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Russia May Be Planning National Space Station To Replace ISS
An anonymous reader writes with news that Russia may be building its own space station to replace the ISS. Russia may be planning to build a new, independent national space station rather than prolong its participation in the $150 billion International Space Station (ISS) program beyond its current 2020 end date. The U.S. space agency NASA proposed last year to extend the life of the ISS — the largest international project ever undertaken by nations during peacetime — beyond its currently scheduled 2020 end date to at least 2024.
The ISS is a huge drain of money that could have been better spend on a large number of unmanned probes to do actual science.
Studying the effects of living in space on humans and solving those problems is actual science; with lots of practical applications in medicine etc that will have real benefits even for us earthbound people.
Longer term we will want to know and solve those problems as well, for actually getting people somewhere else, even if its not am immediate plan to put anyone permanently anywhere else.
So, what exactly is the point of manned space stations? Is it really worth it? Or would the money, time and effort be better invested in some other types of space activity - automated experimental stations, or - let's dream - building a "real" base in space?
What's the point of everything else we do in space if not to extend our horizon? Manned space stations allow us to advance in one of the pillars of colonizing space; the actual survival in that space.
The question should be quite the opposite. what's the point on every other investment that doesn't allow us to push our boundaries? What's the objective of humanity?
For me, the primary objective should be to expand, so for example every single dollar spent in defense, to fight among ourselves, is only useful in whatever science those investments bring along.
>So, what exactly is the point of manned space stations?
For one thing, testing various methods for keeping humans alive, healthy, and sane in space.
We need to expand beyond Earth. To do that, we'll need space stations as jump-off points, and we'll need to know how to survive extended periods in space (months and years). To do that, we need somewhere to test survival, like the ISS.
> Or would the money, time and effort be better invested in some other types of space activity - automated experimental stations, or - let's dream - building a "real" base in space?
The ISS cost $150 billion over 20 years, or about $7.5 billion a year to construct and maintain. The US currently spends about $3 billion a year to keep it going - or about $8 per person. It's not a lot of money. Think about that - watching a movie about space costs more than actually maintaining a real life space station.
We have to start somewhere. All the work put into building and maintaining ISS was necessary experience before would could build a "real" base. We can design all we want but there are a lot of lessons to learn when you try to put theory into practice.
Yes, for each individual experiment, automated experiments are cheaper and easier. They're still done: http://www.space.com/27003-rus...
We don't have to do ISS *or* automated experiments - we do both.
Space is the future and it takes big investments right now. They do pay off now, and they'll pay off even more in the future.
For the cost of getting humans to and from an asteroid on a decade long mission (in anything approaching a functional state) we could have sent thousands of unmanned landers. Sending people adds a gigantic cost premium. It's nonsense to suggest the rover mission would have been better with people, it wouldn't have happened with people due to cost, and if we could afford the cost of sending people we could do hundreds of unmanned missions for the same cost as one manned one.