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International Space Station Mission Extended To 2024
An anonymous reader writes with news that funding has been secured for the ISS through at least 2024. From NASA: "'...We are pleased to announce that the Obama Administration has approved an extension of the International Space Station until at least 2024. We are hopeful and optimistic that our ISS partners will join this extension effort and thus enable continuation of the groundbreaking research being conducted in this unique orbiting laboratory for at least another decade. ... A further benefit of ISS extension is it will give NASA and its private-sector partners time to more fully transition to the commercial space industry the transportation of cargo and crew to low-Earth-orbit, allowing NASA to continue to increase its focus on developing the next-generation heavy-lift rocket and crew capsule necessary for deep-space exploration."
Yes! Thats All.
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Thanks, indeed.
"If you like your space station you can keep your space station."
Let's hope Obama wasn't kidding this time.
Thanks for spending my money on something I actually can get behind instead of just spending it on tracking my phone calls, funding terrorist organizations and god knows what else.
Maybe you can keep this up and we can have a real science budget in the USA.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Too bad, I was hoping to buy it and become Waldo.
On a more serious note, I don't see the ISS as a single "thing" that can/should be abandoned or destroyed. It is a collaborative effort of many people and many nations and is designed to be built upon and "developed". Like a new community. I'm hoping that we as a species find the right combination of profitability and marketability from it to ensure it is still in the sky long after I'm dead and buried. Perhaps we should start thinking of it as more of a "place" than a "thing".
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
... is going to be responsible for "deep-space exploration", not USA/EU.
The Space Station is a huge pork barrel; it is a way for NASA/Houston to siphon funds that would better spent on real science. The billions wasted on this would be better spent on robotic missions to Europa and other icy moons plus a Mars Sample Return Mission. The Terrestrial Planet Finder mission would also be a much better use of the money. The real excitement and discovery is happening with robotic probes such as the MSL (Curiousity), not the manned pork.
It needs a new timing belt, oil change, and rotate the tires.
I hope they allocated money for that too.
Should have said "Obama approves an extension to keep a fiscal albatross around NASA's neck." Even without looking at it from a cost/benefit analysis, as far as research goes, it is a useless platform for anything but investigating long-term effects of microgravity. Pretty much all the "groundbreaking" research presented in the past has been WAY overblown, or was research that could be done better on Earth.
You fool! Now we may never know if ants can be trained to sort tiny screws in space.
The Galactic DMV also requires a flasher fluid flush, a new windshield wiper belt, and a tachyon emissions filter for the flux capacitor before it passes inspection.
Disappointed
I was looking forward to the Taco Bell promotions when this thing crashed back to earth
Obama alone can not extend the ISS mission. The I is for International. Unless its international partners also agree, there won't be an extension.
Unlike what many 'muricans like to believe, the world events are not unilaterally decided by the US.
That being said, I would be happy if the ISS mission would really and indeed be extended. We should invest more into space and science than war&weapons.
NASA should move into a role of supporting commercial space flight. Let players like SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace create the technologies needed. Let the lawyers figure out how to grant property rights on the Moon, Mars, etc. At this point, I'm inclined to view the ISS as a LEO flying turkey.
down the tubes.. or into the vacuum as the case may be. The ISS has no major accomplishments other than being a gravy train for aerospace contractors. Is there research going on up there that provides sufficient return to justify a cost of $8.2 million per day if it were not funded through tax dollars? Now that the station is being serviced commercially it is time to pull the plug. If IBM or Intel or Merck or Pfizer or whomever want a research lab in space let them form a consortium with Boeing et al and build one that suits their needs. And if they are really in love with the existing station, sell it to them and get some tax money back.
So what do we really get out of the space station? Is it ever going to turn a profit? Has it ever helped produce anything?
I'm not trying to be critical. I've heard of things like experiments to see whether spiders can still spin webs in 0 G and whether the webs look different. But after many years of hearing about stuff like this, I've never heard a strong explanation put forward as to what is its real tangible benefit. If it is simply to work with other nations in a unique environment, call congress. I've heard they have some pretty unique and expensive parties. No doubt, there's a cynical meter reading very high right now. But I do know a number of the companies providing major support for the space station are well connected politically and get a lot of money for it.
So what to do? I don't know. If it is a waste of money, I don't think it is the worst the federal government has dreamed up. That's because it's a cool project. But me-thinks more could be accomplished for less money in private industry.
They where already planning for the demise of the ISS. They where going to salvage parts that they owned and create their own orbiting platform for deep space exploration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Piloted_Assembly_and_Experiment_Complex
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
How long is NASA going to keep building vehicles to reach out to the rest of the Solar System that need to be launched from the ground? They need to start using low earth orbit as a springboard, especially to the outer planets. Given that most of the energy used in any current space launch is necessary to overcome gravity why isn't there a focus on assembling vehicles in low earth orbit and then sending them on their way with a much smaller use of energy?
The US being virtually bankrupt, I wonder where the money will come from.... but then again:
*slap on forehead* of course. The Fed will just print some *slap on forehead*
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
If you launch them with just the right amount of energy, you don't NEED to "stop them". They'll end up in an orbit around earth. Not as if we had not been already doing that for decades.... Back to school, dude !
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
The US is too far in debt for this to make any difference.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
I hear this all the time about how the ISS is supposed to evolve into this orbital "gas station" for future missions to the moon, Mars, or beyond. The problem with that is the ISS is in the wrong orbit for doing that. To get the ISS project off the ground the orbit was shifted from it's original low angle orbit to a high angle orbit. This higher angle made it cheaper and easier for supply missions from existing Russian launch sites.
I won't pretend I understand all the physics but I get the general concept. To reach the ISS from Russia easily means that the orbit had to deviate quite a bit from the equator. Any spacecraft bound for a destination within the solar system requires a trajectory very close to the orbital plane of the planets.
I understand that every orbit is a compromise since the Earth's rotation and other motions of objects in the solar system means that there is no one perfect orbit for an orbital platform to use as a filling station or assembly point. I do recall that ISS has an orbit far from anything close to ideal as a stopping off point for a destination within the solar system. A spacecraft stopping at ISS on its way to any other point in the solar system would burn far too much fuel in getting there that there is just not enough fuel that ISS could transfer to the craft to make the stop worth it.
It was also explained to me that moving the ISS to a more suitable orbit would be exceedingly expensive. It would just be cheaper and easier to build another station in this more suitable orbit. I'm just angered a bit when people claim that the ISS is going to be our gas station in the sky for our future manned mission to Mars.
I am pleased a bit that we (speaking as an American citizen and a member of the human race) are not abandoning manned missions in space. I'm hoping that at some point we see multiple manned orbital platforms, some made specifically as a stop off point for manned missions beyond low Earth orbit. If NASA could get its act together then maybe we could see an American flag painted on such a station before China or Russia beats us to it.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.