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Space Station Partners Bicker Over Closure Date

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the like-a-spoiled-child-on-to-the-next-toy dept.

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.'"

9 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. ...far far away! by j35ter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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!

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  2. Re:Let me get this straight by MROD · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Of course, at the rate things are going they'll have to finish it after it's been shut down.

    I'm sure the other partners in the ISS will have something to say as well, especially as their bits haven't arrived yet and the time allowed to do research has been curtailed due to the cancelling of the "lifeboat" crew return vehicle about 7 years ago, meaning that you can't have a full compliment of crew on the station.

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  3. Re:Let me get this straight by MollyB · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Think of the ISS and the Space Shuttle Orbiter as one entity, in that one exists solely to justify the other. When the Shuttles stop running, there's not much for suppliers to sell. If looked at as "throwing good money after bad" perhaps humanity doesn't need this expensive trinket sailing by. I'd be surprised if the contribution to basic science has increased compared to the enormous sums spent in support of keeping humans, (frail sacks of molecules that we are) in space. Maybe we'd advance our understanding by projecting our sensors and probes, designed with problem-solving algorithms and flexible reprogramming instead of shipping meat?

  4. it's a threat by acidrain · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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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    1. Re:it's a threat by Zeinfeld · · Score: 3, Interesting
      ***Err, my read was the Americans are trying to get Russia and Europe to pick up more of the tab,***

      You are all making a major error in considering this in nationalist terms. The space agencies have a common interest in screwing as much money as possible out of as many governments as possible. It is the agencies versus their governments.

      Meanwhile the motives of the governments are pretty murky. Each government has its own pro-ISS and anti-ISS factions. And amongst the pro-ISS factions there are a range of motives: pork for congressional districts, making sure that their country is not embarassed by withdrawing from existing commitments, etc.

      The reason that such projects are international collaborations is not that they need the money so much as they need to create a situation where nobody can withdraw without breaking a commitment.

      So the statement by the US can be seen as a signal that maybe the anti-ISS faction has gained the upper hand and wants to signal to the others 'hey lets snip this thing'. To which the Russian faction might be responding 'hell no we want to stay' or more likely 'how much is it worth to let you out of this'.

      The ISS is an utter waste of time and money. The original purpose of the ISS was to have something for the Shuttle to visit. The purpose of the Shuttle was to build the station. Both are merely staging posts for a manned trip to Mars that is not going to happen. We can do so much more with unmanned probes.

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  5. Re:my 2 cents by Nex6 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I dont think its *nessessasry* for a stop over or a *requirement* for a moon base. i think its a requirement for a decent space program.

  6. Pride not profit ... by AHumbleOpinion · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Russians who are in a far more corrupt nation then we are know the value of space travel.

    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 ... 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.

  7. Re:this makes sense, take 10 years to build it by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Good points. Just thought it is funny that they'd scape it so shortly after completion. Why complete it at all then? Is there some reasoning that says that the scientific value from 2000-2015 is worth the cost, but after that you don't get enough return?

    If you are looking for quantifiable benifit, it is hard to justify any space exploration. How much is studying yeast grow in space worth to your economy? Well if it shows something interesting, and it can be reproduced on earth, or is worth the cost of brewing your beer in space, then it might be "worth it". However, it is much easier to estimate the value of expenditures in reducing hospital wait-times, or sending AIDS medication to Africa or a bunch of other things. The cost of going to space is too prohibitive, you drop 100M on the yeast study simply because of transportation costs, when you could buy 1000 labs a mass spectrometer for that.

    Where am I going with this? Well IMHO if you thought that the expensive pure research was worth getting into, it should be worth maintaining. I heard that the ISS is in a decaying orbit, perhaps a big jump in expenditures would be necessary to push it back in place, past the date, not sure. What we have here is very similar to the Superconducting Super Collider project. One administration commits to a hugely expensive project, the next one changes their mind. You end up with a have used, or even worst, a half completed project.

  8. Re:Summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not even close. The ISS is useless for anything besides mundane experiments. The two experiment modules that really mattered got canceled. The station can't even be used as "base station" if you will for exploration of other planets/the moon because of its crappy orbit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Criticism