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Space Station Partners Bicker Over Closure Date
jcdick1 writes "The current partners in the ISS are in discussion regarding the closure date of the space station, even though it still has not been fully assembled. 'The United States insists it will pull out of the station at the end of 2015 while Russia wants its life prolonged, said European Space Agency (ESA) chief Jean-Jacques Dordain at an astronautics congress in Hyderabad, southern India. NASA administrator Michael Griffin has told space station partners that the US agency has no plans for "utilization and exploitation" of the science research lab for more than five years after it is completed, Dordain said.'"
When the US withdraw, the Russians can lower it back down to earth using a rope.
The Russians and the Europeans want NASA to keep paying for the high costs of maintenance of the ISS.
There has to be somebody out there with money enough to buy this thing.
ISS hotel... Nice...
The United States insists it will pull out of the station at the end of 2015
You know, by setting a firm timetable like that, you're only emboldening the Russians.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Heck, if we can stay the course in Iraq, why can't we stay the course in low earth orbit?
This is my sig.
Okay, it'll take until 2010 to finish the station then NASA will use it only for five years before pulling out. With all due respect NASA, are you fucking nuts?
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
Makes no sense to own a beachhouse if you dont have a car (and money) to get there. Luckily the Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Russians, Europeans, Iranians,... have their own space programs.
You might have been able to put a man on the moon, but you're not able to finance a constant presence in space...Kennedy must be rotating in his grave!
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
Wow blame the republicans. I think it is more of an issue of blaming americans. We have gotten to a point where we no longer Quantify things but Mathitize things. Everything needs a solid number next to it, if not then it isn't there. So for Space we see how much it costs but not the benefit because there is little numbers attached to the benefits. The Russians who are in a far more corrupt nation then we are know the value of space travel. But we just don't we are so focused on the here and now and not to the future.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
With Bush spending it all on the War Of Futility, we're not going to have any money to send anyone to the station anyways. It shouldn't come as a shock that NASA's already trying to find some budget wiggle-room, even before Bush has departed.
if they are going to pull out what are they going to replace it with? i mean hell. if the next steps are moon and mars, you will *need* a space station in orbit.
-Nex6
According to the article, US pay 70% of the running cost of the station. Could this be a tactic to make ESA pay a larger share?
The sooner the better.
The shuttle / ISS have done only harm to the space program.
(Go read _The Hubble Wars_ if you want to see how bad it was in the 80s. And it only got worse from there).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
Lowball estimates indicate that NASA will spend $53 billion on the ISS from 1993 to the end of its life. This doesn't include the cost of maintaining the space shuttle or R&D from Space Station Freedom (the canned station from the 1980s). So the US will use the station for 5 years after completion -- and what of serious scientific value will be accomplished during that time?
The ISS isn't worth the cost. Think of the probes and orbital observatories NASA could've built using the ISS budget. Those things give us far more insight into the universe. Hell, some of the early ISS literature proclaimed the station would pay for through the leasing of "microgravity manufacturing" compartments to various companies...please.
No one should be surprised about this; the project was a waste before it even started.
But according to TFA (and other sources, such as the current Scientific American) we are focused on the future. We will be building a base on the moon, then sending men to Mars. The ISS does not play a part in these plans, and the money needed to maintain it can be made use of for these plans.
Then throw it away in 5. I can see the US pulling back from being the majority stake holder, but giving up on the station completely is retarded. Plan for a moon mission, but give up on the only space station, duh. I'd love to see what the Russians would charge if there was issues with a shuttle and the crew had to go to the space station to await a rescue mission. Oh you saved 50B (random number) by not taking part, no problem, we'll let you stay here, and send up a Soviet rocket to pick you up, for only 60B.
Err, my read was the Americans are trying to get Russia and Europe to pick up more of the tab, and using an early withdrawal as a threat. Of course the EUA is already refusing to admit it could scrape together a few more dollars. Regardless the relative financial clout between the partners has changed a lot since the Americans promised to pick up 70% of the tab.
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Personally, I (993327) have never felt so accepted in all my life. These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
More Twoson than Cupertino
OTOH (and I don't have any numbers to back this up, so it's totally a theory) ... maybe the subsidies we're providing their space program, along with money they make from space tourism to the ISS, is actually making Russia money??
I guess whatever is scheduled to replace the station isn't ready by 2015. And how many amazing discoveries have been made with old, 'obsolete' equipment?
I was wondering too if perhaps some businesses couldn't band together and help share costs with russia - perhaps a super expensive (and exclusive) B&B wouldn't be such a bad idea, along with a zero-g lab you could rent.
With NASA out of the picture you probably could save a bundle by not having quite the same strict safety standards...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If 5 years are enough for Babylon 5 and the replicators, they are enough for ISS.
The Space Shuttle program ends in 2010, and Orion won't be operational until 2015. So all station access will be limited to Russian launches for those 5 years, so how much sense does it make for NASA to continue funding it at the expense of other science and space programs?
As for 'like-a-spoiled-child-on-to-the-next-toy dept' editorial, you can always go buy your own toys if that's how you show your appreciation. Listen, we all understand that America is greater in many areas, so a little envy is expected and tolerated, but a spiteful entitlement attitude is too much, and only reveals the depth of your lack of character.
If you plan to not only go to the moon, but to setup permanent bases, then the ISS is largely irrelevant (in its current form). The ISS is complex, hard to maintain, and relatively difficult to live on. The moon, while having a few technical issues, is basically a much more sensible bit of solid ground to base yourself from. The ISS as a floating lab is very expensive - all it brings to the party is all the hassles of space (living in zero g, life support, things going wrong) and none of the benefits (resources, discovery, exploration)
Yes there is:
Solar Power Satellite
Reinventing the Solar Power Satellite
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Save Iridium, bitchez!!!
I remember Skylab falling from the sky when I was a kid... http://images.barewalls.com/closeup/j8/j8cov1101790716c.jpg So it is looking like the ISS may have the same fate?...
Well, realistically, after the ISS is complete, what can you do with it?
It's in too high an orbital inclination to be used as a way station for a lunar or mars mission.
It's too small to use for any spaced-based manufacturing, like semiconductors, specialty materials or pharmaceuticals.
It's too small for a real staff of scientists and/or engineers (who have to double as janitors anyway).
It's too small for a tourist destination (yes, I know, some "tourists" have visited).
It's already designed, so it can't be used for experimental construction techniques (like solar-power station construction, for example).
So it's really a small, very expensive, high maintenance science laboratory and I have to ask myself, except for the experience gained in building it, how many science experiments are worth the huge expense.
Wouldn't it be better to take what we learned from the ISS and use that to build a larger, easier to maintain, more versatile space station? Perhaps in a lower inclination orbit? Someplace you could do real science and manufacturing without scientists and engineers doubling as janitors?
*Sigh* Yes, I know this is NASA, they're "only" going to support the ISS till 2015. Then they'll worry about replacing it.
White-collar job security FTW!
just let all the rednecks know the US is gonna "cut and run" from the ISS and they'll demand more funding!
Well, the orbit thing worked out, since for a period of two years, the only way up there was via Soyuz.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The fact that they're spending that much proves they're NOT really Republicans.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
"Face it: The U.S. is broke."
And yet we can find money for the war.
Face it, you're an idiot. And so is the retard who modded me down
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Jules' Undersea Lodge is an underwater hotel built in what used to be La Chalup Research Laboratory, a 1970s underweater research station. Whether in the near or far future, there's bound to eventually be a market for a similar concept in space tourism.
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After we abandon it, some scrappy Chinese folks will move in and take ownership. Similar to a scenario suggested by Gibson and Sterling, but with slightly different players.
As a tax payer, they better keep it for another 30 years. Either that or NASA should start refund the tax payer money
if they only keep it for 5 years. Sheesh, some of us still own a 10 years old car. THose guy at NASA better have a lot of bake sale if they want their job
Ok, if we send people up there every now and then, it costs Nasa 2.3 billion. But just keeping it there, what does that cost? I mean, if you installed an ion propulsion system to maintain altitude, is there anything else that needs to be done?
Because the obvious answer to me seems to be that everyone puts in the money needed to just keep it in orbit, and then countries and corporations can pay to rent it for a few weeks at a time or whatever. It seems so pointless to just drop it into the sea when its done.
The Russians who are in a far more corrupt nation then we are know the value of space travel.
... space is the military high ground. To not be in space resigns oneself to being a second class military power. Given the history within Russia's living memory this is also a major consideration.
For Russia I think it is more a matter of national pride than future profit. With the collapse of the soviet union and communism several generations have little to look back upon with pride. The soviet space program is about the only prideful accomplishment that can be embraced and the current Russian space program is what remains of soviet program.
And
So it's really a small, very expensive, high maintenance science laboratory and I have to ask myself, except for the experience gained in building it, how many science experiments are worth the huge expense.
When they were planning the station everybody thought that there would be lots of ground-braking anti-gravity research done in such a station. It seemed like a good bet at the time, but that turned out not to be the case. So far very little promising research has been done generally because there have been too few good ideas that don't have a cheaper Earth-bound alternative. Its just one of those things that doesn't work out. Scientific exploration always has risks, and thus sometimes it goes sour.
I don't really blame anybody for not forcasting an idea drought.
It could be compared to spending billions building a giant super-collider and never finding any interesting particle collisions.
Table-ized A.I.
not to be a prick or anything, but quantitization precisely means to put a numerical value on something. you really are advocating a qualitative position.
oh, who the fuck am i kidding? that was totally to be a prick.
About the only good that I can see out of the entire Space Station project is that we still send people into space because of it. That's quite a fall from Kennedy's vision of space travel, regardless of politics and Cold War era posturing. Where would we be now if we had continued the vision of the politicians, astronauts and managers that put us on the moon? Mars was a discussion in the early 70s. Moon Bases. Who knows? Right now, the russians are probably more interested in keeping it working so they can keep shipping bored rich people up there as tourists. Granted, we're learning lots about space construction (probably) with it - but we would have learned it doing many other projects as well. I'm a RABID supporter of the space program, but I just can't see what we've gained by building a bus station in space (and one that wants to fall out of orbit, at that).
-- I really need to bleed off some of this
Pfft. Newbie.
I hope this is a bluff. IMO, the plasma crystal experiments alone made the whole thing worthwhile ...
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESA_Permanent_Mission_in_Russia/SEMSBDYEM4E_0.html
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
Please tell me that the ISS is in a geosynchronous orbit that won't degrade so fast that it'll be hurtling back to earth in less then 20 years. If we do have to shut it down temporarily, I don't want to have to rebuild it all over again once we get an idea to reignite our space efforts.
I remember Skylab falling from the sky when I was a kid... So it is looking like the ISS may have the same fate?
I would hope they would put ion engines on it so that it could maintain its own orbit using power from the solar panels. Or push it into a higher orbit with less atmospheric drag. But I wonder what other problems would happen if it is not manually maintained, such as massive mold growth, toxic leaks, air leaks, etc.
If they don't find a scientific use for the thing, I hope they find a commercial use. Letting it fall would be a shame.
Table-ized A.I.
Perhaps Microsoft will buy it for a server farm so they can run a cheesy promotion:
"Run IIS on ISS", the sky is not the limit for your web apps!"
They have money to burn.
Table-ized A.I.
Speaking of which: a man who called himself You-Know-Who just invited you to a secret wink-wink at the you-know-what.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
By the time the contributing nations get ready to bail on the ISS, maybe Branson will have his space tourism business started. It might make for the next logical step in that enterprise. Then again, it would be one heck of a remodel job for the ISS.
Can you think of better ways to spend a trillion dollars plus? You could double nasas budget, pick up the entire european and russian tab, and still have enough left over to fund mass wide scale deployment of a variety of new alternative energy projects, like millions and millions of solar panels, starting with every governmental building in existence, local community wind farms, etc., finish bringing broadband to the rural areas,fully fund the OLPC project so it really does get down to being a hundred bucks for a decent little machine, heck, throw in reopening a car plant or two and start pumping out some sort of Model A electric cars for the masses, run by all the new juice that would be out there. Hey, how about paying some public school math and science teachers better? how about guaranteed zero interest student loans for engineering and medical doctors?
That's what you can do with a trillion dollars and counting right now. And, they still could have taken out saddam and his sons, just offer a big enough bounty, no strings attached, some goombah over there woulda offed them skunks for a cool billion in tax free cash. Maybe some of them blackwater types might have done it, prove their macho instead of popping off iraqi peasants.
*Instead*, we've alienated half the world, we look like big stupid drunk redneck bullies, and put ourselves into multigenerational debt and destroyed the worth of the dollar and *increased* the likelihood of more "terrorism".
He and his cronies should be bashed on any thread relating to technology, politics or money, because it ain't offtopic at all.
He's a drool, man, get it? Short bus? "Special needs"? He was picked out because he's malleable and the neocon handlers ran him as their controllable spokesperson, but he went far beyond rationality and now their whole party looks like dunces and probably set back their legitimate old traditional and at least somewhat rational policies by 20 years. His administration can be summed up nicely "no bribe, crime or idiocy left behind". We got retired generals now falling out of the woodwork, breaking the traditional military "no criticism of the da chief" silence, saying essentially the same things.
One of the worst mistakes ever in US politics, letting the out to lunch looney tunes cabal of PNAC and AIPAC supporters get so much concentrated power.
Building the ISS is a step towards traveling to Mars in the same sense that going to your attic is a step towards traveling to the Moon.
early withdrawal is sloppy at best
What is going to happen is that it will be used by private enterprise. It is part of the reason why we are trying to turn the station into a national lab. But ESA and RSA are fighting that move. By threatening to withdraw from this, we are threatening to take our goods and destroy them (which we will not do). So, ESA and RSA will go along. Instead, Bigelow will almost certainly hook up one or more of their BA-330's to it, and make it useful launch point (though it still strikes me that that it is WAY too low and needs to be pushed up higher). I suspect that it will remain as a place where we test future equipment. Now, to make it truly useful, they need to restore the CAM and get it up there.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
COTS is coming along. In a year, it will be apparent as to how it works (or doesn't).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Because we have a much better space station already in the works!
Oh, wait, no we don't...
IANARS, but:
-SS Freedom was meant to be a waypoint to the moon and Mars (and as free west propaganda)
-SS Freedom was killed because Congress told NASA to get funding internationally
-Russians said OK, we'll participate, but the orbit has to change b/c it's easier for them
-Now the ISS is useless for trans-lunar b/c of different orbit, so once everyone is done with the station it will be abandoned and de-orbited
-There's a bunch of noise about going back to the moon
-If that's the case, wouldn't it be useful to just MOVE the ISS to the right orbit? Then it could be used for it's original ORIGINAL purpose, namely trans lunar waypoint. Hell, Burt Rutan should be able to reach it in a few years. Then, a very expensive asset could be reused.
Can rocket scientists tell me why this would not work?
he fucked away all our money there, now there is none for nasa you stupid fucking cock choker
By 2015, which independant company do you suppose will be ready to buy the ISS (or buy out NASA's share)?
Perhaps one of the budding private spacefaring entities will step in at that point. Maybe an announcement like this is a way to quietly urge them in that direction...
Instead of deorbiting I wonder how much it would cost to use it as a test platform for an ion drive. Doesn't MIT already have one that's been in "test mode" for a couple of years? Seems like mounting 3 or 4 drives and plotting a new orbit (higher, better positioning) would make for an excellent practical test. If it works then maybe even move to L4. If it does... well the backup plan of a controlled deorbit can always be the fall back.
Funniest ./ post ever.
After I learned about the life and death of Project Orion, I came to the conclusion that we (the US) should give up on manned space exploration.
Without cheaper, easier propulsion, and without the ability to get larger loads into space, there's really no point in it. We can keep playing with satellites and the like, but we'll never gain any economic benefits out of going to the Moon, Mars, or anywhere else. The extra weight needed to transport humans is really unnecessary.
Mankind needs to get over its fear of nuclear power. A hybrid fusion/fission Orion design would not release significant amounts of fallout into the atmosphere (especially compared to all the nuclear explosive testing done in the 50s), and who knows; perhaps after we lifted a few hundred thousand tons of equipment into orbit (and perhaps to the moon) we'll be able to build most of what we need in space, where fallout doesn't matter.
Without significant advances in propulsion technology, or a resurrection of Project Orion, there's no point to manned space exploration. We should redirect these billions to propulsion technology, or just take it out of the doomed space program altogether.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
I meant "tens of millions of tons".
The largest orion designs were for space craft upwards of a million tons. That we change our very notion of space exploration, and we could have done it with 1960s technology.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
This is worth $50B? Experiments that could have been performed in unmanned spacecraft for a couple hundred million dollars?
Never eat anything bigger than your head.
Google should invest in ISS
Who is number one? ... You are number 6.
I am not a number - I am a free man.
- From TV series "The Prisoner", also used on IronMaiden's Number of the Beast.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
> The Russians who are in a far more corrupt nation then we are
Are you sure?
Hey, we need to invade outer space. All it takes is one terrorist asteroid, and entire city is cooked. Oh the humanity! Screw the space station, what we need is for the USA to build ....
http://www.scifi.com/galactica
Battlestars!
This is my sig.
It seems that the world has been hopelessly broke since the beginning of time, yet there has always seemed to be more than enough money *everywhere* to finance mass murder.
There was a pointed editorial years ago in Science magazine that pretty much nailed the fate of the Space Station: a white elephant that consumes all resources, desperately trying to justify the last white elephant (space shuttles) instead of cutting losses and focusing on value for money. The focus of NASA should have been on new and creative ways to get things into orbit and back cheaply - a wide variety of competing small projects rather than one megaproject that becomes an intractable money sink because it can't be allowed to fail. A side effect of lots of high-risk tests is that all sorts of scientific payloads and probes could have had a shot at getting into space.
You make it sound like only Republicans waste money- oh, no- not by a long shot. Remember the huge flood, I think it was 1996, which flooded thousands of families and farms along the Mississippi River? Carol Mosley-Braun D-CA, demanded that each and every one of her constituents needed $100 each for "grooming" before she would sign the bill. I don't know where this money went...and that's a big part of the problem...but this is insane.
So was the space station. Thanks to your hero, it was launched at an attitude more favorable to the Russians, giving them the catbird seat; American shuttle launches require more fuel and time to get there. But in a 'don't rock the boat' administration, he was trying to make everyone his friend.
The key point here is that, as a Conservative since 1980, I'm no happier with my guys than you are with your pseudo-anti-war, pseudo-anti-racism, "one more vote against the Republicans and it all gets better" people. To be precise, both side suck.
There's not one member of the cast of clowns on either side that's presidential timber, only wannabes. There's not a Regan on our side, nor a Truman on yours. So let's do something that'll fix it all: term limits. No more than 20 years in any elected post, ever. It will simplify it all. Robert Byrd is about to celebrate his 59th year in Congress; the founding fathers didn't see it as a life, just a short term-or-two and go back to the man's original business.
But now the business is being run by people who *only* know the law and how to get elected...which is why Hippa, SBO, The Patriot Act, and just about every other piece of legislation is pure Vertigo. They'll do whatever it takes to get re-elected, even if that means giving technical assistance to the other superpowers. Why should Hillary dictate hospital business? She's never been a nurse. At least Bush was a small part of the energy business when he wrote the energy policy, but that's not much help.
So push term limits; get the whole elected class out on the streets, and let's await the firy return of the space station.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Scrap it, and let's go explore our solar system with humans. This station is just wasting money.
For the people who may actually care: It is "no dinero", not "no denero", by the way. "Denero" doesn't mean anything in Spanish.
~~~~
America has learned a great deal about putting up structures. In particular, Russia knew a lot about it, and we had very little practical knowledge. Now, we are not just aware of the costs, but how to hold them down. Would we build another space station like this? I seriously doubt it. I am guessing that we will see lots of robotics come into play when we go to the moon and mars. The arms were good ideas, but we still need a better way to work on things in space. Two items that we screwed up here, is that we should have had node 2 (as opposed to node 3) handle the life env. Node3 is expected to have the O2 generator and the carbon scrubber (though we did move the O2 generator to Node2). These systems need to be tested and make sure that they will work with out issues. Keep in mind, that you can not simulate the env 100% on earth.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
George Bush claims he's fiscally responsible! LOL!
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Someone just gave me 100 bucks to confirm that this is definitely the case....
I was watching to the news in June 2003, and listening to the commentator it hit me.
The first 3 months in Iraq cost the same thing as the entire IIS program.
Not trolling and I don't want to start political flaming (I was all for the war but for entirely other reasons than WMD BS), but it made me really sad and think about priorities in Western Societies.
We don't have reporters who report something bad about the government disappear. There is still a lot of protest about how bad our government is and people can say they dislike (name any government official) without fear that the police will go and take them away on that topic. I am not saying American Government is Clean and they find ways around the law. But compared to Russia Americans are saints.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Quantify is putting number on things but the process of putting number on things is reasonable and the realization that it could be put number on it to accuracy assets its value.
Mathify (My own made up word to express this situation) is putting values to things that really cant be represented in numbers, values of national pride, feeling of progress as a race, possible new discoveries that can inherence our lives. We just put a silly number on these and make policy based on the random number we give to it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Lick my nutsack you fucking loser, I love watching you waste modpoints on me.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.