and any other projects flying on the little bit of change they have left.

Meanwhile, the DOD gets about $400 Billion a year, to put the above into perspective. And I believe our national budget is something like $3 trillion.

In short, lately, our policy here in the U.S., the nation that put mankind on the moon with the support of basically the whole country only 35 years ago, is, "Fuck Space".

I mean, it's not like we'll ever need to leave Earth or anything. Without question, our star will last forever, and our planet will always been inhabitable.

Right?...

Right?

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup - NASA. I love the Space Program. As a kid I had astronauts on my walls and lots of Estes model rocket kits. But one thing we need to realize is that NASA is partially a valid science program and partially an ornamental nod to "science". Now science programs have always been the red-headed stepchild of the administration (though this particular administration takes it to new levels), but NASA is the figurehead for "science".

I.e., other programs may suffer, and suffer greatly. But whenever the administration is accused of failing children by not promoting science, they send a chunk of cash to NASA and the defense, er.. space program and can then claim support of science on their annual glossies.

With hundreds of billions of dollars ($650 billion, most recently) going to Defense it's very to difficult to understand why a few hundred million is cut from the budgets to smaller research programs. And I'm not saying a few hundred million to *one* program, but rather, the *entire* budget for all smaller research programs is in the hundreds of millions. You think Microsoft is evil?

So we again cut science budgets -- not only because it clashes with the President's ideologies -- but because it just doesn't add any value to some defense contractor's stock portfolio. On top of that we make the deficit huge, in the *trillions* of dollars. Our kids are going to love us.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Nurgled]

That's true of everything, including things that most consider a lot more important than NASA.

I live in the UK, so there's no NASA to worry about funding. However, it really annoys me when, in the run-up to elections, the political parties start talking about reducing taxes, amongst other things. If the system was running perfectly and there was a funding surplus, I'd say cutting taxes is a good idea, but while hospitals continue to close and downsize, and education funding drops through the floor, we either need to raise taxes or optimise the systems that are in place.

I hear that there are over ten managers per patient in national health service hospitals here. I also see schools wasting money on computers that are five times faster than mine just to run Microsoft Office. The money's going to the wrong places. Either refocus the existing money or increase tax. Those are the only solutions.

This applies to NASA in the US, too. I wish voters would think it through and realise that, until we've got the system working properly, tax decreases are a bad thing, and that they should vote for parties which don't claim they are going to cut tax. That's the problem with allowing everyone to vote, though, I guess!

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it really have to be an either/or question? Couldn't we cut funding for something else, like say nuclear weapons research/maintenance, ( i mean we could get rid of the nukes, not just stop taking care of them.)

The nuclear genie is out of the bottle and here to stay, and there is NO WAY that we should give up our nuclear systems while certain elements of the third world continue to work on theirs. In addition, if Russia happens to fall back into an ultranationalist stance we could be in trouble there.

If you want to cut something, cut the NON-WORKING anti-ballistic missile system that's supposedly going to cost 60 billion dollars. The system testing to date of the aforementioned is so contrived it isn't even funny. I've worked defense contracts just long enough to smell bullshit at 10 miles away.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[USAPatriot]

Umm...the US has been working to bring down its nuclear stockpile for a long time. Here's a chart showing just that.

And there will be even less nukes in the coming years.

And yes, it is fairly important to be able to nuke somebody before they can nuke us. The US has enemies, and defending America is the top priority of the US Government. Space travel isn't the big concern most Americans have today.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[jabberjaw]

Does it really have to be an either/or question?
Yes. If you want cool stuff, you have to pay for it.
Couldn't we cut funding for something else, like say nuclear weapons research/maintenance, ( i mean we could get rid of the nukes, not just stop taking care of them.)? Just get rid of ICBMs all together, i mean, is it all that important that we be able to kill someone in 4 hours instead of 8 hours with a nuclear cruise missile?
No, we cannot cut funding for nuclear weapons research/maintenance. You are lying to yourself if you believe that anyone in Washington would consider purging nuclear weapons from our arsenal. As for cutting maintenance funding, surely you jest. From what I have gathered (though I could be wrong) we really do not know too much about how nuclear weapons age, thus cutting the funding for those who research this would be most unwise.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Waffle Iron]

One of the main reasons that we built so many nukes is that they are actually very cheap compared to conventional forces of similar capacity. This especially applies to the defensive posture. We don't need to pay for large expensive standing armies stationed in the U.S. to fend off possible invasions because we could simply nuke an invading country instead. Similarly, Russia has been able to remain a major world power even as it went through a nearly total collapse of its economy because they were able to maintain their nukes with what money they had.

If all nukes magically disappeared one day, world military spending would almost certainly dramatically increase as nations rushed to build up their conventional defensive forces.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Chordonblue]

If you're an ABB fanatic, NOTHING Bush does is worthy, EVERYTHING is his fault.

The truth is closer to the fact that NO administration (Republicrat or Demican) has full control over anything anymore. Congress pushes in bloated bills with a bunch of crap no one wants - except maybe one line item. And yet, if a president doesn't sign for it he'll be accused of killing babies.

What REALLY should happen is the president should explain how much pork went into each bill - what he approves of and what he does not. The problem is BOTH sides play this game and as usual, there is simply no leadership skills involved...

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical American paranoia - you realize you have TENS OF THOUSANDS of warheads? You would be able to obliterate North Korea if you gave up 95% of your arsenal. This is why your country is so screwed up - no amount of killing power is ever enough to settle the raging paranoia and projected violence of your ultranationalists.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Bloodmoon1]

Oh please, you cant honestly think this is a viable thing to hold against the bush administration do you? that in 3 billion years when our star collapses we won't be able to escape?

At what point did I say a damn thing about the Bush admin.? Seriously. Go back, and quote where the fuck I said, "Bush is cutting NASA's budget." Go on, go and find it. Wait, you can't, because you're trying to drag presidential politics into a discussion that has nothing to do with them, you partisan moron.

While I personally think Bush is more or less a puppet to special interests and some trully fucked up individuals, I can't blame him in the slightest for this. I actually think his policy towards space is the best thing he's done in his presidency. He advocates spending MORE money on NASA, boosting their budget by $2 bil./year for the next several years and letting them build things like lunar bases and make trips to Mars. While expensive projects, the guy has his shit together on space. However, things like NASA funding (and, for that matter, basically all other federal funding) are ultimitely decided by Congress. The president can put in his say, but Congress holds the purse strings.

Now, junior, that is how you would refute my statement had I said, "Bush hates space!". Which I didn't. Which is why to me at least you just look retarded. Don't read things that aren't there, you'll save us all a lot of time.

As for the planet thing, arent you overstating the problem some?

No, I'm not. I didn't say it would not be inhabitable tomorrow or in 10 years or anything that soon. Just that someday, possibly though our own actions, possibly though just some act of nature, for whatever reason, our planet will become uninhabitable. Simple as that. Sooner or later, it will happen, and if we fail to be off of this rock by then, we're just some ruins for a more advanced civilization to find. That's it, end of story. Humanity is done. And while $600,000 million to NASA one way or the other won't be the deciding factor, it just serves as a sign to show people don't really grasp the above fact. Space isn't a curiosity, it's a necessity for all of Humanity. Perhaps it's not the most pressing need today, but one day, it will be and we had damn sure better be ready by then, and it's never to soon to get to cracking on it.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[smchris]

Does it really have to be an either/or question? Couldn't we cut funding for something else,

Not to bring up the elephant standing in the room or anything, but we _are_ occupying a (now) hostile foreign country larger than California and paying for that on future debt. (And half-ass occupying Afghanistan, which is somewhat less than twice the size of California).

Maybe we should cut local government some more? Like fire, police, schools, libraries? "Spare money" was back in the Clinton surplus. The U.S. doesn't have "spare money" now.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll never stop hating them for spitting in the eye of the boy emperor, will you? He said, "this is MY world", and they said "Fuck You" (with a French accent, of course). Forever after, you'll hate them for that. Funny part is that for the rest of the world, what the French did was quite heroic and inspiring.

Come to think of it, they specifically DIDN'T surrender to your warped and selfish will. Maybe that's the real origin of the surrender meme, what? Mutated and projected as Americans are wont to do, natch.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[runlvl0]

we are occupying a (now) hostile foreign country larger than California and paying for that on future debt. (And half-ass occupying Afghanistan, which is somewhat less than twice the size of California)

So, when do we get around to actually occupying California? (Almost the size of California.)

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Pierce]

Speaking as someone that is in the military reserve and prior service active duty, we are also lacking critical equipment that we need. Part of the problem is that if you save money your budget is cut by that much next year.

There is no incentive to save since the more you spend the easier it is to keep your budget or get an increase. Once your budget gets cut you have to fight like hell to get it back when the money is really needed.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Goonie]

They also learned that there was a great deal of maintenance to be made and that all the experiments that were planned in the first place simply were not realistic. It's closer to a space survival crash course than a scientific facility since 60% of the work time in space has to be spent to make sure everything is in order.

That's incorrect. As I understood it, the reason why there's never any time for science is that he ISS was intended to have a crew of six people. If there were actually six people up there, the maintenance burden would stay the same, but you'd have three extra people to do science. Why did the ISS never have a six person crew? Because the six-person escape vehicle never got built.

And as for all the wonderful science that was to be done on the ISS - as I understand it there isn't any great clamor from actual scientists for it. How many screams from the scientific community have you heard about the ISS scale-down, compared with the huge outcry about the Hubble?

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Zeinfeld]

Does it really have to be an either/or question? Couldn't we cut funding for something else, like say nuclear weapons research/maintenance,

Or the $250 billion spent so far on the Iraq war with another $250 billion or so that is going to have to be spent if we want to prevent Iraq being essentially annexed by Iran.

If you look at the federal budget most of it is eaten up by so-called entitlements. The government has to pay pensions, social security, medicare, medicaid come what may and there is not much that can be done to reduce that. Those retirees in Florida are not going to allow their pensions to be cut.

The rest of the budget divides into roughly two halves, military spending and the rest, that is education, health, transport, energy, farm subsidies, corporate welfare, state aid etc.

The military budget itself consists of roughly two halves which we can call the defense budget and the political/corporate welfare budget. The defense budget is the stuff that actually has some military purpose. The political/corporate welfare budget is the bases that are only kept open to keep the local senator happy, weapons systems that the army does not want, planes that the airforce has not asked for and so on.

There are still plenty of $700 hammers and $1,200 toilet seats, in Iraq Haliburton took the spare tires off the brand new Mercedes trucks it was using, when they got a flat tire they just abandoned the truck. Cost plus you know... But the 168 billion overcharged on the fuel contract only shows what happens when they know the administration is deliberately turning a blind eye. The same thing goes on in the US on pretty much every cost plus contract, just not quite to the same extent.

Padding out the military budget with pork is a bipartisan consensus. There are a handful of folk willing to stand up to the waste. John McCain being one of the few, ever since Goldwater the folk in Arizona have not been impressed by polticians who bring back pork anyway.

There was a lot of silly speculation about Kerry choosing McCain as his VP candidate. I don't think it was ever seriously considered. McCain knows he has much more influence as a Senator wielding a swing vote than a VP with a competent President. There is only one job that I think would persuade McCain to leave the Senate and that is the only job that only he can do, Secretary of defense.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[3263827]

If you want to cut something, cut the NON-WORKING social welfare system that's already cost over $1 trillion since the inception of Johnson's Great Society. The system testing to date of the aforementioned is so contrived it isn't even funny.

Me? I'd prefer to keep our robust defense capabilities.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[djmurdoch]

"in 3 billion years when our star collapses we won't be able to escape?"

When do you propose we start thinking about the problem? 2.99 billion years from now?

No, I figure a thousand years should be long enough to work this out. So let's wait 2.999999 billion years.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[drinkypoo]

While we could get a lot of money by curtailing our military endeavors, we could also get plenty by ending the war on drugs, and we could get even more by legalizing some of them (not the same thing as ending the war on drugs, which would be decriminalization, a dubious term at best, kind of like "war on drugs") and taxing them as tobacco is taxed. Half the price of your pack of smokes or more is taxes. This is true of some other things, like gasoline, as well.

We spend a bit over US$40B (yes, billion) on the unwinnable war on drugs. If I were in charge, right after I gave all the idiots a brand new religion, I'd end the war on drugs and split that money between the space program and drug rehab services.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[DerekLyons]

In short, lately, our policy here in the U.S., the nation that put mankind on the moon with the support of basically the whole country only 35 years ago, is, "Fuck Space".

Unsurprising. Before Nov 22, 1963 the countries attitude was essentially "Fuck Space".

The Apollo program got the national support it did, not because it was a bold leap, but because it created a black eye for the Russians and as a monument to a slain President. Even that support didn't last too long. NASA's peak budget was in 1967, and dropped steadily thereafter. Saturn V production was halted in 1968. Congress was cancelling moon landings in May of 1969 [1], before we had even landed for the first time! . By Apollo 12 (the second landing), people were complaining to TV stations when their favorite programs were pre-empted for mission coverage.

[1] In some ways the cancellations of Apollo's 16 and 18 (the missions were subsequently re-numbered) were good things as the one of the Saturn V's already aquired for them became Skylab, and one of the CSM's flew Apollo-Soyuz. (Yes, you read that right. Congress cancelled missions for which the hardware had already been built and paid for, all to save $20-50 million in operational costs.) Two additional missions were later cancelled, their CSM's flew in Skylab, and their Saturn V's became the infamous lawn ornaments at JSC and KSC.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[DerekLyons]

So we again cut science budgets -- not only because it clashes with the President's ideologies -- but because it just doesn't add any value to some defense contractor's stock portfolio. On top of that we make the deficit huge, in the *trillions* of dollars. Our kids are going to love us.

It's pretty sad when somewho claims to support the space program allows *his* ideology to get in the way of the facts.

The budget under discussion is the product of *Congress*, not the Administration. The President that you revile as not supporting science has threatened to veto the NASA budget unless science funding is restored.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[mindstormpt]

And yes, it is fairly important to be able to nuke somebody before they can nuke us. The US has enemies, and defending America is the top priority of the US Government.

Nobody would guess. I'd even say the main concern of the US government is making new enemies.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Zeinfeld]

One of the main reasons that we built so many nukes is that they are actually very cheap compared to conventional forces of similar capacity.

The bulk of them date from the Eisenhower administration. They built lots of them because thats what you did during the McCarthy years. Claiming there was a strategy to it is to vastly over-rate the process. Kennedy beat Nixon using the 'missile gap' issue, when they came into office they discovered the gap was real and vastly in favor of the US.

There was a certain amount of re-engineering that went on under Reagan and many warheads were remanufactured for newer missiles. In the process the number of warheads increased. But this was part of a strategy of putting pressure on the USSR to stop its attempts to expand as it had in Afghanistan and as far as the Reaganites were concerned Nicaragua.

Reagan was not building nuclear missiles because he thought they were actually going to be of any military value. If the Soviets were building nukes the money could not be going to build tanks, rifles etc which were the weapons that their proxies were buying. So actually the attraction of building nukes was the exact opposite to the one stated.

In the event the Soviets were much much weaker than Reagan and his advisers realized. If you think through the intended consequence of forcing the Soviets to produce more nukes this makes no sense at all if you think the Soviets are on the brink of collapse. Unless that is you think that they wanted large numbers of nukes to end up in the hands of the splinter states. Equally Star wars was at best a psychological factor since the Soviets never made a significant effort to even develop counter measures. Thatcher was telling Gorbachev at the time not to be worried about it because 'as a chemist I know it won't work'.

The weapon that really brought down the Soviet Union was the stinger missile, a conventional weapon that brought down the Soviet helicopter gunships. The Stingers tipped the balance in favor of the mujahadein.

Incidentally, the blowback theories peddled that Bin Laden was a CIA agent are somewhat off base. Bin Laden was the primary conduit for Saudi funding of the rebels. There was never any reason for the CIA to pay him, or for him to need CIA funds.

There is an example of the blowback theory though. Before the invasion the KGB quickly came to the conclusion that the soviet backed communist revolution was not going to last long. They tried to persuade 'the great teacher' that he had to lay off the religious persecution, be more moderate etc. to no effect. So they organized a coup to replace him with his main rival in the party. After a few months the KGB decided their replacement was showing too many signs of acting independently so they spread a few rumours that he was a CIA agent. About six months later they started to get word from their local spies that the guy was an american agent, which as it happened was completely untrue, the KGB were just hearing the rumors they had planted themselves. The Soviet invasion was ordered on the basis of those reports - proving that its not only clueless Texans who launch disastrous invasions on the basis of bogus inteligence.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Anspen]

While the stockpile is down, it's still gigantic. Even the second link seems to be talking about a reduction to some five thousand nuclear warheads.

Also the important part isn't being able to "to nuke somebody before they can nuke us" since that only works if your the first to attack. The theoretical idea behind the massive numbers was the "assured destruction" part of mad. i.e. the ability to nuke the rest of the world not once but several times over, so that some intercepted warheads wouldn't mean survival of the enemy.

In a post cold war area, when even Russia could most likely only launch a small percentage of it's inventory it very much seems like overkill (even more so if you take into account that the most likely attackers, China and North Korea, could at best land half a dozen missiles on the continental USA.

Re:NASA's budget doesn't match its jobs.

[Rei]

First off, current federal welfare costs (TANF) are 1-2% of our federal budget. Now, if you're adding in medicare, medicaid, and social security, that's another story.

BTW, the US's social welfare system is a fraction of that found in western Europe. And wouldn't you know it, but their economies have been gaining on the US's notably since the 1970s. Go fig...

Simpsons reference

[foidulus]

"Now we will never know if ants can sort screws in space!"

Re:Never ?

[zors]

Sure, we might have the funds for a space station someday, but probably not this one. Who knows what technology will change in ten years to make whats up there difficult to modify, or what sort of international problems there will be with getting support for updating it, after it is supposed to be internation al remember.

Well...

[Jasa]

They're going to have to change the openning credits of Star Trek Enterprise now!

ISS: Bad Idea, Bad Policy, Bad Implementation

[reallocate]

>> ... beehive of scientific and commercial research ..."

I'm sure the word "beehive" never appeared in any ISS prospectus. It was, and is, a facility that lacks any single compelling reason to exist.

Except for monitoring long-duration human spaceflight (mimicing the Mir experience), little, if any, of the research conducted on ISS will make human space travel easier, safer, or cheaper. Certainly, nothing will contribute to that objective in a way commensurate with the station's outrageous cost. The station itself is only marginally engaged in space travel, since it does not go anywhere.

The ISS is the product of the ill-informed and, simply, bad space policy that began with Nixon's decision to build the compromised and targetless Space Shuttle in lieu of continuing humam space exploration.

35 Goddamn years....

[gaijin99]

Its been 35 freekin years since we walked on the moon, and look at where we are now. Its as if Colombus had come back to Spain and been told "hey, nice that you found a new continent and everything, but we'd rather sit here with our thumbs up our asses than spend the money to go there".

This is just plain pathetic. There's $135 million for the (proven to be ineffective) "abstenence education" programs, but we can't seem to find the money to maintain NASA at even minimal levels. $200 billion (and rising) for a pointless war in Iraq, but a program that could give the USA a serious strategic and scientific boost gets budget raped. $9.6 billion in tobacco subsidies over the next five years, but screw NASA?

We don't need any furthur evidence that they're smoking crack in Washington people.

35 years ago a human being walked on the moon. Today the furthest we get is Low Earth Orbit. That's bullshit, total bullshit.

Re:35 Goddamn years....

[pjt33]

Its as if Colombus had come back to Spain and been told "hey, nice that you found a new continent and everything, but we'd rather sit here with our thumbs up our asses than spend the money to go there"

Columbus was looking for a trade route; the Spanish founded colonies and traded things like gold and food; what do you think the U.S. should be mining from or growing on the moon? Or is it simply a case of colonial expansion for its own sake, now that it's not politically correct to colonise other countries on Earth?

Re:35 Goddamn years....

[Waffle Iron]

Its as if Colombus had come back to Spain and been told "hey, nice that you found a new continent and everything, but we'd rather sit here with our thumbs up our asses than spend the money to go there".

That actually might have been a better choice for Spain. As it was, in the first couple of decades they focused on hauling back as much of the New World's plentiful gold as possible. Instead of making Spain fantastically wealthy, the new glut of gold caused a crash in its value in the Old World, which was a major hit on Spain's economy.

It took many decades, even centuries, before the European contries derived truly profitable proceeds from colonization and trade in the New World.

Re:35 Goddamn years....

[marc_moore]

You're absolutely right!

Budget priorities are totally screwed up but the story you're getting is that the shuttle is too dangerous. Welcome to America, the land of the half-truth. In a little place I like to call reality, two things are true:

it's much easier to fail to invest in the future than to trim a potential voter's piece of pork today

the space shuttle is too dangerous to fly, but it is still in operation only because the geniuses in Washington have sat on their asses for the last three decades instead of developing a suitable replacement

That said, I'd bet my next paycheck that the guys and gals would would be riding in that ceramic-tile-dropping, 1970s-built tin can would rather take their chances and keep working on the ISS than sit around picking their noses waiting for our so-called representatives to remember what makes this country greate.

Re:35 Goddamn years....

[cruachan]

One thing worth remembering though is that although Columbus discovered the new world in 1492, it was still a major challenge for countries such as Britain to establish colonies there two hundred years later (Virginia for example was touch and go for some time). The analogy may be worse than that - the Vikings got to the new world four hundred years before Columbus but failed to establish any sort of colony. Much like 1969, the technology they had, while capable of getting to the new world on a once-off basis, wasn't capable of a sustained effort.

My guess is real space colonization is on hold until we do get a cheap, reliable method of getting to orbit, be that the space elevator or some other technology - and it could well be a couple of hundred years from 1969 before it's available

Re:35 Goddamn years....

[gaijin99]

Sure it is, Saddam was a vile dictator. It just isn't worth 900+ American lives, $200+ billion, and shitcaning all the goodwill that 9/11 brought the USA. On the scale of evil dictators, Saddam ranked somewhat below Al Bashir (current dictator of Sudan), but above Samuel Doe (former dictator of Lybia) [1]. The Bush government's fixation on Saddam is purely political, nastier dictators exist, as do greater threats to the US (N. Korea, for example).

I was opposed to the war in Iraq (still am, actually, but right now I don't see how the US can ethically withdraw), not out of any love for Saddam, but on the grounds that it was distracting resources from more important threats.

[1] That is, on a scale of vileness, Al Bashir is more vile, while Doe was less vile.

Re:35 Goddamn years....

[evilviper]

So you don't consider Saddam planning attacks in the US [cnn.com] a threat?

Not if it's:

A) Not true
&
B) Beyond his capabilities

Saddam could only do the equivalent of hitting us with pointy sticks. Weapons inspections were taking place in Iraq as well. It was completely moronic to go to war when inspectors were finally back in, rather than letting them continue.

Also, 100% of all of the evidence used to justify the war was bullshit, and everyone, everywhere, knew it was bullshit before we invaided. ABC news even had a nice little 10 minute line-up of all the evidence (just after Bush issused his 48 hour ultimatum, several days before the war) and one-by-on listed all the evidence, and listed all the discrediting evidence from impartial, reliable sources as well (mainly the UN).

It's a bad platform in a useless orbit.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Station is just too compromised. The decision to bring the Russians in was a nice geopolitical gesture, but their hardware requires too much maintenance (to say nothing of the fact that they stole at least half the money we sent them), and NASA had to shift the station's orbit to be able to recieve rockets from Kazakhstan, making it useless for future interplanetary injections.

Done well, it could have been an incredible asset. But it wasn't done well.

What's the fucking point, then?

[phillymjs]

If they're going to hobble the project so severely, why even keep it at all? Just deorbit the damn thing and maybe we can all get a free taco out of it-- I think that'd be a better return than what we're currently getting for all our tax money that was poured into the ISS.

~Philly

It's finally come to this...

[east coast]

Thank God for Scaled Composites. Laugh if you want by this type of Washington dickering may very well setup the type of environment we need to bring more private industry into the picture.

It's just a shame that some of NASA's problems are probably nothing more than politics over practicality.

What a waste...

[FridayBob]

What an incredible waste. Not that working on the ISS sounds as exciting as setting up bases on the Moon and Mars, but think of all the money and effort that's already been invested in the ISS. It hasn't really even begun to pay off and it's already being dumped! What's worse is that I don't see the Moon/Mars mission happening anyway -- it's going to cost too much. After all, from a political point of view, there's really no point (except in the short term for George Bush). So, if ultimately Congress does not cough up the money for this project, then what will we be left with? Not much: no mission, no shuttle and no ISS. Great. One step forward, two steps back.

Orbiting Space Barge of Death?

[Migraineman]

Mir had been called that at one point, but I think Mir had much more value (and economy) than the ISS. Perhaps we could call the ISS the "Orbiting Space Boondoggle of Death." Barges have a use, after all. The ISS could have been useful, but the reality is that it doesn't *do* anything. I take that back ... it does one thing - it provides a function for the Space Shuttles. So the Shuttles and the ISS are locked in a perpetual self-sustenance loop, one supporting the other, for the sole purpose of maintaining the other's existence. Not a good thing.

While folks may note like ELVs, they're the most economical method for putting payloads into orbit. You aren't carrying around all the Shuttle mass just for the purpose of being able to fly it back.

If we expect to maintain any kind of space presence, our launch structure needs to split the hyu-mohn function apart from the cargo function. Haul the ugly bags of mostly water up in a vehicle designed specifically for that purpose, and only on missions requiring the hyu-mohn presence. Everything else goes up in unmanned vehicles. Screw the "reusable" cargo transport. It's less expensive to build the base vehicle for each launch. The crew transport could be reusable, maybe, but should be optimized for crew functions.

Unfortunately, there's a huge industry that's built up around supporting the Shuttle infrastructure. They're not going to let go of the cash cow without a fight.

Not accurate

[ncaHammer]

This article states that

Bill Gerstenmeier, space station director at NASA, said that if the shuttle started flying again in the spring, as planned, construction would resume in earnest on the half-built station, with the Japanese and European modules going up as early as 2007. Crews could expand from three to six members as early as 2009, he said, depending on construction at the station and positioning a second, three-person Soyuz rescue craft there.

NASA may retire but that will make

some room in the United States' Destiny science module for experiments would be used for a support system to regenerate water and air. Mr. Gerstenmeier said some displaced capacity would move to room in partners' modules where the United States has rights.

We used to have fire but the inventor died

[gelfling]

Why even get out of bed in the morning - what's the point? Oh wait I forgot - these are the people who won't do stem cell research that could cure Parkinson's, diabetes and a host of other horrible diseases because some psychochristians think it's a sin.

staying alive

[bcrowell]

The crew of the ISS basically spends almost all their time doing the work they need to do in order to stay alive. In terms of science, the ISS is a complete waste.

a scaled-down International Space Station with fewer astronauts and less science
Less than zero?

The huge successes are the uncrewed probes, like Cassini and the Mars rovers. Budget cuts to the ISS are good news for space science, because that means more might be left over for projects that actually do science.

Bigelow Aerospace inflatable habitats

[FleaPlus]

Thankfully Bigelow Aerospace is working on inflatable space habitats (using former TransHab technology). They'll start in-space tests next year, on the maiden flight of SpaceX's (ultra-cheap) Falcon V rocket. With any luck we'll have a privately funded ISS-equivalent in a few years anyways, for a fraction of the cost.

Scientifically useless from day 1

[senahj]

There was never any real scientific rationale for the ISS.
It was always a political project in search of justification.

Cassini is significant science. NEAR Shoemaker was significant.
The Mars rovers are significant. Galileo was significant.
Hubble is significant. Stardust is significant.

The ISS is a waste of money.
Bush's "Man on Mars" directive is more of the same, in spades.

Re:Scientifically useless from day 1

[roalt]

The ISS is a waste of money.

Correction: Building a space station for 7-9 persons where 2 of them are required to operate the station itself, and the other assigned to do research, and then cutting the persons on board down to 2 is a waste of money...

Re:Scientifically useless from day 1

[senahj]

Even with a full crew, the ISS is scientifically useless.
Too much vibration, orbit too low (so the shuttle can reach it).
Not a good enough vacuum.

NASA had to browbeat scientists into making up some sort of
experiments that could be done there. No important science
was _ever_even_proposed_.

---
He's no fun -- he fell right over.

NASA's budget is HUGE!

[MG]

Comparing NASA's $15.7 billion to the DOD $400 billion is the wrong comparison. Everything looks small compared to defence.

The budget for the National Institutes of Health is about 30 billion. They fund most of the basic biomedical research. Every university biology department in the US runs off this money.

The budget for the National Science Foundataion is about 6 billion. They fund most of the physical science and mathematical research in the US. They also pay for telescopes and most of the real space research.

In contrast NASA's budget gets us a pointless space station, a broken space shuttle and a few (very expensive) inter-planetary probes. (For example, Cassini cost 3 billion dollars!)

The Real Problem is

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1961, when shit wasn't invented yet and people fought bears for vital food, President Kennedy had the balls to give NASA less than nine years to get to the moon.
In this day and age, when there's metric shitloads of technology all over the place and the internet makes valuable porn as free as air, President Bush gives a trip to mars seventeen years. What a tool.

See, Kennedy had the balls to lay a firm deadline down. "You bitches will put a man on the moon before January 1, 1970 or I will come back from the grave and kick your ass," he said. He knew he was going to get shot. That's how hardcore he was. He also got crazy laid by Marilyn Monroe.

President Bush says, "You ought to think about just possibly putting a man on the moon sometime during this five year period."

President Kennedy showed us that you have to slap NASA around a little bit to get them to do anything worthwhile with manned space exploration. You can't be all lovey-dovey and set long gradual timetables.

And Bush mentions "the goal of living and working there for increasingly extended periods." So we'll have another Skylab ISS, but on the moon. The only differences will be that it won't crash into Australia like Skylab (it will crash into the Moon instead - that might sound hard to acheive since it would already be on the surface of the moon, but they will find a way to do that), it will leak more than ISS, and since it won't even be international we won't be able to bum rides from the Russians.

If Kennedy was alive in this day and age he would have said, "Fucking NASA, I am still alive in this day and age so you assholes better have a self-sufficient Mars base by the year 2013. Also make me a space elevator. And resurrect Marilyn Monroe." Then NASA would complain that it is not their job to resurrect people and Kennedy would punch NASA in the eye.

I bet the "Crew Exploration Vehicle" thart they are working on is going to blow the fuck up about twenty times too. You can probably trace the suckiness of manned space exploration to the decision to switch from cool names like "Mercury" and "Apollo" to crappy names like "Skylab" and "STS." When the Apollo blew up they fucking fixed it and came home, but when the Space Shuttle gets fucked up they make Powerpoints about it and ignore the problem.

If we have a space elevator...

[CaroKann]

If we have a space elevator, then why do we need a space station? Wouldn't the top of the space elevator also serve as a space station?

I think the worlds limited resources are best spent on the space elevator, since that effort might give us an economical way of getting to space.

ISS is a technological dead end

[code_rage]

If the goal of the human spaceflight program is to go to the Moon and Mars, why should we continue work on ISS at all? The two physiological problems of space exploration (bone demineralization and radiation) are poorly addressed by ISS.

We already know that microgravity is bad for bones. What about 1/6 G (the level of Lunar surface gravity)? If that is also unhealthy then we will definitely need more physiological research, but if 1/6 G is sustainable than it seems that the right answer is to use tethers to spin up that level of gravity.

Radiation is the other big problem. But unless I'm way off base here, the level and character (energy spectrum) of radiation in Low Earth Orbit is very different from that outside the Earth's magnetosphere. If you want to study deep space radiation, go to deep space (initially with petri dishes full of bio-goo, then small animals, etc).

The objection I have is spending another 6 years and $50B to complete ISS, when the only scientific rationales are poorly addressed by ISS. The only rationale that makes "sense" is that we're doing it to avoid angering the international partners on ISS, who have invested big bucks in equipment that is nearly ready for launch.

But this is a poor rationale. I think our partners would be just as pleased to work on the Moon-Mars program as on a technological dead end. So what we really wind up with is that this is nothing more than a jobs program and pork barrel for big aerospace firms.