The ISS Marks 10 Years In Space

Matt_dk writes to point out the upcoming tenth anniversary of the International Space Station in two days' time. "On 20 November 1998, a Russian Proton rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for a historic mission: It was carrying the first module of the International Space Station ISS, named Zarya (Russian for 'dawn'). This cargo and control module, which weighs about 20 tonnes and is almost 13 meters long, provides electrical power, propulsion, flight path guidance and storage space. The launch of the module... heralded a new era in space exploration, as, for the first time ever, lasting cooperation in space was achieved between Russia, the US, Europe, Canada and Japan. Over the next ten years, many other modules were brought into orbit, and ISS developed into the largest human outpost in space. Since that time, the building blocks, transported by Russian launch vehicles or the US Space Shuttle, have expanded the ISS to the size of a soccer pitch and a current total mass of about 300 tons."

Comments

Pee

[Corpuscavernosa]

Based on yesterday's story, am I correct in assuming they had 10 years of NOT having to drink recycled pee?

Re:Pee

[hagardtroll]

No, the ISS is not officially outfitted with Tranya dispensers. Meeting out that liquid refreshment to the delight and enjoyment of the ISS staff. Had a tough day aligning the offset gyro navigation system? Here, cool down and relax with a large tumbler filled with your favorite refreshment. The Tranya, it goes down smooth. With each sip, the tensions of the day are belched up with that delicious citrus after taste. Tranya! Its not just for star ship attacks. Today's Tranya drinkers are cool, invigorated successful and precocious imbibers. Enjoy!

Re:Pee

[symes]

We all drink recycled pee - there's only so much water on this planet and, according to some estimates, most of it has been drunk eight times already. So unless they were drinking outer space water, rather than earth water, they most certainly were drinking recycled pee for the past ten years.

Re:Pee

[snspdaarf]

Water, the refreshing beverage that rusts pipes, and fish fuck in!

Makes recycled pee seem tame by comparison.

Re:Pee

[genner]

We all drink recycled pee - there's only so much water on this planet and, according to some estimates, most of it has been drunk eight times already. So unless they were drinking outer space water, rather than earth water, they most certainly were drinking recycled pee for the past ten years.

Our destiny is clear we must mine Haleys Comet for water.

Re:Pee

[Darth_brooks]

What'll really blow your mind is the amount of recycled T-rex farts you breath on a daily basis.

Re:Pee

[Kamokazi]

I think I heard that Evian was developing a Martian rover capable of bottling ice from the icecaps.

And you thought $3/bottle was expensive.....

Re:Pee

[hansamurai]

Now with Electrolytes!

Re:Pee

[Anonymous Coward]

With the added benefit, all that ice will help put off global warming.

Re:Pee

[ctetc007]

Actually, they were drinking by-products of the Space Shuttle fuel cells. The hydrogen and oxygen in those fuel cells didn't necessarily come from water, and even if the reactants did come from water, can we really call it recycled water/pee if it was broken down and then reconstituted at the molecular level? It would be the same if you took a part a house brick by brick and rebuilt it somewhere else. I don't think I'd say I was living in a recycled house.

Re:Pee

[Fumus]

Water? You mean, like, from the toilet?

Re:Pee

[dunkelfalke]

actually only a minor count of fish species fuck. most of them belong to the poeciliidae family. since they live in warm subtropical and tropical waters, most people can only drink water where fish fucked in if they drink the water of their aquariums.

Re:Pee

[danieltdp]

We eat other humans too: they die and get eaten by worms. The worms die and plants feed on the soil with dead worms. Cows eat plants until we eat them.

Ergo, cows are nothing but processed humans

And for what?

[Anonymous Coward]

10 years and what have we really achieved with this (apart from spending billions)???

Re:And for what?

[Smidge207]

"Lasting cooperation in space was achieved between Russia, the US, Europe, Canada and Japan..."

I'd say that's pretty remarkable.

=Smidge=

Re:And for what?

[geckipede]

The most important result we've got from it so far is practical experience in keeping people alive in a closed microgravity environment in the long term. That's not enough to justify the cost, but it shouldn't be forgotten.

I'm also hopeful that the talk of an orbit change for it towards the end of the construction phase turn out to be true. One of the major reasons why it's just a science platform rather than the practical orbital staging area for more ambitious projects that sci-fi always told us space stations would be is its silly orbit. It's very low and at a high inclination, partly so that Soyuz flights can reach it, which makes it useless for holding components of multi-launch assembled-in-space missions. To go from the ISS's current orbit to a transfer orbit to any of the fun places in the solar system would take a significant fraction of the fuel needed to launch in the first place.

Re:And for what?

[Tablizer]

10 years and what have we really achieved with this (apart from spending billions)?

The concept of gravity-free materials research sounded good at the time, but it just has strangely not panned out. Perhaps because its cheaper to fake the process on the ground than pay for the real deal up there.

It would be nice if they invented healthy donuts and flying cars up there to justify it all, but so far itsa bust.
   

Re:And for what?

[Spikeles]

Well according to NASA, not that much really:

• SpiraFlex® Resistance Exercise Device
• ZipNut
• Personal Cabin Pressure Altitude Monitor and Warning System
• AiroCide TiO2
• Robotic Arms
• Fast Cooking
• waste water purification
• 360Â Camera
• Golf Clubs
• Low Vision Enhancement System

Re:And for what?

[MikeDirnt69]

• Robotic Arms
• Golf Clubs

I think I've found out what that two rovers are really doing on Mars!

wait a second...

[Digitus1337]

I was under the impression that in (post-)Soviet Russia, Proton rocket carriers YOU to space as the first module of the ISS.

Re:wait a second...

[Kagura]

So in (post-)Soviet Russia, noun nouns YOU? I think you mixed up the formula there, bub! ;)

How much does it weigh in space?

[davidwr]

weighs about 20 tonnes

I assume you mean it weights about 196kN. On Earth. At sea level.

How much does it weigh in space?

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[CensorshipDonkey]

Newton is a measurement of force, and therefore weight, not mass, as you point out. However, pounds are ALSO a unit of force, not mass, and therefore tons (2,000 pounds) is weight. I think your pedantry is wrong, you've merely converted from Imperial weight/force to metric weight/force.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[Anonymous Coward]

A little less than it does on earth. But it's moving very, very fast.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bzzt! Ton is an imperial unit, but tonne (which the submitter used) is a metric unit (1 tonne = 1000 kg). So the submitter did, in fact, mix up mass and weight.

The GP converted from metric mass to metric weight/force (it would have been clearer to convert from metric mass to imperial weight, but where's the fun in that :>)

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[Anonymous Crowhead]

About 85% of what it weighs on earth depending on altitude. You aren't weightless in space, you essentially experience continual freefall.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are (close to) weightless if you move to the intergalactic void. But then the only hotel would be a HoJo, and who wants to stay there?

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[cowscows]

The weight on earth is actually more interesting and important than what it weighs in space. Every ounce of the ISS started here on earth and had to be pushed up into space. That's the trickiest part of this whole thing.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[camperdave]

A pound is both a unit of force and a unit of mass. As a unit of mass it is 0.45359237 kilogram by definition. As a force, a pound is defined as 0.45359237 kg × 9.80665 m/s^2 = 4.4482216152605 N (exactly)

Typically though, the word pound refers to force, and the pound mass is sometimes referred to as a slug.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IamBitBit]

According to my physics teacher: 1. You weigh essentially the same in earth orbit as you do on earth, there is only a very slight difference. 2. When something is orbiting a planet it is moving so fast that it is falling around it. Imagine this,the ISS is moving really fast over a really flat large piece of ground, not a planet. It will eventually hit it. Now imagine that it is over a planet, it is falling towards the ground but as it is moving so fast,the planet is falling away before it hits it. So if you moved very fast indeed you could (disregarding obstacles and the whole friction thing, orbit a meter of the ground or less Yes as you can imagine, it was put far more eloquently by my teacher but that is essentially it. The reason I included (2) is just to clear up the whole weightlessness myth.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Huh? How did this get modded insightful? It is completely wrong. There is this thing called the Equivalence Principle, that is one of the axioms of Einsteinian Gravity. It says, among other things, that a body in freefall has no net force acting upon it, and therefore has zero weight.

If objects at the ISS really did have a weight of 85% of what they weigh on the surface of the Earth, where do you think they got all those bits of news footage of people and things floating around in the cabin?

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[camperdave]

or... Whenever you throw an object it actually enters an orbit. It's just that the orbital path intersects the surface of the planet and stops. The path of the ISS is big enough that it does not intersect with the Earth's surface, so it doesn't stop.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

No, that is wrong. It is the MASS that is the same in orbit as on the surface of the Earth. The mass of an object is a measure of the amount of matter in it, and this does not change. The weight of an object, however, measures the force due to gravity that is acting upon it. The force of gravity is trying to accelerate you downwards towards the center of the earth, but the Earth's surface is holding you in place[*]. If you step on some scales, then you notice this by your body pushing down and registering a force on the scales. In freefall however, your weight is zero. You could think of it as the set of scales is accelerating at the same rate you are, so you cannot exert a force on it.

The second half, about falling 'around' the Earth, is basically correct. Another analogy is to think of whirling a rock on a piece of string around your head. The rock is going to tend to fly away from you, but it cannot because the tension in the string is holding it in a circle. If you replace the tension in the string with a gravitational attraction instead, then you get the same effect but without the string.

[*] To be more precise, unless you are in freefall, then you are standing on a solid object which is stopping you from accelerating - ie. the solid ground is exerting a force on your feet that exactly cancels out the gravitational force that is acting on your entire body, so overall you do not move, BUT the forces are being applied in different places. Gravity acts upon your entire body, trying to pull every atom in your body with equal force, but the restoring force of the ground that is stopping you from falling into the center of the Earth is acting only on your feet. Hence despite the fact that your overall motion is zero, you still feel a residual gravitational force acting on the rest of your body, so if you raise your arm, gravity is acting upon it and is pushing it back down. The Equivalence Principle states that gravity and acceleration are equivalent, so that the effect of accelerating in a rocket ship in free space at 9.81m/s^2 is precisely equivalent to being on the surface of the earth, so you would weigh the same in this situation. Conversely, if you are at freefall in the vicinity of Earth (and being in orbit is one example where you are in freefall), then you are, in effect, accelerating in such a way as to exactly cancel out the gravitational force and your weight is zero.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[CrimsonAvenger]

There is this thing called the Equivalence Principle, that is one of the axioms of Einsteinian Gravity. It says, among other things, that a body in freefall has no net force acting upon it, and therefore has zero weight.

Well, no.

If there were no net force acting on the ISS, it would not orbit the Earth. Gravity at its altitude is still around 90% of surface gravity, so it still weighs about 90% of what it would weigh on the ground.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Umm, no. In freefall, your weight is still defined by F= mA. And you still have a mass (m), and are still under acceleration (A). So you still have a weight.

The fact that the space station is is accelerating at the same rate you are (and thus giving you the illusion of weightlessness) is irrelevant to the question of your "weight" in space.

Note that weight does not actually imply that a scale designed to work on the ground will indicate some non-zero value when you stand on it.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[mosb1000]

A slug is 32.2 lbm. (the acceleration due to gravity at the earth's surface is approximately 32.2ft/s2)

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Instead of embarrasing yourself with another mis-statement, why not just read wikipedia, for example?

If there was a net force on the ISS, then it would not remain in a steady orbit!

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[CrimsonAvenger]

If there was a net force on the ISS, then it would not remain in a steady orbit!

I take it you don't count gravity as a "force" where you come from?

Without gravity applying a "force" to the ISS, it would move in what is commonly known as a "straight line".

Which would not allow for a steady orbit. Steady orbits are generally described by "ellipses", not "straight lines".

Perhaps what you are struggling toward is the notion that a "net force" must be one that perturbs an orbit? If so, then you're mistaken about the notion of a "net force". The ISS is in "freefall". It is NOT weightless, it is NOT operating free of the usual forces that operate on everything else in the universe, such as gravity.

You'd know this, if you'd bother with a simple thought experiment - when the ISS is over Florida it is moving in a certain direction. When it is over India, it is moving in pretty much the opposite direction. How can it change direction of motion without a "net force" acting upon it? Answer: well, according to Newton, it can't.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

No, you are forgetting to add together the acceleration due to gravity PLUS the acceleration of the motion. According to your definition, since you are currently standing on the surface of the Earth and are not accelerating, then your weight is currently zero. This is obviously not correct!

For a stationary object on the Earth's surface, the force due to gravity is F = mass * 9.81m/s^2. You are not accelerating, therefore this is the net gravitational force that is acting on you.

When you are in freefall, no matter what the origin of this is (falling from a plane, in the few seconds before air resistance is significant, or in orbit, or whatever), you are accelerating at exactly the rate to cancel out the force of gravity and the net force on you is zero. See, for example, Wikipedia article on Weightlessness:

Weightlessness is a phenomenon experienced by people during free-fall. Although the term zero gravity is often used as a synonym, weightlessness in orbit is not the result of the force of gravity being eliminated or even significantly reduced (in fact, the force of the Earth's gravity at an altitude of 100 km is only 3% less than at the Earths surface). [...] Long periods of weightlessness occur on spacecraft outside a planet's atmosphere, provided no propulsion is applied and the vehicle is not rotating. Weightlessness does not occur when a spacecraft is firing its engines or when re-entering the atmosphere, even if the resultant acceleration is constant. The thrust provided by the engines acts at the surface of the rocket nozzle rather than acting uniformly on the spacecraft, and is transmitted through the structure of the spacecraft via compressive and tensile forces to the objects or people inside. [...] Weightlessness in an orbiting spacecraft is physically identical to free-fall [...].

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

I take it you don't count gravity as a "force" where you come from?

Ahh, this is where relativity and the equivalence principle come in. According to the equivalence principle, there is no experiment that you can do on the ISS that can distinguish whether it is currently in orbit around the Earth, or instead in deep space (not anywhere near any significant masses), or any other variant of 'free fall'. Well, obviously you can look out the window, but that is not what I mean: you cannot determine the force on you due to gravity by doing any kind of experiment with masses etc. (This experiment is easy to do on the surface of the earth, you just need a set of scales!).

Without gravity applying a "force" to the ISS, it would move in what is commonly known as a "straight line".

Yeah true, that is entirely correct in the Newtownian view. But an entirely equivalent way of viewing the motion of the ISS is that it is moving 'straight', but the spacetime surrounding the Earth is curved. This view is easier to grasp if you imagine actually being on the ISS - from this point of view (which is an accelerating reference frame, in Newton's picture), there is no net force acting on it. That is, there is no experiment that you can do to measure the local strength of Earth's gravity.

Another example of motion (acceleration) being equivalent to gravity: Suppose I applied a force to you by putting you in a car and accelerating very quickly down the freeway, you would feel the forces acting upon you. If you attempted to measure the force of gravity at the same time (for example, by using a set of scales, or an accelerometer) there is no way you can distinguish whether I am accelerating you down the freeway, or if you are actually stationary but have been suddenly transported to another planet where the gravity is stronger. This is the Equivalence Principle (I am too lazy to put in the wikipedia link, but the article is reasonably accurate and worth reading).

In orbit, the acceleration of the motion precisely cancels out with the force due to gravity. The net force experienced by the astronauts is zero and they are weightless. The equivalence principle states that this situation is precisely equivalent to being in empty space with no gravitational masses anywhere nearby in the sense that it is not possible to distinguish these cases by measuring the local gravitational field. In both cases, it is zero. Similarly, it is impossible to distinguish, by measuring the local gravitational field, between the two cases of (1) a stationary object on the Earth, experiencing a weight of mass*9.81m/s^2, and (2) a rocket ship in free space with the engines on and accelerating at 9.81m/s^2. In both situations, you have the same mass and any experiment you do to measure the strength of the local gravitational field will give the same reading. [*]

[*] Actually, you can tell, but it is very subtle: on the Earth, the gravitational force is towards the center of the earth, so of you move slightly to the left the direction of the gravitational force changes slightly. But in an accelerating rocket, the force is uniform. These are called 'tidal forces', and with a careful experiment you could measure it. You would see this, for example, in an elevator that is accelerating downwards at exactly the rate of the acceleration due to gravity (so that objects in the elevator were weightless and floating around), and you placed two objects some distance apart, the tidal forces would tend to push them together. This is because they are both accelerating towards the center of the earth, rather than straight down. It is easier if you imagine doing this experiment on a very small and very heavy asteroid. If you put an elevator nearby to the asteroid, and draw lines of force radiating outwards from the center of the asteroid, the lines of force that pass through the elevator are not quite parallel.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

In both situations, you have the same mass and any experiment you do to measure the strength of the local gravitational field will give the same reading.

Oops, I meant to say, in both situations, you have the same weight. Obviously, the mass is the same too, but the weight is the important one.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[camperdave]

You're right. Bizarre variants of metric units like pounds, slugs, feet, inches, etc. are too awkward. You should join the civilized world and use the decimalized units. A pound of feathers is heavier than a pound of gold? Ridiculous!

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[CrimsonAvenger]

you are accelerating at exactly the rate to cancel out the force of gravity and the net force on you is zero.

So, if the force of gravity is acting on you, and nothing else is, then you have no force applied to you? You expand my view of the ridiculous....

Hint: if the force of gravity is acting upon you, the force applied to you is NON-ZERO.

Note that the wikipedia article has, at best, a limited understanding of the difference between weightlessness and freefall. Which are not, contrary to their assertion, synonyms.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

So, if the force of gravity is acting on you, and nothing else is, then you have no force applied to you? You expand my view of the ridiculous....

Yes from the point of view of an outside observer there is a force on you, but the point about gravity is that it applies equally to every part of your body at once. So, if you are in free fall and you raise your arm, there is no resistance to that motion (other than internal friction in your joints) and no force that would push against your arm that would tend to lower it again. From your point of view, you have no forces acting upon you. But this really means that there are not differences in the force between different parts of your body.

This is in contrast to the situation when you are standing on the surface of the Earth, or being accelerated in a car. In the case of standing on the surface of the earth, you feel a force on your body because, while the overall forces cancel out (so you have no overall motion), the forces are applied in different places. The gravitational force is being applied to every atom in your body equally, but the restoring force that is stopping you from falling into the center of the Earth is being applied at the point where your feet make contact with the ground. The restoring force that is stopping some other part of your body (your hand, for example) from falling into the center of the Earth is being transmitted through your feet and body to your hand. That is why it takes some effort to raise your hand - the gravity is acting directly on your hand, but the restoring force to hold your hand in the air needs to be transmitted through your arm.

If you are in free fall, then there is no difference in the force being applied to different parts of your body, and you cannot even tell that there is any force acting upon you! There is no difference between the situation where (1) you are falling under gravity towards the Earth, with no other forces acting upon you, and (2) you are in empty space with no massive objects anywhere near you. These two situations are completely equivalent, for the effects on your body.

Similarly, there is no difference, as far as the forces on your body are concerned, between standing on the surface of the earth and experiencing your weight of W=M*9.81m/s^2 and being accelerated in a rocket ship at 9.81m/s^2 and experiencing a force holding you to the floor of the spacecraft. The Equivalence Principle of relativity says that the forces on you are exactly the same in both cases.

Note that the wikipedia article has, at best, a limited understanding of the difference between weightlessness and freefall. Which are not, contrary to their assertion, synonyms.

They are not synonyms, because they are two words that have different meanings. Wikipedia does not claim that they are synonyms, by the way. But it is true that if you are in freefall then you are weightless. And the only way that is known to physics for an object with non-zero mass to become weightless is to let it free-fall.

If you refuse to believe Wikipedia, there are plenty of other references you could look at:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Physics-1358/free-fall-weightless-ness.htm
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/teacher_resources/weightlessness_edu.html
http://www.physics.umd.edu/lecdem/services/demos/demosc4/c4-54.htm
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/shuttlestation/station/microgex.html
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4026/noord27.html

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

By the way, if you try to define an 'actual weight' as W=M*g while ignoring your motion, in an attempt to argue that objects in orbit really do have a non-zero `weight', then I counter with the question what about the gravity of the sun? If you are going to count only forces due to gravitational masses, then you properly need to include all masses, not just the closest one. And some of them may be significant!

The mass of the sun is 1.98892 × 10^30 kg, at an average radius of 1.496*10^11m, which gives a local gravitational acceleration at the Earth due to the sun of g=Gm/r^2 = 3.27m/s^2. This is almost 1/3 of the acceleration due to gravity of the Earth itself! Are you trying to argue that the `actual weight' of an object at the surface of the earth should be some 30% higher than what we read on the scales, because of the influence of the sun? Even worse, at the equator it should be 30% higher during midnight, when the sun is in the same direction as the center of the Earth, but at midday it should be 30% less, because the sun is in the opposite direction to the center of the earth!

If that still isn't convincing, think about how you would define your weight if you were standing on the Moon. How should the (smaller, but still relevant) gravity of the Earth affect your `actual weight' ? And how is this situation fundamentally different from being on the ISS?

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tonnes (metric tons) are a unit of mass. Tons are a unit of weight. One tonne = 1000 kilograms, that are always 1000 kilograms, regardless of gravity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonne

The original article should have been more careful not to mix and match "weight" and "mass":
"cargo and control module, which weighs about 20 tonnes"
"size of a soccer pitch and a current total mass of about 300 tons"

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, this is where relativity and the equivalence principle come in. According to the equivalence principle, there is no experiment that you can do on the ISS that can distinguish whether it is currently in orbit around the Earth, or instead in deep space (not anywhere near any significant masses), or any other variant of 'free fall'.

Actually, you can tell, but it is very subtle: on the Earth, the gravitational force is towards the center of the earth, so of you move slightly to the left the direction of the gravitational force changes slightly. But in an accelerating rocket, the force is uniform. These are called 'tidal forces', and with a careful experiment you could measure it. You would see this, for example, in an elevator that is accelerating downwards at exactly the rate of the acceleration due to gravity (so that objects in the elevator were weightless and floating around), and you placed two objects some distance apart, the tidal forces would tend to push them together.

That's a pretty quick contradiction there! Put two objects floating in the ISS a metre or two apart (with the line joining them perpendicular to the direction of motion) and you'll notice that they will move together over the course of a quarter of an orbit (~22mins) due to slightly different orbits that the two objects will be in and the slightly different direction to the CoM of the Earth.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[Richard_at_work]

If there was a net force on the ISS, then it would not remain in a steady orbit!

And thats the crux of the matter - the ISS is not in a steady orbit, it loses altitude regularly and has to be reboosted into a higher orbit. Left to its own devices, the ISS would have burnt up in the Earths atmosphere a decade ago.

So yes, there is a net force acting on the ISS.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Put two objects floating in the ISS a metre or two apart (with the line joining them perpendicular to the direction of motion) and you'll notice that they will move together over the course of a quarter of an orbit (~22mins) due to slightly different orbits that the two objects will be in and the slightly different direction to the CoM of the Earth.

Yes, that is true - that is a very clear example! I was thinking of elevators near the surface of the Earth, which would be quite a tricky experiment to carry out ;-)

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[camperdave]

When the US switched its weights and measures to metric definitions back in the fifties, the ton became a unit of mass.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[smithmc]

Guys, guys, guys. It's all a matter of frames of reference.

In the FOR of a guy standing (floating) in the ISS, there is no net force, no net motion, and no experience of weight.

In the FOR of a guy standing on the Earth, there is obviously a net force on the ISS - due to the gravitation of the Earth - which when coupled with the tangential velocity of the ISS, keeps it in orbit. The guy on the Earth can also see (if, say, the ISS were made of invisaluminum or quartz or something) that the guy in the ISS is also being pulled toward Earth in balance with his tangential velocity, and therefore moves relative to the Earth, but not the ISS.

There is no contradiction. What the problem is?

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IamBitBit]

No that is correct. Wt=mg . So you're weight equals your mass times the gravitational field strength. The field strength at the ISS is only marginally smaller than on earth, which in itself varies as you move around as evidenced by the fact that someone below used 9.81 as the strength instead of 9.82 as I would have. (Don't harp on about nude numbers, there's no point in including them here. ) So your weight is still the same a top Everest, at the dead sea or on the ISS.

Here's a question for you. A rocket takes off, why does its acceleration continue to get larger?

Answer: Its burning the fuel and exhausting it out the back so it has less weight to overcome, thus a greater unbalanced force. It has nothing t do with a decreasing gravitational field strength, the earths field reaches all the way to the sun and wobbles that a bit.

And I know perfectly well mass doesn't change, not need to capitalise it.

Re:How much does it weigh in space?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Well, we could go back and forth on this forever. In the end, 'weight' is a definition, and the definition I have been using is the commonly accepted one, in which an object in freefall has a weight of zero. If you don't believe wikipedia on this, there are links to other sites (including any number of NASA) sites elsewhere in this thread.

If you want to define weight differently you are of course free to do so, but do not expect to be able to use your term in a useful conversation! If you want to define 'weight' as the mass times the local gravitational field strength, ignoring motion of the object, then do you also include the (small but non-zero) contribution from the gravitational field of the Sun? Don't forget, that it acts in different directions (ie, either adding or subtracting to the conventionally defined weight) depending on whether the sun is below you (night time) or above you (day time). How would you define your weight on the moon, in your scheme? How does the gravitational field of the Earth (and the Sun, and Jupiter, and ...) affect it?

For your question on the acceleration of the rocket, you need to be careful to distinguish the frame of reference. You are completely correct from the frame of reference of the rocket: the impulse of the engines is assumed constant, so as the mass of fuel decreases the acceleration of the rocket increase. This holds no matter whether the rocket is in a gravitational field or not: unless the astronauts looked out the window to see there is no way they can determine whether they are in empty space, or accelerating away from (or towards!) a heavy mass (ie. they cannot determine this by performing experiments to measure the local gravitational field, in all cases they get the same answer! This is the equivalence principle, which is a cornerstone of general relativity).

From the frame of reference of an outside observer on the Earth, the motion of the rocket is certainly affected by gravity. For example, if the acceleration of the rocket just happened to be 9.81m/s^2 then the rocket would be not accelerating relative to an observer on the Earth - he would see it as hovering (or moving at constant velocity relative to the observer). But to the astronauts inside the rocket, they would feel the acceleration as indistinguishable to standing on the surface of the Earth.

What we feel as weight is not the downward force -mg but rather the upward force +mg which we have to exert to resist the downward one. This is what you feel when you do a push-up, for example. In freefall, the downward force -gm is still there, but there is no reaction force acting against it. No rection force = no weight.

Should it really cost as much as it does?

[jollyreaper]

I'm a big space geek, don't get me wrong. I'm all for space stuff. But I'm horrified when I look at the price tags on these projects. Should they really cost this much? Are we sure that there isn't a lot of contractor pocket-lining going on? It seems to me like we're using a lawn sprinkler to fill up a dixie cup. Yeah, it'll get the job done but it'll take about ten gallons of water to put five ounces in the cup.

If I seem disappointed and ungrateful it's just that putting rinky dink modular stations in orbit is 1970's technology. We should have moon colonies right now using mass drivers to fire off raw materials to the lagrange points where we'd be building giant wheel and cylinder habitats.

Looking at our space program, it's like going back home and seeing the people you went to school with who peaked in high school and are hanging around the old haunts just looking underachieving and pathetic. I mean yeah, it's cool to point and laugh if these were the people you hated in high school but if they were your friends, it's just very sad. NASA peaked as Apollo and has been underachieving ever since.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[arkhan_jg]

The standard estimated total cost of the ISS (difficult to measure precisely given the multinational aspect) is between $50 billion and $100 billion. Over 10 years.

In comparison, the US military budget for 2009 is $711 billion. $10 billion is spent a month in Iraq alone. total estimated cost of that war so far over 6 years? $660 billion, and that's just US costs.

Going into space for long periods safely, or as safely as is practicable anyway, is very, very hard. I'm not saying the ISS is cheap, but it's not bad in the grand scheme of things.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[RemoWilliams84]

"Looking at our space program, it's like going back home and seeing the people you went to school with who peaked in high school and are hanging around the old haunts just looking underachieving and pathetic. I mean yeah, it's cool to point and laugh"

I thought I saw you by the old gym the other day. It wasn't nice of you to point and laugh at me.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[AsnFkr]

NASA peaked as Apollo and has been underachieving ever since.

I agree with you (for the most part) on this statement relating to manned space exploration, but NASA has had much success in robotic space exploration in the past 40 years that should not be ignored.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[savuporo]

I'm not saying the ISS is cheap, but it's not bad in the grand scheme of things.
Whether its bad or not can only be measured against the results it has delivered for the money or will deliver. Can you outline those in a concise manner for us ?

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[Macrat]

And the Apollo program was shut down due to all the funding going into dropping bombs in Vietnam.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[Darth_brooks]

NASA peaked as Apollo and has been underachieving ever since.

I see that line of thinking as somewhat skewed. We went to the moon, what was left to do? Mars? Not with 1975 tech. I just don't see that being feasible. Sure, we sidetracked ourselves in terms of long distance exploration with the Shuttle, but does the communications revolution that has taken place since the mid 70's happen without NASA trucking up the school-bus sized satellites of the late 70s and early 80's? Sure you can throw those up with rockets, but the shuttle doesn't do a *bad* job of moving big-ass cargo into space.

NASA gets hounded because countries like India and China are now doing things like sending probes to the moon in India's case, and manned spacewalks in China's case. While those are great accomplishments, we were doing those things with slide rules and navigation computers that has 4k of memory and a few hundred lines of code.

China and India pulling off these "stunning accomplishments" while standing firmly on the shoulders of giants. They're booking plane tickets to Cleveland online and being treated like true aviation pioneers, and NASA is being told "What have you done lately Orville and Wilbur? That stupid little biplane thingie? who cares about that anymore. You guys suck."

Where are the Japanese Mars rovers? Where is the Indian Space agency's ISS module? Gosh, it's awfully nice that India has managed to bounce a glorified digital camera off of the moon. That's awesome. Maybe NASA can budget for something cool like that once they're done with that whole "New Horizons" probe that's on its way to Pluto.

Yeah, there are a ton of bureaucratic nightmares in the NASA that weigh down our successes. Mind blowing awesomeness gets shouted down because someone forgot to do a metric-imperial conversion. But NASA is helping *private industry* do things that other nations space programs are trying to get a handle on. (X-prize anyone?)

NASA isn't hanging around the high school parking lot. They're the kid that's easy to pick on because he moved out of town and got his masters degree....while the rest of the world is still talking about how cool it has to have a diploma. We don't have a perfect space agency, but in the face of a red-tape, agenda driven, too-screwed-up-to-be-a-dilbert-cartoon middle management nightmare, we are still doing things that no other space agency in the world is doing. The only group that is even close is a consortium of TEN other nations.

Explain to me again why that isn't cool?

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[LandDolphin]

$1 is $1.

Relating it to other, more expensive, projects does not make it any less exppensive or justified. It just shows how we spend/waste money in other ways.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[carambola5]

As one who has formerly worked on NASA contracts (and hopes to continue to do so in the future... just because it's so damn cool), I can assure you of two things:

-You are right, and
-You are wrong.

You are right in that there is some fat that could be skimmed from the process; there is some highly skilled labor that sits idly as projects continue onward.

You are wrong, however, to assume that space technology is getting cheaper by the minute, and the industry should be able to continue along at the same speed as... say, consumer electronics. Designing for space is crazy-expensive.... ridiculously expensive... and the problem isn't NASA or its subcontractors. It's the vendors.

NASA and its subcontractors make stuff. We either design it from scratch (frequently), update an off-the-shelf item (sometimes), or just use an off-the-shelf item unmodified (rarely).

Designing from scratch costs the most in terms of high- and low-skilled labor (think engineers and mill operators) and material. It's also the most frequent due to the many requirements of spaceflight: radiation hardened, extremely light weight, strict volume requirements, high vibration launch environment, low outgassing, low flammability, etc.

Updating an off-the-shelf part is a little easier, but it still involves plenty of engineer time. In addition, the original part is usually on the extreme high-end of a vendor's offering. We can't have a coolant pump that has an MTBF of 2 years. It's gotta be 10. or more.

And finally, even if an off-the-shelf part is used by itself, it still needs brackets and an electrical interface (if necessary). Plus there's plenty of engineer time spent just to be sure that it's flight-worthy.

And finally, multiply all of these costs by the factor of not mass-producing this stuff. When you order only 5 specialized valves, the unit cost is going to balloon.

So, jollyreaper, I applaud your space geekiness. There are many like us. But designing and building for space is hard. And it costs a lot. Them's the facts.

Now, if we (the space industry as a whole) got a three-fold increase in funding... you'd really start to see some sweet stuff.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you outline those in a concise manner for us ?

That exercise is left for truly curious.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[ThreeE]

What evidence do you have that "it's not bad?" As savuporo said, show me the results it has delivered that even approach $50-100B.

Furthermore, how is the US military budget a comparison? The US military has a completely different mission. Perhaps you thought the US military is wasteful and thus justifies ISS waste -- it doesn't -- two wrongs don't make a right. Perhaps you just wanted to demonstrate scale -- $50B buys a fuckload of Big Macs. In the end, your second paragraph is a complete non sequitur.

Another thing: going into space isn't that hard -- or at least it isn't harder than a lot of things we do regularly. I am so tired of this rocket science myth. Open heart surgery is hard too. The difference is that there is value in open heart surgery so we do it a lot -- so we have learned how to manange the complexity and risks. Show me the value of spaceflight and it will cease being so "hard."

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[jollyreaper]

I see that line of thinking as somewhat skewed. We went to the moon, what was left to do? Mars? Not with 1975 tech. I just don't see that being feasible. Sure, we sidetracked ourselves in terms of long distance exploration with the Shuttle, but does the communications revolution that has taken place since the mid 70's happen without NASA trucking up the school-bus sized satellites of the late 70s and early 80's? Sure you can throw those up with rockets, but the shuttle doesn't do a *bad* job of moving big-ass cargo into space.

What's left to do? Here's some short-term ideas, many cribbed from The High Frontier.

1. Build a proper big dumb booster, something that can throw a ridiculous amount of cargo into space. Don't care whether or not its reusable, just make it cheap. We can send the crew on a separate vehicle since man-rating rockets is so expensive.

2. Lunar colony for science and resource extraction. We can get a lot of usable construction material from the moon and thus reduce the amount of mass that needs to be sent up from the Earth for anything complicated we're building.

3. Asteroid capture mission for resources we can't find easily on the Moon. Plenty of apollo object asteroids to prospect.

4. Orbital habitats in L4 and L5, built with material mined on the moon.

5. Orbital power sats, constructed at the lagrange habitats. The technology originally talked about would use large mirrors to concentrate solar energy on a turbine system. Fluid is heated, expands, flows through turbine where the energy is extracted mechanically, cools on the back side of the sat, repeat. The turbines generate electricity and that's beamed down to earth as microwaves, collected by rectennas on the ground.

6. Beanstalks!

Looking out further in the future, we could move most of our heavy industry out into space and just drop the resulting goods back down to Earth in recyclable containers. No more polluted environment, just a nice clean garden down here filled with contented people. And with all of that infrastructure in space, all that cheap access, the cost of scientific exploration with robotic probes would be peanuts.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[forkazoo]

Whether its bad or not can only be measured against the results it has delivered for the money or will deliver. Can you outline those in a concise manner for us ?

Well, to be fair, ISS really hasn't accomplished all that much. So, for the same benefit, it was a much better return on investment when compared to invading Iraq.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[Darth_brooks]

What's left to do? Here's some short-term ideas, many cribbed from The High Frontier.

It's not "what is left..." it's "what was left..." NASA probably went in a bad direction with the shuttles, but we still kept plugging forward.

NASA has gone a lot farther than they get credit for, and to compare the accomplishments of nations today to what NASA (and the USSR. We spent a great deal of time just trying to catch them.) did literally 40 years ago is almost insulting.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[servognome]

Should they really cost this much? Are we sure that there isn't a lot of contractor pocket-lining going on? It seems to me like we're using a lawn sprinkler to fill up a dixie cup. Yeah, it'll get the job done but it'll take about ten gallons of water to put five ounces in the cup.

Well you're designing and building highly complicated one use projects. Things are cheap in the modern age because once you create one you can sell a million. For space technology you can't spread out that R&D cost. You also have a situation where the requirements are incredibly high, and each time technology progresses so do the requirements. The problems aren't stagnant, everytime we come up with a solution, we start to ask more questions (can we make it more safe, more efficient, improve reliability, etc)

If I seem disappointed and ungrateful it's just that putting rinky dink modular stations in orbit is 1970's technology. We should have moon colonies right now using mass drivers to fire off raw materials to the lagrange points where we'd be building giant wheel and cylinder habitats.

The next logical steps aren't always an easy progression as one may think. We eradicated smallpox and polio 40 years ago, why aren't we now completely healthy supercreatures?

Looking at our space program, it's like going back home and seeing the people you went to school with who peaked in high school and are hanging around the old haunts just looking underachieving and pathetic. I mean yeah, it's cool to point and laugh if these were the people you hated in high school but if they were your friends, it's just very sad. NASA peaked as Apollo and has been underachieving ever since.

It's like going home and that talented music player who you thought could become a superstar now has a nice day job, a family, and plays in a band at night. It's not pathetic that he didn't reach the level of expectations you had for him. NASA has been doing some great real science over the past 20 years, and most of the problems have been around these putting people in space spectacles that have marginal value.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're comparing reality to science fiction.

Reality is much harder. You can't relax natural laws; you have to go into the smallest detail; a much higher standard of quality is expected; and you have to pay a bunch of experts in many different fields to carry it out.

The fact is that chemical rockets are marginal for achieving orbit and will remain so for the forseeable future. Even if we get fusion in fifty years, it will be a long time before the reactor becomes lightweight and airworthy.

Add that to the fact that there is no compelling business reasons apart for comm sats to go to space, and you'll see that we'll remain at the current level of human presence in space, or drop lower, for at least a generation or two more.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[CheshireCatCO]

On the flip side, robotic exploration of the solar system (Mars rovers, Cassini orbiter, Pluto flyby, etc.) runs around $2 billion/year. It's likely that were ISS not hoovering up money, at least some of that $50-$100 billion would have gone to the robotic exploration (especially since cost overruns in one place tend to tie up funds from other places). Even a small fraction of that money could have greatly enhanced our exploration. So while I agree that ISS is cheap compared to the DoD, it's still a ton of money that could have (depending on how you value things) probably done more elsewhere.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[Anonymous Coward]

Laugh now, but I'm sure that when you're hiking in ten years time and are drinking your own recycled urine out of a bottle, you'll be glad that we forced astronauts to drink their own pee. :)

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[FleaPlus]

But designing and building for space is hard. And it costs a lot. Them's the facts.

In that case, why is it that SpaceX is able to do things so much more cost-effectively than NASA and its prime contractors?

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[Hucko]

Mining alone would be worth trillions --- but much harder to regulate. Of course most of the environmental problems would be moved to an effectively inert environment. If we were to move virtually all major metal mining off planet the rewards would be 'out of this world'. Just takes a substantial initial investment... We are probably at a minimum of 100 years from that unless a revolutionary change to rocketry occurs.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[Hucko]

on point 4, shouldn't we(err NASA) try to grab Apophis when it does come close in 2029? Make it the next ISS?

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[lennier]

"but in the face of a red-tape, agenda driven"

Hold it right there. George Orwell language moment.

I wish people would stop using the word 'agenda' as a generic insult meaning something like 'corrupt'.

EVERY organisation is -- or should be -- agenda driven! That's the whole point of existing: to have a carefully laid out plan to do stuff! Think about what you're saying! You want organisations which exist for no reason? In the 1960s, NASA was *very* agenda-driven! The agenda was to LAND MEN ON THE MOON. And they did it.

Nowadays, NASA's agenda is a lot less clear - is it just generally 'do scientific exploration'? Is it just 'build up hours of manned spaceflight experience for unspecified future purposes'? Is it 'develop aerospace hardware also for unspecified purposes, perhaps to hand off to the military'? Is it 'be a space launch contractor'? Is it 'fund basic science for commercial spinoffs'?

Since USAF and STRATCOM/SPACECOM and the US Navy seem to control the big reason for space (strategic military control of the high frontier), and there's no political war to require propaganda coups, there's no big obvious paying reason for a quasi-civilian government space agency to exist. Except to 'do science' which is a propaganda boost, but not a huge one. That's NASA's problem - what IS its agenda?

I think what you mean to say is either 'having no discernable agenda', 'driven by MULTIPLE, CONFLICTING agendas', or 'driven by a SECRET agenda' or 'driven by an agenda I personally disagree with'.

All of which are things to criticise an organisation like NASA for -- but just 'agenda driven' is the OPPOSITE of a valid insult, so let's stop polluting our language with illogical insults.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

"For space technology you can't spread out that R&D cost."

Oh yes, you can. Perhaps not everything can be reused, but I certainly would not dismiss those things that can be reused, patented, licensed, manufactured, and sold here on Earth.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[servognome]

Oh yes, you can. Perhaps not everything can be reused, but I certainly would not dismiss those things that can be reused, patented, licensed, manufactured, and sold here on Earth.

NASA is in the business of developing space exploration not profit. In fact one of their goals is to "Encourage the pursuit of appropriate partnerships with the emerging commercial space sector," which would place them in a position to not seek huge sums of money for licensing technology. The NASA balance sheet doesn't even mention licensing which means it makes up a negligible amount of income.
To add to that, there is a big difference between developing technology for a specific scientific application, and developing for the commercial sector. Unlike other commercialized technology which can easily be licensed as a turn-key solution, much of what NASA has developed would need further refinement for the market.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[roman_mir]

not forgetting how to get and to be there and building new tech to do things more efficiently. Oh, and also having an outpost to greet space invaders quicker.

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[MikeDirnt69]

7. Profit!

Re:Should it really cost as much as it does?

[MikeDirnt69]

Because they don't do what NASA does.

In Soviet Space

[sexconker]

Space marks 10 years with ISS!

Lasting?

[davidwr]

Time will tell.

-God

Typical "International" Effort

[Anonymous Coward]

As is usually the case, the US has footed over 75% of the bill.

Re:Typical "International" Effort

[Wescotte]

Yeah but it all evens out because we never pay out debts anyway.

Re:Typical "International" Effort

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true, but at the same time, the US has the most control over its utilization. Other contributors like the ESA are lucky to fly one astronaut every other year. Russia generally has at least one up, because they contributed two of the backbone modules, a significant amount of the resupply missions, and the Soyuz that is required to be kept docked for emergency evacuation.

Re:Typical "International" Effort

[j-cloth]

...and taken 90% of the credit.

Re:Typical "International" Effort

[Kagura]

If that were true, the dollar wouldn't be worth the paper it were printed on. A 25% fluctuation in the value of the dollar does not even begin to approach the kind of "worthless" we are talking about if the U.S. couldn't back its currency.

The largest human outpost in space...

[cunamara]

...other than Planet Earth, right? And, how many other human outposts in space are there?

Who writes this stuff?

Re:The largest human outpost in space...

[Itchyeyes]

The statement could be read to be inclusive of retired outposts like MIR and Skylab, in which case it would be correct.

Re:The largest human outpost in space...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't wait to see where this thing lands when the time eventually comes for Big Blazing Re-entry to Earth .

Re:The largest human outpost in space...

[Neil Blender]

Mir and Skylab currently reside on earth. Mostly as dust, at least in the case of Skylab.

Re:The largest human outpost in space...

[satoshi1]

But they did reside in space at one point in time, hence their inclusion in the comparison.

Re:The largest human outpost in space...

[Itchyeyes]

Like I said, the statement can be read two ways:

1) The largest human outpost in space (currently)

2) The largest human outpost in space (ever)

The latter interpretation would be inclusive of MIR and Skylab.

For the rest of us...

[Jason1729]

How long is a soccer pitch? Why is it so hard to just give a size in meters?

And just how many elephants is 300 tons? ;)

Re:For the rest of us...

[Anonymous Coward]

How long is a meter? Why is so hard to just give a size in furlongs?

Re:For the rest of us...

[ceoyoyo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Football_pitch_metric.svg

How hard is it to use Google? If I tell you that the ISS is about 100 meters long and half that wide, does that give you a good feeling for it's size? If you've ever been to a soccer game (which most people on the planet have), then the comparison gives you a mental picture. To translate into Imperial, think football field.

Re:For the rest of us...

[insane_membrane]

On average 100m...

Re:For the rest of us...

[CorporateSuit]

How long is a soccer pitch?

It's about the length of a football field, including the endzones.

And just how many elephants is 300 tons?

I don't know how many elephants, but it's around 380 stripped honda civics.

Re:For the rest of us...

[earthbound kid]

More importantly, who the hell says "soccer pitch"? Americans say "soccer field." Brits say "football pitch." No one says "soccer pitch."

Sounds like the writer was a Brit who tried to put it in Americanese but failed.

Re:For the rest of us...

[Jason1729]

The point wasn't to use google to look it up. It was to point out how silly the wording was in the summary.

You're new to slashdot, aren't you?

Re:For the rest of us...

[owlnation]

And just how many elephants is 300 tons?

I don't know how many elephants, but I do know that the number that makes up 300 tons has tripled in the past six months.

Re:For the rest of us...

[Seth Kriticos]

Also your picture shows 90-120m x 45-90m - that I call precise metric.

Re:For the rest of us...

[Deadstick]

How long is a soccer pitch?

29.5 to 39.4 stories.

rj

Re:For the rest of us...

[Anonymous Coward]

How long is a soccer pitch? Why is it so hard to just give a size in meters?
Stupid question. If you do not know the size of a soccer pitch, you must be an American and the size in meters would not tell you anything anyway...

Re:For the rest of us...

[ceoyoyo]

Not nearly as new as you are.

Did you read the second half of my post? Saying "soccer pitch" is a neat comparsion for the vast majority of people to whom 100 m x 40 m means nothing. It's not silly.

Re:For the rest of us...

[ceoyoyo]

If you want more precision I suggest you check the first hit on Google for "international space station dimensions."

Please note: blog post / Internet press release != engineering documentation.

Re:For the rest of us...

[yodleboy]

recently, the premier episode of HowStuffWorks on Discovery channel was about corn. When talking about the amount of land cultivated for corm production, the expert mentioned that it was equivalent to 2000 Vatican Cities.

When did Vatican City become a unit of measurement? For that matter, since most people haven't been there and have NO idea of the size, WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY WOULD YOU USE IT???

durrrr...............

free market vs. government

[Anonymous Coward]

The governments of the world have a monopoly on space exploration.

When it is clear that there is money to be made, and the governments get out of the way, we'll see amazing leaps in our capabilities and accomplishments in space.

And, I kid you not, a big part of what will get us there is the not-yet-established zero-G porn genre.

Re:free market vs. government

[KDR_11k]

But IS there money to be made? It costs a lot of money to get stuff into space and exploration doesn't tend to make much money.

Re:free market vs. government

[damburger]

spare us the libertarian ideological claptrap. Your beloved 'free market' is way behind on space exploration because (as the recent crisis has shown) its ability to price things up, especially risks, is actually quite weak - as opposed to being omniscient as you lot claim it is.

Re:free market vs. government

[2short]

"But IS there money to be made?"

No, of course not. It's fantastically expensive to get to, and there is literally nothing there.

Re:free market vs. government

[2short]

"When it is clear that there is money to be made"

There isn't; clearly.

"...and the governments get out of the way..."

Any evidence they're in the way?

"And, I kid you not, a big part of what will get us there is the not-yet-established zero-G porn genre."

Zero-G: A fine example of something associated with space that is much more cheaply had in the atmosphere. Build your porn studio into an appropriate airplane and have it fly parabolic trajectories all day for years before you get to the cost of a day in actual orbit.

Re:free market vs. government

[bitrex]

Build your porn studio into an appropriate airplane and have it fly parabolic trajectories all day for years before you get to the cost of a day in actual orbit.

Given the maximum 90 seconds or so of weightlessness you get in the Vomit Comet, though, you'd better have male performers who can get a move on, or some talented video editors. Or build a dedicated lesbian porn studio inside a parabolic- trajectory-flying aircraft. I'm calling venture capital firms right now.

Re:free market vs. government

[Anonymous Coward]

Build your porn studio into an appropriate airplane and have it fly parabolic trajectories all day for years before you get to the cost of a day in actual orbit.

Already been done in Girls Gone Wild: Ultimate Rush.

Pork barrel boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

The space station was just a bureaucratic boondoggle to give the space shuttle something to do and to justify another reusable launch vehicle system. And yes, some pocket lining pork barrel spending was also part of the scope of the project. Directing so many resources to this project makes me sick.

To further technology and space science was not its real purpose. I would be very surprised if there was any truly new technology developed for it as opposed to rehashing some existing tech from the 70s as you have pointed out.

What does it have to show for it ?

[savuporo]

So for these several tens of billions sunk, and the "World class science facility" still not being really operational, what does it have to show for this cash and ten years ?
How much technology advancement really has happened and what scientific goals have been accomplished ?

There has been some useful stuff, but wouldnt it be nice to see it all these shortly summarized in a table with the bottomline dollar drawn under it ?

Re:What does it have to show for it ?

[vlm]

How much technology advancement really has happened and what scientific goals have been accomplished ?

That was all cut to save money. Sadly I'm not kidding. There is a short list here of scientific modules launched. Plenty more were budget cut or just simply won't be launched. The original plan had a hotel load around 2 people, which was fine since there would be like two dozen folks up there (hotel load is how much it takes to keep the place running and human habitable, from navy and submarine terminology). The problem is the life support equipment and "space lifeboat" never was launched, crew endlessly downsized, etc. So, since it only holds about 3 people on a regular basis, and the hotel load is always larger than originally planned, there isn't much time to do anything other than be space janitors / space superintendents. If they could have a staff of 20 up there as originally intended then quite a bit could have been done, but thats not happening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Scientific_ISS_modules

Part of the problem, as described below, is the only purpose of the shuttle, is to visit the station, and the only purpose of the station, is to be visited by the shuttle. So, since the station has already been downsized to the point of uselessness, and the shuttle is going away, guess what will happen to the station in just a few years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Future_of_the_ISS

Another part of the problem is the ISS was project managed as a one-time project or one-time stunt. Anyone who's ever spent time in a lab, in the military, or even in front of a computer, knows the original plan is obsolete as soon as it's written. Thats OK, invent a new plan. Except everything relating to ISS project management is a one time stunt. It's a permanent beta releast version 0.99 with no possibility of upgrade. There is no ability to do science if you can't iteratively experiment and try new ideas. And that's not how the ISS was project managed. Therefore it doesn't do science. It's a one time stunt and the stunt is about over.

Too bad, it could have been useful.

Re:What does it have to show for it ?

[Revolver4ever]

How about the experience we now have in getting stuff into space and keeping it there! This is not easy!!! Just think of how many mistakes and subsequent successes had to take place to get the ISS up there and running. Now think that all these mistakes and successes will be directly used when we go forward in exploring beyond our orbit with bigger stations and spacecraft carrying humans towards Mars and beyond. The ISS is anything but useful. You must first crawl before you run? And so on.

Re:What does it have to show for it ?

[savuporo]

I admire your breathless optimism, but i must point out that we learned how to get stuff to space on 4th of October, 1957, we put our first crewed space station up and kept it there in 1973 and believe it or not, twelve men have walked and ran around on moon, rather than crawled.
The ISS is anything but useful indeed.

Now, go read some history books, learn a bit about what is actually being done in space today and then come back with even just one accomplishment on ISS that would be even remotely worth the money spent.

Re:What does it have to show for it ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISS is still the biggest structure ever created in orbit. Before the world starts putting up space colonies and gigantic orbiting solar array farms, they have to start somewhere. The ISS was the first space construction project. It is an engineering feat, not really a scientific feat. As a starting point for the future of space construction, I don't think the ISS was that bad an idea.

The ISS has been the pioneer for space construction systems. Check out some of the amazing robotics systems they use up there sometime.

Re:What does it have to show for it ?

[vlm]

How about the experience we now have in getting stuff into space and keeping it there! This is not easy!!!

No, it is easy. Used commodity launchers/boosters to get the ISS up there, same as launch unmanned satellites. Just tossed up there like any other satellite. Did not develop any new launchers for the ISS. In fact we're getting rid of the primary launcher, the shuttle.

Now think that all these mistakes and successes will be directly used

No, that does not make money for contractors and no-invented-here is very popular in aerospace environments. Most certainly nothing will ever be re-used. The shuttle is not a saturn-V with wings, etc.

will be directly used when we go forward in exploring beyond our orbit with bigger stations and spacecraft carrying humans towards Mars and beyond

No need for another station. Classic politician move to get rid of a semi-popular project. Come up with a list of cool goals for a station, gradually cut them all to save money, then when it's time for version 2 ask "why, what did version 1 do for us anyway?". There are some pretty cool things that can be done with a space station. But that'll never happen on the ISS.

You must first crawl before you run? And so on.

It was a one time project. The designers were laid off in the 80s, the builders were laid off in the 90s, they're just pulling modules out of storage and boosting them today (slight exaggeration). If, today, we decided to do something new with the station, or to upgrade some component to a more evolved design, we'd have to start at the utter beginning and it would take at least 20 years. Of course they'll be deorbiting the station shortly after the shuttle program ends in two years, so why bother. As for crawl before you run, this is more like, put on a single one time demonstration of crawling (running was downsized to save money) and then quit. There is no future plan of bigger and brighter things.

If only the ISS were project managed correctly... A continuously developing experimental laboratory in space with continually expanding capabilities. Physical science labs full of people and electron microscopes and crystallography gear. A zoo and garden of growing things and the scientists to study them. A liquid fuel tank farm for spacecraft refueling. A warehouse of supplies for interplanetary trips. A building of (very) light industry. The worlds most amazing radio reception and transmission site. R+D labs for experimental geophysical research. A final assembly point for exotic non-atmospheric star-ships. A fully staffed experimental astronomical observatory where new concepts in UV and Xray telescopes are tried. An isolated lab in space to process return samples from other planets. A satellite repair shop to catch, fix, and release communications satellites. Probably a classified military observation post with literally cutting edge sigint and optical gear. A (tiny) research hospital with doctors and microscopes.

However, after the budget cuts what we got was an orbiting RV with a porta-potty.

Re:What does it have to show for it ?

[savuporo]

The ISS was the first space construction project
No it was not. Please, go read the history books.

As for your "engineering feat", you would apparently be willing to spend 50-100 billion to build a world biggest phallic monument, as long as its an engineering feat and teaches you how to build phallic monuments ?

The ISS has been pioneer on how _NOT_ to do space construction, its weakest point being dependence of one single launcher, which is soon to be decommissioned.

Re:What does it have to show for it ?

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Please qualify "We". In this case "We" means the US. The Soviets launched Salyut 1 in 1971.

The Soyuz 11 depressurization incident was upon departure from Salyut 1.

Re:What does it have to show for it ?

[CodeBuster]

Too bad, it could have been useful.

Even if all of the original scientific goals and plans for the ISS had been achieved, which would have been very ambitious indeed, it would still be an inefficient and wasteful expenditure of limited scientific and research and develop funds compared to alternative scientific uses. I am not personally qualified to decide what precisely would be the best combination of alternative uses of those monies, but neither is any other individual currently living on this planet. However, I am reasonably certain that the scientists of the world could have collectively and independently made much better use of the funds that went into what was essentially, as you pointed out, a space-cowboy style stunt. Until we have somewhere interesting to go and something like warp drive to get us there we really shouldn't be spending much at all on manned space flight.

Re:What does it have to show for it ?

[DerekLyons]

So for these several tens of billions sunk, and the "World class science facility" still not being really operational

Looked at the budget and construction time for the LHC recently? You know the one, it's down for six months and $21 million dollars because of the failure of a minor part. Facilities like this, even without the narrow logistics pipeline of rockets take a long time and a lot of money to build - they aren't ordered off of the shelf.
 
 

what does it have to show for this cash and ten years? How much technology advancement really has happened and what scientific goals have been accomplished?

Well, consider just the ESA ATV - a considerable leap in space operations and logistics. Consider the engineering experience gained by NASA in developing and operating systems with applicability towards future Lunar and Mars exploration. Etc... Etc... No, I didn't forget the Russians - it's just that as far as advances go, they are off the bottom of the charts. All they've brought to the table is refurbished 1980's technology, and they haven't improved it much. (Like the problematical Elektron O2 generator.)
 
 

There has been some useful stuff, but wouldnt it be nice to see it all these shortly summarized in a table with the bottomline dollar drawn under it?

Pretty hard to do that for an incomplete and not fully operational facility. Pointless too.

Re:What does it have to show for it ?

[jellomizer]

Just like those physicists a hundred years ago who started to understand the atom and Quantum physics. All that money for their experements and for what after a decade some abstract books that no one can understand...

Then you look hundred years in the future where the manufacturing process is so small these Quantum Physics principals are coming to play. Science isn't Engineering, Unlike popular media Scientist don't create these cool things in the world. It is the Engineers who use the laws learned from the Scientists and turn it to a real product. The ISS actually has improved procedures and policies for people working in space. Now say in 20-30 years these lessons learned can bring maned long term space missions to the Moon and Mars. Now technologies learned to survive in these harsh environments (Where there will not be much drilling of Oil on the Moon or Mars) can then be brought to earth for cleaner energy. As well how to survive better in these extreme environments so in case of a huge world wide disaster we just my have the technology to thrive in such a harsh world.

Re:What does it have to show for it ?

[shawn(at)fsu]

This seems kind of redundant. What I am saying is this. Lets say I want to build an electric car that gets 1000 miles to a charge, but to reduce costs I have to use an existing chassis. Well it turns out that in order to build this car and get 1000 mpc I will have to use the entire cabin to store the batteries. Suddenly someone should say if it can no longer be what it was intended to be, but now it exists solely to support itself why build it at all?

It seems as though redundant isn't the right word. Their has to be a word/phrase/term to describe this situation.
Other than ISS

A dish best served cold...

[CorporateSuit]

The true, insidious purpose of the space station has yet to reveal itself. It's up there to allow for a new unit of measurement. Even with tons, tonnes, elephants, library of congresses, football fields, million millions, we don't have a good cubic-meter measurement yet. So we'll use the obvious choice, (how many xxx can fit into a car?)

We stuff clowns into cars to see how many cubic feet they can reasonably allow. The reason the US, Russia, Japan, and all our other friends are collaborating on this project is to get all of our clowns up there, stuffed into the space station, to see how many can fit, and this will be our new standard of measurement for cubic space. Then, once we've tallied how many tens of thousands of clowns can fit into the space station, we launch it into the sun.

I'd like to see anyone disagree that all the money has been ill-spent on this endeavor.

Re:A dish best served cold...

[BlowHole666]

The true, insidious purpose of the space station has yet to reveal itself. It's up there to allow for a new unit of measurement. Even with tons, tonnes, elephants, library of congresses, football fields, million millions, we don't have a good cubic-meter measurement yet. So we'll use the obvious choice, (how many xxx can fit into a car?) We stuff clowns into cars to see how many cubic feet they can reasonably allow. The reason the US, Russia, Japan, and all our other friends are collaborating on this project is to get all of our clowns up there, stuffed into the space station, to see how many can fit, and this will be our new standard of measurement for cubic space. Then, once we've tallied how many tens of thousands of clowns can fit into the space station, we launch it into the sun. I'd like to see anyone disagree that all the money has been ill-spent on this endeavor.

By clowns you mean lawyers right?

Re:A dish best served cold...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest replacing clowns with telephone santizers.

Re:A dish best served cold...

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

I was thinking politicians.

Re:A dish best served cold...

[Anonymous Coward]

we don't have a good cubic-meter measurement yet. So we'll use the obvious choice, (how many xxx can fit into a car?)

We stuff clowns into cars to see how many cubic feet they can reasonably allow.

By clowns you mean lawyers right?

Lawyers fit real good, if you puree them first....

Will it blend??

Joost

[quadrofolio]

Why have there not been more studies into using railgun-like technology to fire large mass objects like satellites, fuel and raw building materials into space to use there? Something like a monorail bullet train on speed (traveling in a large looped track under vacuum to gain speed and then being ejected to a very big ramp for the shoot up into the sky) You could even build up speed gradually so even sensitive equipment such as satellites wouldn't have to suffer from acceleration. How fast should a streamlined package need to go if you fire it up that way? Anyone?

Re:Joost

[Dutch Gun]

Shooting stuff into space has been tried already. But it ended badly, with an eye being put out.

Re:Joost

[quadrofolio]

Heheheh. i can see what you mean :) but still. Must be possible. Accelerate the ship gradually till something like 20.000 Km/Hour and let her rip!

Re:Joost

[SLOviper]

I think this is what you're looking for.
There have also been US military studies done on the topic and there is a contest brewing as well.
Exciting times. :-)

Re:Joost

[KDR_11k]

We already have a gradually accelerating system, it's called a rocket. To accelerate to escape velocity at a survivable force you'd need a hugeass railgun, something on the order of several kilometers height. A tower that tall wouldn't be very easy to stabilize and cost a crapton of money.

Accelerating in a loop or using a ramp still has the issue that the centipetal force must not get too big.

Re:Joost

[Bourbonium]

You can also use something like a Launch Loop (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop, http://www.launchloop.com/ and http://www.keithl.com/), so the answer to your question "How fast should a streamlined package need to go if you fire it up that way?" is 14 Kilometers per second.

Shuttle is a lot of the cost.

[nacnud75]

Well a lot of the cost is the inefficient nature of the Shuttle launch system. Every launch of the shuttle puts 110 tonnes in orbit, but around 90% of that is the shuttle itself. Rather than 10s of launches the ISS could have been put up with a handful of NLS launches freeing the shuttle for what it does best, servicing a space station and bringing samples back.

Re:Shuttle is a lot of the cost.

[Earthpaladin]

Another idea, is after the ISS station is done, perhaps we could do a similiar thing with a moonbase. With the U.S. taking the lead, and other nations taking supportive roles. That would be less costly then doing it ourselves. For example, if India, and Japan went in with us, it would help them improve their programs, and we might be able to do it faster. Continuing on that idea if India and Japan were to help us on our next generation spacecraft, it might get the next generation spacecraft ready sooner at less expense. For example, if they loaned us some engineers or perhaps some monetary contribution to do help with the development. They could get access to plans and other things from us.

Re:Shuttle is a lot of the cost.

[DerekLyons]

Which would have resulted in a station even more expensive - as the cost of developing the launch vehicle, building the infrastructure to support it, and finally operating it would have been amortized over a very small number of launches.
 
There's a reason why heavy lift systems keep being studied and abandoned.

using Bugzilla is a good start

[Earthpaladin]

Personally, I think use of Bugzilla is a good start. I think it would be great to see more "open source" applications being used. Another thing is I think the next generation rocket technology was good. The shuttle when it came out was really new technology. If it had been mass produced it would have saved us a ton on money.

Re:using Bugzilla is a good start

[MosesJones]

I've just fallen off my chair for a number of reasons

Firstly about the ideal of using Bugzilla for one of the most safety critical programmes in the world.

Secondly at the idea that this will make a dent in the cost (hint: the cost of change in this environment is in the process not the IT support technology)

Thirdly at idea of a mass produced shuttle saving a ton of money, that is like saying "if only they made 2 million Corvettes a day then the US auto industry wouldn't be in trouble".

Finally at the general idiot savant arrogance of looking at one of the most complex engineering achievements of all time and trying to fix it the same way you'd fix a web site that went over budget.

So many complain about the cost of space research.

[Anonymous Coward]

Which does cost billions. And many good projects get canceled. But also does produce much good.

But lets just question it instead of other more important wastes of money.

Aside from all the experience we learned about maintaining a structure in space for 10 years (something we need to know how to do to get to Mars), we also got lots of viable information regarding the affects on us in space. And then there are the experiments conducted.

What should we sensationalize into the dirt next? Hmmm, the news already shows about a 400%+ increase in violent crimes (over the last 20ish years) even though in reality violent crimes are down. Guess we all need ADT to protect from our well founded fears. Best not question that waste of news/social disruption. Especially since it can be used to cause so much fear in other reports (terrorists? bogeymen etc) .... and fear is sold to taxpayers without looking like a tax. Better than reporting the important stuff.

Maybe war? More is spent on war than on space. Much more. But questioning war leads to the linkage of questioning our soldiers. So lets not regard that cost.

But I digress inanely :(

Football pitches: your running may vary

[fantomas]

Ah well that's because football pitches (in USian, "soccer field" I think...) can vary in size. FIFA's Laws of the Game note minimum and maximum sizes for width and length of pitch: Page 7, Dimensions. Teams are entitled to lay pitches anywhere within these dimensions which leads to learned followers on the terrace mulling about "narrow" and "wide" pitches favouring differing teams or players styles...

Just to confuse things further I believe these are approximate metric measures which have been translated from the original Imperial measures used in England, home of Association Football's Laws of the Game....

Vomit Comit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that why my office elevator is nicknamed the "Vomit Comit?"

Whats that in the background?

[Tmack]

is it a moon?
Thats no moon! Its a space station!!

To think, if we changed launch vehicles for payloads, we could have our very own deathstar by now!

tm

Not exactly in space...

[master_p]

Given that space is so vast, saying that humanity has been there 10 years is misleading, at best.

Marking 10 years of ISS in space

[Wowsers]

I read that to mark the special occasion, a NASA space walk launched into space a (commemorative??) tool kit. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/19/dropped_toolbag/

Space shuttle Endeavour mission specialist Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper yesterday dropped her toolbag as she and Steve Bowen worked outside the International Space Station, in the process consigning to oblivion "two grease guns, scrapers, several wipes and tethers and some tool caddies".[

Best Laid Plans

[Bourbonium]

I have a DVD copy of a Discovery Channel documentary about the ISS, produced in 2000. Prominently featured in the program is astrophysicist Neil DeGrassi Tyson, talking about all the great work that will be done up there when construction of the ISS is completed ... in 2006. The final segment of the program details progress on designing the Crew Recovery Vehicle that was to be used to replace the aging Soyuz in 2005 as the "Lifeboat" to return astronauts to earth in the event they had to abandon the ISS. That was cancelled sometime after the Columbia Shuttle disaster. All of the CGI graphics in the program showing the final completed space station bear little resemblence to the 10 year old ISS we can see in photographs and videos on NASA's website today, suggesting that construction of the project is probably no more than halfway complete. All massive government projects tend to fall significantly behind schedule, and none of them ever come in as budgeted, sometimes balooning to two or even three times the cost that was allocated. The Space Station is no different, and perhaps because of its ambitious promises that were used to sell the project to the congress, is just that much more of a disappointment.

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to go up there to visit as a tourist like Simonyi, Ansari, Garriott or Shuttleworth. If I had the money, that would be my dream vacation. The experiences of these visionaries confirms the validity of space tourism as a viable industry. Perhaps NASA should stop trying to sell the ISS as a scientific project (a mission that has demonstrated very disappointing results) and promote the place for the awe and majesty of the experience the astronauts enjoy.