Trump Administration Wants To End NASA Funding For ISS By 2025 (theverge.com)

According to budget documents seen by The Verge, the Trump administration is preparing to end support for the International Space Station program by 2025. As a result, American astronauts could be grounded on Earth for years with no destination in space until NASA develops new vehicles for its deep space travel plans. From the report: The draft may change before an official budget request is released on February 12th. However, two people familiar with the matter have confirmed to The Verge that the directive will be in the final proposal. We reached out to NASA for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication. Any budget proposal from the Trump administration will also be subject to scrutiny and approval by Congress. But even announcing the intention to cancel ISS funding could send a signal to NASA's international partners that the U.S. is no longer interested in continuing the program. Many of NASA's partners still have yet to decide if they'd like to continue working on the station beyond 2024. The International Space Station has been an ongoing program for more than two decades. It costs NASA between $3 to $4 billion each year, and represents a more than $87 billion investment from the U.S. government. It's become a major hub for conducting both government and commercial experiments in microgravity, as well as testing out how the human body responds to weightlessness.

Comments

No Hope

[mentil]

Time to rename the Kibo module 'Zetsubou'.

Re:No Hope

[msauve]

Kibo? Knowledge In, Bullshit Out?

Re:No Hope

[dunkelfalke]

Hope in Japanese. And zetsubo is despair.

Re:No Hope

[Megane]

Kibo? Knowledge In, Bullshit Out?

Parry-haps you're just some random kibozo. You should beable to do better than that.

Re:No Hope

[msauve]

I'm not random. My Kibo number is 1. K+++

Incoming PoopRatzo Spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's here what PoopRatzo has to say! PoopRatzo knows all! PoopRatzo will tell Trump anti-christ to die! PoopRatzo, yeah!

2025

[Anonymous Coward]

I expect that by 2025 we'll be close to the point where you can book a room in a private space station. Musk's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy will make launches cheap enough for that to be feasible.

Re:2025

[sheramil]

I expect that by 2025 we'll be close to the point where you can book a room in a private space station.

What you mean "we", white man? Are you one of the one percent who could afford it? I won't be going, and neither will most Slashdotters. When you get there, drink some champagne and then empty your bladder into your Gaultier space-suit's piss-tube, and think of us back on Earth, will ya?

Re:2025

[vtcodger]

"Musk's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy will make launches cheap enough for that to be feasible."

Same thing they told us about the %$#@% Space Shuttle. They promised weekly launches and cost of a few hundred dollars a kg to LEO. The best they ever did was 9 launches in 1985. And the average cost to LEO was $60000/kg.

But this time it's different. ... How different? Most likely, not very

Aside from which, most of what we need to know about people, manufacturing, etc in space was determined in the 1970s by Skylab.

A new Skylab type mission every decade or two might be worth doing. The Space station was a near total waste of money and resources.

Humans in space? Maybe in the 22nd century. Right now, we'd do better to focus human exploration on great unknowns closer to home. Like the oceans that cover 70% of the planet. Leave exploring space to machines that can do it cheaper and better.

Re:2025

[geekmux]

"Musk's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy will make launches cheap enough for that to be feasible."

Same thing they told us about the %$#@% Space Shuttle. They promised weekly launches and cost of a few hundred dollars a kg to LEO. The best they ever did was 9 launches in 1985. And the average cost to LEO was $60000/kg.

But this time it's different. ... How different? Most likely, not very.

NASA budgets are fueled by taxpayer dollars. And taxpayers don't really see their taxes as an investment with returns, nor do they often raise their hand and volunteer to raise taxes by the billions in order to properly fund specific projects.

Compare and contrast that with Tesla, budgets are fueled by investors. And investors want to see revenue and returns, which require Musk to deliver. Is he on schedule? No, he has slipped, no doubt. But he has managed to innovate and deliver like no one else in the EV market, and reduce the cost of his product over the last 10 years to something that the average consumer can afford, not just the 1%.

Yes, I'd say this time is different. Moving space programs into the private sector is likely the solution to beating $60000/kg.

Re:2025

[Anonymous Coward]

Because white people are so privileged that they can afford space travel. So privileged in fact that it's the only group you could make this comment about without tens of people jumping down your throat calling you a racist.

Re: 2025

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't be going because you're a loser. It has nothing to do with skin color.

Re:2025

[CohibaVancouver]

I expect that by 2025 we'll be close to the point where you can book a room in a private space station

Hey Anonymous Coward - You honestly think that a mere seven years from now you'll be able to book a room at a hotel in space?

Are you on the moon already?

Fifty years from now, maybe.

Re:2025

[Joce640k]

I expect that by 2025 we'll be close to the point where you can book a room in a private space station.

What you mean "we", white man? Are you one of the one percent who could afford it? I won't be going, and neither will most Slashdotters.

Um, "Bitcoin".

Buy one today and you'll easily have enough money by 2025.

Re:2025

[Anonymous Coward]

I expect that by 2025 we'll be close to the point where you can book a room in a private space station.

What you mean "we", white man? ...

Racist much?

You utter fucking jackass.

Re:2025

[Anonymous Coward]

When you get there, drink some champagne and then empty your bladder into your Gaultier space-suit's piss-tube, and think of us back on Earth, will ya?

By 2025 I will be doing that here on Earth anyway, might as well have a good view :)

Re:2025

[Anonymous Coward]

I expect that by 2025 we'll be close to the point where you can book a room in a private space station.

What you mean "we", white man? Are you one of the one percent who could afford it? I won't be going, and neither will most Slashdotters.

Um, "Bitcoin".

Buy one today and you'll easily have enough money by 2025.

Space travel is going to be free?

Re:2025

[JackieBrown]

And what are the chances of most Slashdotters going while the program is owned by NASA?

Re:2025

[taiwanjohn]

Yes, I'd say this time is different. Moving space programs into the private sector is likely the solution to beating $60000/kg.

In fact, SpaceX has already beaten that price by an order of magnitude. Even in expendable mode, the Falcon 9 only costs about $2500/kg to LEO; in reusable mode, they can probably shave another third off of that price. Falcon heavy can probably add another 25~50% savings on top of that (in reusable mode). But I'm afraid that's about all for the Falcon series, since they've abandoned 2nd-stage reusability in favor of the BFR approach.

Of course, once the BFR is flying, the cost of access to space will really drop. But even now, the GGP's notion of a private space station is already quite feasible. Bigelow Aerospace already has them ready to go, they're just waiting for a cheap taxi service to make the market. As long as the Russians are charging $70M a seat, there aren't a lot of potential customers, but if SpaceX can get you there for, say, $8M a seat... shit, the porn industry alone would be enough to fund multiple stations. ;-)

And that is all just around the corner. Both SpaceX and Boeing are on track for crewed test flights later this year.

Re:2025

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, like they promised 20 years ago.

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9705/25/japan.space/

Let go of your space fantasies. They make no sense.

They never did. (That's why they never happened and never will).

We don't even have the Concorde anymore.

Re: 2025

[Anonymous Coward]

The Russians also offer reentry and return for that $70 million, unless you think people are expendable.

Re:2025

[penandpaper]

Zero-G Juggs.... Scruffy. The janitor.

A future to hope for.

Yep

Re:2025

[MachineShedFred]

People probably said the same thing about air travel in the 1950s. And in the 1970s it became common for everyday people. And in the 1990s it became uncommon to meet someone that hasn't traveled by air at some point if you live in an industrialized nation.

But good job staring at the metaphorical ground and never looking up at the horizon.

Re:2025

[Anonymous Coward]

So privileged in fact that it's the only group you could make this comment about without tens of people jumping down your throat calling you a racist.

Yes, in fact that's the case. The white "race" (actually a social construct employed to divide the working class) has been subjugating others for centuries. Now they start to get a little push back and they act like they're the ones being oppressed. Most white people wouldn't last a month as a black person in the US.

Re:2025

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to the homeless white guy. Tell that to the white farmers in Africa. Tell that to the French in Haiti in 1791. Tell that to the white slaves throughout history.

Now they start to get a little push back and they act like they're the ones being oppressed.

Because revenge is not the same is equal opportunity.

Most white people wouldn't last a month as a black person in the US.

You have never been to a trailer park, have you?

You are a piece of shit that dresses up their racism in feel-good-progressive double speak like "privilege" to make you feel moral about your bigotry and hatred.

Re:2025

[MachineShedFred]

Yeah, except the numbers are actually there for Falcon 9 Heavy (if it works - we'll know more next week). http://www.nss.org/articles/fa...

1/4 the launch cost of a Delta IV Heavy while boosting over 2x the payload weight. Delta IV Heavy costs about an order of magnitue more per pound of payload.

Sounds like progress to me (if it works).

Re:2025

[PopeRatzo]

I expect that by 2025 we'll be close to the point where you can book a room in a private space station.

You're dreaming. By 2025, 80% of Americans will believe the Earth is flat, space travel will be illegal due to it being "ungodly", and an animatronic Liberace will be president. Nobody's going to "book a room" in any space station by 2025.

And anyone who could have possibly afforded it will be hospitalized due to drinking "raw water".

Re:2025

[vtcodger]

"the Falcon 9 only costs about $2500/kg to LEO"

As far as I can tell, it's $2500 per pound, (0.45 kg) not $2500 per kg) kilogram. That's roughly $5000 per kg. That's comparable with other launch systems. Probably a bit less if you can figure out how to compare as fairly as possible.

It's reasonable to expect some improvement over time.

Launch costs are pretty hazy for a lot of reasons. Wikipedia took them out of its tables five or six years ago, but you can dig the old version out of the Internet Archive if you really wish to. Best guess I could work out from what was there is that we'll probably hit affordable ($200/kg) around 2070 or 2080. And cheap enough to really do stuff without being crippled by launch costs ($20/kg) early in the next century.

Pessimistic? I suppose so. OTOH, it's been just about 50 years since Apollo and we've gone through two comparably costly (in current dollars) efforts -- the Space Shuttle and the ISS. We can still just barely get a few folks (safely) to orbit and back. I can't see why -- other than wishful thinking -- anyone thinks that situation is going to change any time soon.

Re:2025

[Anonymous Coward]

Air travel proposes a destination that anyone can go to because it's on the same planet. There IS a destination! There's a REASON to go!

You don't need special training, a spacesuit, be physically fit, require a PhD, or pay a million dollars to fly to Mexico for a week.

You can go to Mexico, there's already people there, things to see, do, eat, and breathe.

That's why you can't compare this to space "travel".

But good job staring at the metaphorical ground and never looking up at the horizon.

Interesting proposal: The horizon is ON THIS PLANET. And the ground feeds you!

Your own "rebuttal" shows how empty your ideas are, as empty as space.

PS: We don't even have the Concorde anymore. Let go of your childhood fantasies. You're not getting a wizard hat either, so forget space. It was always a childish dream.

Re:2025

[Zak3056]

Because white people are so privileged that they can afford space travel. So privileged in fact that it's the only group you could make this comment about without tens of people jumping down your throat calling you a racist.

You might want to dial back on the angst... It's a Lone Ranger reference. The joke goes, "The Long Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by ten thousand screaming Indians. The Ranger looks at Tonto and says, 'what do we do now, faithful companion?' and Tonto replies, 'What you mean 'we' white man?'"

Re:2025

[Anonymous Coward]

"Because revenge is not the same is equal opportunity."

When you don't bother with the equal opportunity part you end up with revenge.

Re:2025

[MachineShedFred]

ULA even beats the GP post's price handsomely with both Delta IV Heavy ($14000/kg) and Atlas V ($8200/kg) to LEO if you put as much payload on there as it's rated for. The only reason to use Delta IV Heavy is if you have a big single payload that won't work on anything else, or you are leaving Earth orbit with something that weighs as much as 5 average sedans.

Even Saturn V, fully loaded, and adjusted for inflation, would be $3750/kg to LEO. Even the most expensive shuttle launch ever at $1.5B would have cost $54500/kg to LEO if fully loaded. Average Shuttle launch cost according to NASA was $450M, which puts the fully loaded cost at $18350/kg.

I'm not really sure what he's on about with $60k/kg to LEO, that's never been the case.

Re:2025

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, equal outcome is what you think is equal opportunity? No equal opportunity yet, the most powerful man alive was a black man.

What law needs to be changed? What position can a black man not get? What money can a black man not earn? What education can a black man not achieve? Are you one of those idiots that think a spoiled son of a millionaire screaming "we have nothing to lose but our chains" is less privileged than the son of poor trailer park trash?

Oh it's "society" ingrained unconscious racism, amirite? If that is true then you can explain why the black community was getting better educated with better job prospects and stronger families under Jim Crow i.e. literal ingrained conscious societal racism. I don't think any idiot can say with a straight face that we are more racist as a society today compared to the 50's and 60's yet something happened and the black community is struggling more so now than when there were structural racial obstacles.

You are a piece of shit that dresses up their racism in feel-good progressive double speak like "privilege" to make you feel moral about your bigotry and hatred.

Re:2025

[taiwanjohn]

I'm just going by public info on price per vehicle ($62M) and capacity to LEO (22,800kg) which works out to $2,719/kg (I "guesstimated" $2,500 above, but used a calculator this time).

50 years since Apollo and we've gone through two comparably costly (in current dollars) efforts -- the Space Shuttle and the ISS. We can still just barely get a few folks (safely) to orbit and back. I can't see why -- other than wishful thinking -- anyone thinks that situation is going to change any time soon.

Well... assuming SpaceX can get the Dragon 2 capsule approved for human flight in the next year or so, would that not satisfy your criteria? I suppose it's still only launching "a few folks" at a time, but at a huge cost savings compared to what the Russians are charging.

If you're just talking about NASA spending, that's one thing. But the point of this whole thread is that private industry can do it better and cheaper. That has clearly been happening in recent years, and not just at SpaceX (they're just the most "visible" in the media).

Re:2025

[penandpaper]

heh, whenever I see a Lone Ranger reference I am reminded of Airheads.

Re:2025

[AutodidactLabrat]

White farmers in South Africa?
Been listening to AfriForum again?
Now the POLICE have entirely different numbers
Hmm, Police. Blogs. Police. Blogs.
For myself, I'll go with a reliable source, thank you
So, 74 murders = 130/100,000? Only if there are but 40,000 farmers in SA!!!

Re:2025

[supremebob]

Actually, this is a great idea: NASA should start accepting Bitcoin for visits to the ISS! Not only will it be a great revenue stream for NASA, but it will help the IRS figure out who's been neglecting to put a few million dollars worth of crypto mining profits on their 1040 forms.

And, hey... if the Winklevoss twins ever show up, maybe Mark Zuckerberg will pay NASA extra to stage an unfortunate airlock depressurization "accident" for them.

I wonder what the maximum amount of Bitcoin BitPay currently accepts... it might need to be tweaked a bit.

Re:2025

[Anonymous Coward]

Is murder the only marker for subjugation?
The original claim: white "race" (actually a social construct employed to divide the working class) has been subjugating others for centuries

Re:2025

[Anonymous Coward]

we'll probably be able to sell the US's investment in it to Elon. he needs somewhere to put his office while he builds the real space station in l2.

1) The International Space Station has many owners to go through before a sale.

2) The human body breaks down from extended zero-g before they even get killed from the poisonous extended radiation exposure from merely residing inside the ISS, which is under the Van Allen Radiation Belts that protect ISS from solar and space radiation. Yeah, L2 is beyond those "protective" belts. Elon likes engineering challenges, but L2 isn't happening anytime soon.

Re: 2025

[Anonymous Coward]

Thatâ(TM)s not what bitcoins going to the moon means!!!!

Re: 2025

[kenh]

The Russians also offer reentry and return for that $70 million, as long as you think people are expendable.

Re:2025

[david_thornley]

The question is not, does this white person have a hard life? The question is, would this white person be worse off if he or she were of another race?

Re:2025

[david_thornley]

This is the equivalent of saying, in 1957, that air travel would be for everyday people in 1965, only more so. Disregarding the differences between air travel and space travel, 2025 is ludicrously soon.

Re:2025

[AutodidactLabrat]

Nice try.
Total failure, since you have no metrics
but nice try

Re:2025

[ananamouse]

> Most white people wouldn't last a month as a black person in the US.
Would not care to. I have to compete with other 'white' people. It is tough. Some people can lay back and blame whatever and vote for the Santa Clause political party. Not me. I have to bust my ass to even place.

Kill it with fire!

[Dutchmaan]

Something that is both cooperative and science based... I'm surprised Trump didn't nuke it on his first day in office!

Re:Kill it with fire!

[Anonymous Coward]

The US withdraw form the project was clear years ago and the question if the other partners wanted to carry on with it was left unanswered. At least Russians were interested continuing at the time. I don't know about ESA and the Japanese though. But hey, maybe the US could buy a really inexpensive space station from the Chinese, since they clearly have already set up the space station production line. Lets all do that and connect them together. Maybe we could have something that lasts for a 100 years at the orbit, before falling back to the radioactive waste land below.

Re:Kill it with fire!

[Z00L00K]

If you can prove that you can find God with science on the ISS you'd probably get all funding you need and more.

But then - realize that all money used for space science actually drives development down on Earth. But that seems to be totally forgotten by leading politicians and activist groups. Space science is the leading edge of science and what cuts new ground. It may not create direct profit but a lot of the technology that's developed for it will in turn be stepping stones for something that is providing profit.

Or in other words - it's a lot easier to cut a beef with a sharp knife than a dull. And if you don't keep your knife sharp then you get overrun by those that keeps their knives sharp.

Re:Kill it with fire!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, that is in contradiction with flat earth and other alternative facts which direct current administration.

Re:Kill it with fire!

[gtall]

"But that seems to be totally forgotten by leading politicians" It isn't that it is forgotten, it is that the development driven by space science is not seen or when it is, it is seen as a plot by scientists to stop industry from screwing with the environment in pursuit of profit.

Re:Kill it with fire!

[PoopJuggler]

Space is so passe... Coal is the future!

Re:Kill it with fire!

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree - if you could find God with the ISS, the people who have been making a mint by claiming to talk for him would do everything they could to shut it down. They won't let anyone mess with their racket.

Re:Kill it with fire!

[Anonymous Coward]

A rationalist is capable of noticing his confusion, and addresses it by modifying his worldview.

IE you should realize that Trump is neither against international cooperation, nor is he against science. Or find some other explanation that fits the facts and doesn't boil down to you talking about the invisible dragon in your garage.

Re:Kill it with fire!

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISS is a total waste of money. It accomplishes nothing scientifically. It is just a pork barrel for the manned mission directorate. Robotic missions superseded manned missions a decade ago or so.

Re:Kill it with fire!

[dacut]

Space is so passe... Coal is the future!

Clearly, what we need to do is build a coal power plant on the ISS...

Orange Logic

[Tablizer]

American astronauts could be grounded on Earth for years with no destination in space until NASA develops new vehicles for its deep space travel plans

If you want deep-space systems, it's best to have a place near Earth to test them.

Personally I'd rather see the money spent on unmanned missions and extra-solar planetary scopes: bigger science bang for the buck. BUT if we are going to have Mars-esque manned missions, ISS is a great place to test them out and train.

Re:Orange Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit blaming Trump for every god damn thing that happens. This story is nothing more than the liberal media digging for every god damn thing they can blame on Trump.

The ISS was planned to be decommissioned around that time frame well before it ever left the ground in 1998!!!

The ISS is OLD as fuck now. Nothing lasts forever, especially when it is subjected to the thermal and pressure stresses of space. Quite frankly based on its age, I am surprised something catastrophic hasn't happened already, the longer it gets drawn out the more likely something failing on it in a catastrophic way. It would be one thing if it was an unmanned satellite or telescope, but there are people living on it. There is no point putting their lives at risk to try and stretch more time out of it than it was designed for.

The ISS is huge and is definitely not something you want falling back to earth in an uncontrolled manner because of a catastrophic failure.

It is time to start thinking about sun setting it and let some new brilliant minds come up with the next space station or maybe even something better that can go deeper into space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#End_of_mission
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station_program#End_of_Mission
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/578543main_asap_eol_plan_2010_101020.pdf
https://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-07/nasa-de-orbit-international-space-station-2016
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/20140109-international-space-station.html

Re:Orange Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

if you want to go to mars and asteroids and stuff you have to build a space station first.
then you have to let it "rot in space".
space is a environment on it's own. there's no substitute on earth.
if you want to know how people, materials, mechanisms and logistics work in outer-space then you need
a test bed.
it's a bit like old wine and sauerkraut. both cant be made over night. you need to observe "the rot".
the longer you can keep something in space and observe it the more you learn.
i assume the first ocean going boats and ships didn't last either. but putting a vessel on the ocean most definitely
thought them builder a thing or two on what works and what sinks next week : P

Re:Orange Logic

[Tablizer]

Quit blaming Trump for every god damn thing that happens...The ISS was planned to be decommissioned around that time frame well before it ever left the ground in 1998!!!

But the early estimates were only estimates, not policy. It's pretty obvious that the President in office in the mid 2020's will be making the final call such that one shouldn't hired-wire the retirement date just yet.

And assessments are that ISS is in relatively good shape, and that certain portions or systems can potentially be shut down as units rather than an all-or-nothing retirement.

Re:Orange Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

The places near Earth to test them are Near Earth Orbit and the moon.

Please, don't tell me the bad news: Trump cancelled LEO and moon.

Re:Orange Logic

[Samurai Nigel]

I have a feeling most people will stop reading your post when you say things like "liberal media." If you'd like to be taken seriously, you should avoid things like "liberal media," "fake news," and other nonsense catchphrases associated with them.

Re:Orange Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

No you don't We have gotten multiple probes to mars with no need for an intermediary stop.

You might have to use multiple rockets to get the stuff over there, but you are going to need to do that anyways to get the stuff to the intermediary point as well. The expensive part is getting stuff off the earth. Once it's moving is takes little fuel other than trajectory corrections to keep going. So it would likely be cheaper to just have those rockets keep going than a stop at another multi billion dollar intermediary point

And even if we were to use an intermediary point, the moon would be better anyways. There is a lot more space to stage things before going to mars if needed. A moon base is something that can keep growing much like a city or military base on earth rather than a temporary space station that will have to keep being replaced every quarter century or so

Re:Orange Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite frankly if we were to build another space station, I would rather see something built at a midway point between earth and the moon and orbiting in sync with the moon, than another LEO facility.

If were are going to colonize anywhere 1'st is is likely going to be the moon, when you start having regular traffic back and forth, there are bound to eventually be issues with space craft. A space station at a midway point between the earth and moon could act as a "rest area" or "service station" in space. If something were to happen mid flight like what happened to apollo 13, one might be able to make it to this midway point for a repair or wait for a replacement to be sent to either continue on your way or come back home.

Re:Orange Logic

[david_thornley]

Quit blaming Trump for every god damn thing that happens

Yeah, that's wrong, but it's the way to bet. It's like the medical researchers who were embarrassed when they found Ebola wasn't transmitted by Microsoft Windows; they'd figured Windows transmitted all sorts of other viruses.

Re:Orange Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Surrender us, eh? We need continued Human presence in Space, a matter of machismo, if they are already there, keep it live. The yield is in engineering, to keep the thing up there continuously and we already started. Assuming nothing embarrassing already happened and terminating the program is anyway...

Good thing he'll be out of office for 6.5-7 years

[Anonymous Coward]

What a math whiz

trumped

[Reverend Green]

Donald Trump plans to BAN SUMMER. Someone saw the documents and told me so!

Re:trumped

[Opportunist]

Finally he's doing something against global warming!

Re:trumped

[gtall]

If a cold snap disproves global warming in el Presidente Tweetie's eyes, than a heat wave must prove it. He's discovered quantum global warming.

Re:trumped

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, if every time there is a heat wave somewhere, advocates cry "Global Warming" then it is fair the other side does the same thing. If the Global Warming advocates use weather as "proof" of climate, then the other side can as well.

Time to dump NASA down a black hole

[Anonymous Coward]

...With a 100% cut. Ditch the wasteful taxpayer sinkhole and unleash entrepreneurs to pursue the space race.

Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what WINNING! is all about.

NASA is not the same organization that put a man on the moon. Today's NASA is about SJWs and affirmative action, and set asides -- essentially anything and everything except excellence. Today's NASA hands out promotions based on skin color, and not the skills you bring to the table.

Real Engineers have no place in today's NASA. If someone tells you she's a NASA engineer, tell her not so, she's a EINO -- Engineer In Name Only.

President Trump is right on this one. In the long term NASA needs to be zeroed out. MAGA all the way!

Re:Excellent

[AHuxley]

AC the Rocket Scientists In Name Only are going to have to make a real rocket for the first time in a generation.
No more cheating by using very old Germans.
All the decades of party political appointees and social advancement will see a concerted effort to find the much needed private sector space contractors.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

SJW - this is bad because: a) SJ, they seek social justice and b)W, they won't peacefully let us have our ways

> NASA hands out promotions based on skin color, and not the skills you bring to the table.

Translation: NASA promotes people without considering our "white list".

> If someone tells you she's a NASA engineer, tell her not so, she's a EINO -- Engineer In Name Only.

I'm a man and I feel sorry about that kind of thinking. And I don't have any particular reason to be sympathetic to engineers.

> President Trump is right on this one.

He hasn't been right on anything since a long, long time. Actually, we're past the phase of being astonished, it's facepalm every day.

> In the long term NASA needs to be zeroed out.

You're wrong, but then, it's not my country -- I can only warn.

> MAGA all the way!

Let's hope it works and critics (like me) are wrong.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's all about his twitter and you never bothered to look up anything he has done how noble how Superior you must feel.
Trump is wrong about lowering black unemployment to the lowest ever recorded what a bastard he is KKK and a Nazi.
He brings in jobs the left moans about what he says of course his behavior is not very presidential but trolling you fucking cry babies works.your media has lied about every thing he said while running for office they lied about every fucking point he tried to make so why not troll you fucking cry babies cause you have 0 interest in facts.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

> So it's all about his twitter and you never bothered to look up anything he has done how noble how Superior you must feel.

I didn't fell any superior before, but I do now that Trump was elected (yes, merely elected). I feel even better, relatively speaking, each time he uses Twitter. But I'd like to feel "superior" by my own merits instead of this situation.

> Trump is wrong about lowering black unemployment to the lowest ever recorded

Really? That's great and I hope it works somehow. Better yet if he can do something about the 1% taking the most of money.

But he almost daily makes some comment about Mexicans, Arabs and s*it*ole countries. Somehow I think he'snot exactly worried about having friends in the organizations you cited.

But, hey, maybe he plans on continuing the work of Madre Teresa, eh?

In related news ...

[whoever57]

https://news.slashdot.org/stor...

Trump (and the people who voted for him) are driving the USA into the ground.

Re:In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, the top 9 are Asian countries the size of rhode island dude.

Re:In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

A nation of idiots voted the supreme idiot. It's idiocracy in full swing. We used to say 1984 wasn't supposed to be a rulebook, not it seems we should be saying idiocracy isn't supposed to be the rulebook for society.

Re:In related news ...

[mwvdlee]

Yeah, Asian countries like Denmark, Israel and Switzerland.
(3 of the top 10 are Asian, 6 are Western European and the 1 remaining is Israel).

P.S. What would it say about the rest of the USA if tiny Rhode Island were more innovative than all of the rest of the USA?

Re:In related news ...

[mwvdlee]

The leader of Idiocracy atleast wanted to be a good leader. Trumpocracy is worse.

Re:In related news ...

[cbraescu1]

(3 of the top 10 are Asian, 6 are Western European and the 1 remaining is Israel).

Israel is located in Asia, hence it is an Asian country.

Re: In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not "news"
This is an opinion piece.

Re:In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel is located in Asia...
Maybe it's better to NOT have Americans in space, if that's what their navigation skills are like :)

Re:In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

But...but it's got what plants crave!

Re:In related news ...

[mwvdlee]

Just asking out of morbid curiosity... what part of the world do you consider Asia? Is Iraq part of Asia? Is Egypt part of Asia? What about Syria?

Re:In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Iraq and Syria, yes; Egypt east of Suez (the rest being in Africa).

Re:In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

As you seem unable to do a search; out of morbid responsiveness, here are the answers.

Is Iraq part of Asia?

Yes.

Is Egypt part of Asia?

Yes, in part.

What about Syria?

Yes.

Israel is on the list too, in case you were being obstinate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm interested in references why people think Israel and most of the middle east are NOT part of Asia. And I am not talking about "Eurasia."

Is this a regional thing?, I was taught that as you go clockwise around the Mediterranean sea, Asia starts in Turkey east of the Dardanelles and includes , Syria, Lebanon, Israel are part of the Asian continent. Wasn't so sure about the Sinai so I guess that was a failure of my 25-30 year old American geography education, back when places like East Germany, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia existed on a globe.

Re:In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel is located in Palestine, thus Palestine is an Asian country!

Seriously war zones like Israel, Yemen and North Korea are good at innovating rockets. These three should pair up and make a space station.

Re: In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

That’s your opinion. Don’t pretend you’re citing objective truth.

Re:In related news ...

[JaredOfEuropa]

In common parlance, some people equate 'Asia' not with the continent, but with the Far East. That places Syria, Lebanon and Israël in the Middle East rather than in 'Asia'. What constitutes this made up region seems to vary per country too; I've heard people from India and Pakistan being referred to as 'Asians' by British people, whereas in the Netherlands we'd never use that term. Here, it's 'Indians' or even 'Hindoestani' though technically the latter refers to Surinam people of Indian descent.

Re:In related news ...

[squiggleslash]

A nation of idiots voted the supreme idiot.

Trump was elected by the States, not the people. Nobody won votes from the majority of the people of the nation, and Trump didn't even have the most support, so it's a little silly making the claim you're making.

Re: In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Nixon, or whatever president you dislike is so stupid, then how did they manage to convince the world's upper 1% to give donations and successfully manage a national political campaign. Many call the president they dislike stupid. This always makes me question whether they are apathetic about the country or completely idiotic themselves. If you are so smart then run for president, win, and fix all of our problems. I suspect you would fail because you are actually dumber than the presidents you call stupid. Disagreement in policy is not equal to stupidity.

In short ad hominems directed at someone who is superior than you in the very attributes you are criticizing do not make your argument appear any more valid.

Re:In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know what that has to do with the price of tea in China. As far as continents go, the issue is settled. Just because we don't have slanty eyes doesn't mean we're not also Asian in Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, etc.

Re:In related news ...

[Trogre]

Except, unlike Palestine, Israel actually exists (despite the best efforts of its neighbours and propaganda machines).

Common sense

[Okian Warrior]

Something that is both cooperative and science based... I'm surprised Trump didn't nuke it on his first day in office!

Let's put partisan politics aside and take a walk down memory lane.

Those of us who are old enough to remember a time *before* the ISS can also remember the arguments against building it in the first place.

The ISS had no compelling reason to be built. It was nice and all, held some public relations appeal, and there were a few experiments that could be done on it, but in general it was not a good use of the money. People point to all the innovations and advancements we made due to going to the moon - and that's a fair assessment - but none of that happened at the ISS.

IIRC, it was mostly *scientists* who argued against building the ISS, and politicians who argued for it.

There are several potential projects that are far more interesting and more worthy, things such as exoplanet exploration rovers, landing on a comet, new and innovative space telescopes, and perhaps other space-based experiments such as laser interferometer gravitational detectors or telescopes based on photon quantum correlation.

Perhaps we should let scientists recommend where to spend the money.

Getting back to partisan identity emotionalism, it would seem that bringing an end to the ISS is more of a "common sense" decision than a "keep the dream alive" decision.

As well as framing this in disparaging emotionalism, you could just also call this decision "common sense".

Re:Common sense

[ShanghaiBill]

The ISS had no compelling reason to be built.

The Space Shuttle was (partly) justified because it could be used to build a space station.

So the purpose of the ISS was to give the Space Shuttle someplace to go.

IIRC, it was mostly *scientists* who argued against building the ISS, and politicians who argued for it.

Refusing to build the ISS would have meant admitting that the Shuttle was a mistake. In politics, you can never admit that you made a mistake. No matter how stupid and obvious a blunder may be, you just double-down and find a way to rationalize it.

Re:Common sense

[rtb61]

You better let the people spending the money decide where the money is being spent. Want to spend money in space, spend it where it will generate more investment in space. Want more money for space, make bigger plans, don't be bloody cowards. How big, shoot for the stars, why the fuck not but make clear each step of the path. So earth orbiting space stations, a permanent moon base, then town, then city, asteroid bases, a mars colony, bases on the other moons and then the stars. How to pay for it, STOP FUCKING KILLING EACH OTHER, it is expensive and achieves fuck all.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole joke is that you take it for granted that NASA's budget should be 1/34th of the defense budget.
Hmmm...ISS or one more stealth bomber to bomb goat herders...decisions decisions...
How shit scared is the average voter that everyone is ok with all that money being flushed down the toilet?

Re:Common sense

[quantaman]

Getting back to partisan identity emotionalism, it would seem that bringing an end to the ISS is more of a "common sense" decision than a "keep the dream alive" decision.

As well as framing this in disparaging emotionalism, you could just also call this decision "common sense".

That may be true, and if this decision were made under Obama or even Bush I might believe this decision was taken for the proper reasons after careful deliberation.

But this isn't one of their administrations, it's the Trump administration, and the corruption and incompetence of his appointees has proven to be astounding.

I don't know if this funding cut is motivated by Trump personally wanting money for a Mars project he has only a vague understanding of, or an appointee working from some ulterior motive, but I fundamentally don't trust any decision they make.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

the international space station was NOT 'to give the space shuttle someplace to go'.. iss was to replace skylab, mir, and what else came before it (eight of them, iss is the ninth)... they did NOT have or need the shuttle for most of those previous ventures. the space shuttle way, way, way predates iss. the first shuttle-iss visit was over sixteen years after columbia's first flight, and richard-fucking-nixon started the program that became the space shuttle in 1969.. before ****ANY**** of the nine space stations that have existed were even built.

the space shuttle's purpose was to be a reusable launch vehicle and payload carrier, aboard which limited experiments could be conducted and repairs of existing structures could be staged from. the fact it could dock with stations was a bonus.. and those stations needed to be fitted special for it.

the reason president spray tan is saying this is a) obama's administration pledged to support the station long into the next decade, with some contracts already extending to 2028.. obama supported it, so it must be stopped. that is this administration's platform. undo everything. b) his russian buddies want to strip it for parts to build their own new station... and they'd rather do that sooner rather than later. and c) he's a stupid, poorly-educated fuck that essentially purchased his degree and he doesn't believe in real science... nor do his delusional supporters.

Re:Common sense

[Salgak1]

Actually, originally, the concept was "Shuttle/Station". Then the station part got cut. Then some politician cut funding to bring the External Tanks to orbit (which was a leftover from Shuttle/Station: you could conceivably build a manned station using first-gen External Tanks. But this was when Skylab had yet to be launched. . .

. . .and the rest was Washington and bureaucratic inertia. . . .

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

STOP FUCKING KILLING EACH OTHER, it is expensive and achieves fuck all.

It is expensive for the society. It is profitable for the defence companies which support politicians and therefore can influence them. And common voters like feeling safe from external dangers. They fall for it easily.

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the points you make are relevant to the discussion. You just get triggered when you see "Trump" and try to focus the discussion on reasons to reject his decisions no matter what.

You had your fun, you called him president spray tan and accused him of working for the Russians. Fine. Now that this is out of the way, why don't you actually address the points in the post you replied to?

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

What corruption and incompetence? This is a vague and baseless accusation. You're the one whose decisions cannot be trusted if they are based on rumors and made up theories.

Re: Common sense

[Kiuas]

What corruption and incompetence?

Your government just recently shut itself down despite one party controlling the house, the senate and the presidency. If that is not a textbook example of gross incompetence, I don't know what is. And just the tip of the iceberg.

As for corruption: well, for one thing the man who campaigned on 'draining the swamp' has appointed more bankers and wall street people into positions of power than any since the 20s. He recently shoved through a tax-cut for himself and the wealthiest americans, while raising taxes on the very poorest.This was done via legal means so it's not corrupt in the legal sense of the term, as you don't have to bribe a wealthy asshole to make him more likely to serve his own interests and fuck the rest, but it's certainly corrupt in the moral and political sense of the word as it is the polar opposite of what he said while he was campaigning.

You're the one whose decisions cannot be trusted if they are based on rumors and made up theories.

You do realize Trump claimed he invented the term 'fake' and his go-to defense against any and all criticism is simply stating that it's not true and ignoring any and all evidence that contradicts his position, right? The modus operandi of Trump is to make a decision first, and then come up with some pseudo-factual BS to justify it with or deflect criticism. The entire white house is currently ran on the basis of 'rumors and made up theories'. A quick list of just a few of the things that Trump has either completely made up and keeps repeating in absence of any factual evidence: his inauguration was the biggest ever, he won the popular vote, Obama bugged his residence, the 'last night in Sweden' statement referring to a terror attack that never happened, claiming you guys pay the most taxes in the world, and claiming that his own tax reform will cost him a lot.

These are all things Trump has pulled out of his ass. The way it looks and sounds to me is that he's not even doing it fully on purpose, the man seems to be incapable of using basic logic and grounding his arguments in reality. He can make a statement, and then a couple days later deny he ever said so even if he's on tape saying so. This is the sign of a man who's either a pathological liar, or slowly going senile due to the onset of Alzheimer's or dementia. My bet is on the latter option because the degradation of his speech pattern (slurring and pronouncing words incorrectly, not being able to stay on topic for an entire sentence, increased usage of general vague terms like 'some'. 'all, 'good', 'bad', 'things' etc that he has to keep inserting because he doesn't know/remember vocabulary) and the erratic nature of his personality wherein he seems to lack any impulse control and will outright make statements that hurt himself and his party with no regard to anything resembling a political strategy all point towards a man struggling with old age and a mind that's never been too sharp to begin with starting to go off its rails. And yes, I know he passed the 'cognitive test' of 'can you recognize a camel' but first of all that's not a proper diagnostic test for these illnesses, and secondly, if he is actually going senile there's no way the White House would admit to this on television.

That's just my 2 cents as an outsider who's followed US politics closely and has a grandparent dealing with Alzheimer's so I've seen people go down this path before.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

b) his russian buddies want to strip it for parts to build their own new station... and they'd rather do that sooner rather than later.

Russian buddies? wtf. He's doing a very poor job for his "buddies". US military occupation in Syria, missile defense/nuclear arms race, "fire and fury", war threats against Syria and Iran..
YOU are being manipulated, even though I might agree with the tone of your a) and c). By believing in the "Russian collusion" you either don't know what you're talking of, or you're a conspiracy theorist in the Nazis-on-the-Moon sense, or you're guilty of willful ignorance, or you're shilling for the US war criminals who blackmail Trump into being hostile to Russia.

NATO expansion, drone killings, militarism and spying, regime change wars : these are Obama policies that the Trump administration hasn't reversed!

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it useless iss vs a bomber?

How about useless government waste vs lower taxes?

Taxes are not a government revenue stream. Governments don't have revenue. Only profit making private entities have revenue.

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

As an âoeoutsiderâ, you should try informing yourself before mouthing off. One party does not âoecontrolâ government because we are not a majority-rules Democracy. Itâ(TM)s 60 votes on a budget for a reason, so that one party canâ(TM)t steamroll everyone into what they want all the time unless there is an overwhelming suppport from the citizens. Itâ(TM)s a Representative Republic with checks and balances. What weâ(TM)ve seem to have lost is the âoechecksâ part, where the last President pulled out his pen and started making regulations in the name of law. Itâ(TM)s going to take most of Trumpâ(TM)s term in unwinding this to bring us back to the rule of written law.

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only 60 votes on the budget because McConnell didn't have the balls to nuke the filibuster. Because he knew he didn't even have enough votes in his own party for the bill. Just like no budget will pass Congress because of the Tea Party.

As further proof that the GOP has no interest in governance, the reason Obama had to resort to executive orders is because McConnell spent 8 years obstructing everything he could. They didn't negotiate with Dems, they didn't work for reasonable compromises. They just held government hostage and said NO.

As an insider, it's more disgusting that you're apparently too stupid to pay attention to the facts because you're too busy shouting 'Murrica!' and watching Fox.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Common sense: Astronauts need to go to space. A space hut is perfect for learning how to do that.

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

If that is not a textbook example of gross incompetence, I don't know what is.

It's called political infighting. Seriously, what makes you think the house and the senate like Trump? Maybe my memory is a fair bit better than yours, but I seem to recall the GOP being quite vocal about doing anything they could to keep Trump out of office. The GOP fighting with the president in this case is basically the same if the president were a dem. The GOP was not happy that Trump was elected.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Shh. Stop being reasonable, you're ruining a perfectly good excuse to act like dumbass children and whine because ORANGE DRUMPF LE HITLER.

Re:Common sense

[Applehu Akbar]

(AC to preserve moderation)

The compelling reason for ISS being built was to gain thousands of manhours of experience with how the human body behaves in microgravity. As NASA turns over its manned missions to the more adventurous private sector, this information will be worth the gold we spent to get it.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Waste is still waste and NASA has blown a lot of money going 400 miles up it doesn't exactly impress the tax payers like going to the moon did, and ffs your country has been run into massive debt and all previous presidents have been as skilled at cut spending like a Chicago's mayors.
The issue with defense spending is well known the military industrial industry will not go down any easier then the federal reserve Kennedy tried it cost him dearly.
Kennedy feared a coup from the military because he would not allow them to attack Cuba.

Re:Common sense

[johanw]

Wasn't part of the ISS program supposed to keep Russian rocket engineers in the just collapsed USSR working on science projects instead of selling their knowledge to Iran and North Korea?

Re: Common sense

[johanw]

At least ISS delivers some scientific results and good camera footage for the public. The bomber doesn't deliver anything of value for a country that already has thousands of ICBM's.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

While I do agree that the funding for the ISS could be better suited for space exploration, the money that would be cut from ISS would have to go to funding it. If they defund ISS and use the money saved to build a lunar base then awesome. However I feel like this cut will just get cut from NASA's budget period. Plus I'd rather they cancel the ISS after they have at least a developmental start on a lunar base project. Otherwise we are once again left hats off begging other countries to let us go up in their rockets.

Re:Common sense

[AdamStarks]

(AC to preserve moderation)

I got some bad news for ya, buddy

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

(AC to preserve moderation)

The compelling reason for ISS being built was to gain thousands of manhours of experience with how the human body behaves in microgravity. As NASA turns over its manned missions to the more adventurous private sector, this information will be worth the gold we spent to get it.

The past has value particularly for what can be taken into the future. If we learned lots of useful stuff, then great.

The question of how to allocate money is always important, but all I see here is Trump ending funding for a space program. We don't spend much on space as is.

Basically, someone higher up in this thread argued that the space station wasn't that useful anyway, which you refuted. If that is as far as it goes, then it is well as stupid and short sighted as most Trump decisions. If on the other hand a better way was given to spend the money on space or related tasks existed, then I'd be for looking at that.

I, myself, wonder if we couldn't take what we learned at the ISS and eventually somehow build semi permanent bases somewhere on a planet or a moon. They would need to likely be entirely built by robot until they got far enough along for humans.

In short, robot work seems a good value for the dollar, but lets try to focus it towards getting ready for humans. It is an extreme long range goal, and unlikely to be something we can ever use to mass migrate, but, well, sooner or later the Earth might not make it.

We need a plan B, in case the party of those who oppose abortion mindlessly manage to succeed at it with all life on this planet.

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

So the IRS is mis-named?

captcha: boning

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Your government just recently shut itself down despite one party controlling the house, the senate and the presidency. If that is not a textbook example of gross incompetence, I don't know what is. And just the tip of the iceberg.

Funny, usually it's touted as a bad thing when everyone blindly votes along party lines. But here it's a bad thing because they didn't all vote the same way?

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

It's going to take most of Trumps term in unwinding this to bring us back to the rule of written law.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Re:Common sense

[PoopJuggler]

The ISS had no compelling reason to be built

Except learning how to build and maintain space stations...
It's now just one more thing that countries with more intelligent and progressive leaders will dominate.

Re:Common sense

[AHuxley]

EU and US gov workers got in on that new funding too. Everyone was getting nice ISS overtime. Nations got to keep their space skills and the ISS was the way to sell the funding politically. A lot of funding for few results.
Some scientist and engineers got a decade of space work.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

> there were a few experiments that could be done on it, but in general it was not a good use of the money.

Who are you? Are able to judge any of the experiences? Are you even understanding the implications of any of the following discoveries?

15_ways_iss_benefits_earth

>People point to all the innovations and advancements we made due to going to the moon

People, the best metric about science. Scientifically speaking, human going on the moon was the most expensive ever thing with a zero ROI. But Good PR, still working today...

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

whereas you spend every second trying to spin reality to match the mental vomit that your beloved dotard spews from minute to minute

you are a cancer

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Your government just recently shut itself down despite one party controlling the house, the senate and the presidency

I don't understand, besides going nuclear and changing the senate rules democratic support was needed. The same caucus of senators that forced a shutdown in 2013 (freedom caucus Rand Paul types) were the same cause this time.

The House and White House were on the same page but the senate being near 50/50 has to negotiation... I am not sure about what you call dysfunction in government when referring to an executive agency or a party or bipartisan spending bills.

Obama bugged his residence,

But there is evidence for the Obama justice department being corrupt and using partisan opposition research to go after the opposition with FISA. Whether it was malicious or whether it was directed by Obama is open. No one knows to the extent of the Obama justice department corruption and we will hopefully find out. But as we have heard with Trump/Russian collusion. "There is a lot of smoke." To ignore that is pure partisan hackery.

The media is trying to claim that FBI is innocent and a technical glitch to lose critical evidence right when Mueller started his investigation. There is evidence of potential corruption that clearly needs to be investigated.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that was ULA purchasing Russian rocket motors instead of designing and building their own

Re:Common sense

[penandpaper]

if this decision were made under Obama or even Bush I might believe this decision was taken for the proper reasons after careful deliberation.

IOW, partisan identity emotionalism. You are too emotional too make any form of rational decision about what the government is doing because Trump.

The media has done a good job of poisoning the well.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

As well as framing this in disparaging emotionalism, you could just also call this decision "common sense".

Ah, yes the common sense of "If it doesn't make money in the first quarter then it doesn't get done." You're the reason why there isn't a "compelling reason" to be there. People like you won't agree to fund crap until lives are up there, but there won't be any lives up there until the work needed to support them is done. Which you won't fund, and as such isn't getting done. Nice Catch 22 isn't it?

Perhaps we should let scientists recommend where to spend the money.

They do make recommendations, but half of them never get funded. Something about "common sense".

There are several potential projects that are far more interesting and more worthy, things such as exoplanet exploration rovers, landing on a comet, new and innovative space telescopes, and perhaps other space-based experiments such as laser interferometer gravitational detectors or telescopes based on photon quantum correlation.

So, more of "just keep everyone tethered to earth forever." Once again, following your logic, I'd start to question why you'd want to fund any of that. Rovers? We'll never go there, so why bother exploring it? Landing on a comet? Does it threaten earth? Or are we trying the latest in trajectory altering strategies? Neither? No purpose then. laser interferometer gravitational detectors? Well if a graviton wave does hit us we're fucked because we can't leave and we can't deflect it, so why bother building something to detect it? To create an early panic system that will make my workers claim the end of the world is coming (again) and they are taking days off again? No thanks. Telescopes? Why? What's wrong with looking at what we will never go to, with what we already have? You do realize that the general public has bigger priorities than funding you staring at dot in the sky and occasionally saying: "Well we found something neat, that you'll never experience for yourself, and for the most part will never be confirmed fact, on second thought never-mind it's unimportant to the vast majority of you." don't you?

It was nice and all, held some public relations appeal

Because it showed that NASA was still doing something worth persuing to the public. Yeah, it seems like a waste of money to you, but remember the public funds NASA. If they think that NASA's efforts aren't producing anything worthwhile, they'll demand that NASA gets defunded. Good public relations goes a long way toward getting what you want, and keeping NASA in the black. One could even argue that the current constantly changing mandate for NASA is being caused by how little public developments have been made recently. We get more development from SpaceX and foreign space agencies than we get anything out of NASA. Hell, the ISS was the last big development from NASA. Since then, all that has been done is further regression. We used to be able to go to the moon. We couldn't do that today if our lives depended on it. SpaceX and the others have done more in the last few years than NASA has done in the last few decades. (From the public's viewpoint.) It shouldn't be a surprise that the public lost interest, and allows it's funding to be used as a political chip. Do something worth their funding and then yeah maybe that would change. Beg for more drone money and watch us describe just how few craps we can give.

Long story short, there's no bigger motivator like having people up there. Yeah you might get there one day with drones, but the big investments come when you have people to support, and short of a planet-wide devastation event, you'll not get there any time soon with the path you've chosen. (Or possibly at all depending on other factors.)

Re: Common sense

[quantaman]

What corruption and incompetence? This is a vague and baseless accusation. You're the one whose decisions cannot be trusted if they are based on rumors and made up theories.

The DOE ignored its own study in order to try and pass a BS rule to favour coal power plants.

The FCC ignored studies and proper rationale to kill Net Neutrality.

The HHS who administers the ACA is running ACA scare stories.

The directory of the CIA is undercutting his own agencies conclusions.

The Secretary of State is decimating the State Department with cutbacks.

So when you tell me that the a member of the Trump administration wants to do X I do not give them the benefit of the doubt.

Re: Common sense

[Archangel Michael]

Your government just recently shut itself down despite one party controlling the house, the senate and the presidency.

Yup, controlling is sort of only half accurate. You see (and I'll assume you don't know) that the Senate has this stupid rule about Filibuster, allowing ONE Senator to hold things up indefinitely (it works better if there are a bunch). To get around that rule, there is a 60 Vote minimum, which requires, even in the best of times, at least a few members of the minority party to agree with the majority party to accomplish anything useful.

Hence, when the shutdown happened, the problem wasn't the house, or the presidency, it was the Senate, where Chuck Schumer tried to tie Funding for the government to DACA. Which lead to what is now known as the Schumer Shutdown. Eventually, Schumer realized his name was all over the Shutdown and with "assurances" from Republicans to deal with DACA, signed a VERY short term funding extension, which is now known as the "Schumer Sellout" (see the protesting DACA people at Schumer's house).

IMHO the whole thing backfired on Schumer, who was largely the one responsible for the Shutdown.

Don't get me wrong, the Republicans are pretty damn stupid, and I think McConnell is slightly below a bridge troll. But this .... is all on Chuck Schumer, in spite of the Republican Stupidity. Holding the American Tax Payers and Citizens hostage over illegal immigrants is really bad optics, even if the illegal immigrants have some basis for an emotional appeal.

Re:Common sense

[ceoyoyo]

And spaceships are just space stations that go somewhere.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA kept the shuttle alive to justify its continued existence. Nixon (who killed the original station) but kept the shuttle alive because the idea that the US would not maintain a manned spaceflight capability, when the Soviets did have such a capability, was not politically tenable during the Cold War.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

In fairness, NASA's plan to cut funding to ISS after 2025 isn't exactly a new idea. It's just being reiterated. Cutting the cord to ISS is how they'll fund the Deep Space Gateway, and whatever the plan is this month for getting to Mars and/or back to the Moon.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Da Fuq? The shuttle design requirements predates ISS by two decades. The shuttle was (and succeeded adequately at) a short term space lab, and it was designed to launch big spy satellites, which it succeeded at. The shuttle was in no way predicated on the ISS. In fact, large parts of the ISS were launched on Proton-K and Soyuz-U rockets, and only a very few modules required the larger payload capacity of the shuttle.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama and Bush are part of the same party?

You are right that the well has been poisoned, but it was Trump, and those who enable him, who have poisoned the well with his incompetence, dishonesty, and corruption.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Shanghai Bill is a nazi pedo.

Re:Common sense

[backwardsposter]

Look around at active projects at any lifecycle at NASA right now and you should be able to count at least 100 that involve the ISS. It's not just for growing purple lettuce, it's a crucial hub for many small satellite projects.

If you want to count all of the advancements made because it exists, we have literally hundreds of projects full of data to choose from.

We could certainly do science without it, but right now it'd be a different kind of science.

Re:Common sense

[RightwingNutjob]

Because there's no such thing as external security threats. Eastern Ukraine is being overrun with vacationers and the 38th parallel on the Korean Peninsula is just a big nature preserve.

Re: Common sense

[penandpaper]

McConnell is slightly below a bridge troll.

I have heard of turtles living under bridges. Seems legit. McTurtle confirmed.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh juts because the stoped clock got it by luck doesn't mean it's not 2:00.

At this point I'll take good decisions made for stupid reasons over the usual stupid decisions made for stupid reasons we get from Washington.

Re:Common sense

[penandpaper]

his incompetence, dishonesty, and corruption

As opposed to the incompetence of Bush. The corruption of Obama. The dishonesty of all.

We sure are learning a lot about about the justice department under Obama. What is the term was used for Trump/Russia collusion? "There is a lot of smoke that I would be surprised if there wasn't a fire".

The well was poisoned before Trump was elected. What else can the media say for anything Trump does after they called him literally Hitler?

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the reason was more than for just "the human body".

Essentially all manned missions prior to the ISS were these little, dash and return operations. Run to space then run back! Making life support systems (and all the other support systems) work for long-term operations isn't some small assignment. It's a major engineering challenge. Think toilets, water, air, food. There's been a huge amount of work done at the ISS on all these problems.

Now, I'll give a shout-out to Mir and SkyLab. They did pave the way (Mir far more than Skylab).

However to reiterate. If we want to go to Mars, Venus and the Asteroids, we need support systems that can keep people alive and comfortable for months-to-years timeframes. There's no way I'd travel to Mars using a version 1 (beta) of a recycling toilet.

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

As an insider you are fucking scum.

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

All good things. So I guess I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

The Space Shuttle was arguably an engineering project (which failed, because it was supposed to become more economical to operate than rockets). But the ISS was only approved to be designed with components with too much mass to be shot into LEO by rockets.

The ISS was a make/work program to provide a budgeting purpose to justify the continued existence of the Space Shuttle program. Until you can understand that more science papers (and human understanding of the universe) is produced with space probes programs than a manned space program, you won't be able to comprehend that government funding of some programs get approved because they're more politically popular (as in federal pork), rather than useful to the advancement of science.

Re:Common sense

[AlwinBarni]

The ISS had no compelling reason to be built. ...

One of the reasons not often mentioned was to prevent collapsing Russian empire rocketry know-how to be exported to rogue states.

People point to all the innovations and advancements we made due to going to the moon - and that's a fair assessment - but none of that happened at the ISS.

There are many (you know, just because someone doesn't know about something it doesn't mean it doesn't exist):
In general:
- knowledge about human prolong exposure to micro-gravity in comfortable LEO
- testing equipment to sustain human well being in space in comfortable LEO
- science research in micro-gravity and outside Earth atmosphere
- testing any devices, which require human tuning and micro-gravity or outside Earth atmosphere environment
In detail (a few examples):
- a new deep space navigation system was tested on ISS
- NASA spin offs:
https://spinoff.nasa.gov/flyer...

There are several potential projects that are far more interesting and more worthy, things such as exoplanet exploration rovers, landing on a comet, new and innovative space telescopes, and perhaps other space-based experiments such as laser interferometer gravitational detectors or telescopes based on photon quantum correlation.

I guess you mean just "planets", we are far far from sending rovers to exoplanets.

True, there are lots of extremely interesting concepts and ISS drains lots of resources, however in opinion of many people human exploration beyond Earth is one of them in which case ISS is just the basic we can afford.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

>please stop warring it's not nice

Could we stop repeating this trope ?

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the shuttle was for orbiting equipment launch and repair.

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the wrecking crews at HUD and EPA. Those ones are lining their pockets doing so, too.

Re:Common sense

[rijrunner]

They would cheerfully have axed the Shuttle also...

The tipping point was the fall of the USSR. The aerospace industry had crashed in the US and Russia. The US had a reasonably chance of recovery, but Russia was clearly having issues retaining its aerospace industry.

The ISS was funded in very large part in an effort by the US to try to keep Russians from being hired by Pakistan, Iraq, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, etc, etc. It was to keep the Russian space program scientists employed in Russia so they did not start building ICBM's for the highest bidder.

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but two Wrights made an airplane.

And three rights make a left.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

The entirety of the ISS investment has been $87 Billion over ~20 years. In comparison the Military has been funded to about $10 TRILLION dollars over that timespan. The real argument is not whether the ISS is a good investment, it's why we starve innovative parts of the government while bomb makers feast to their hearts content.

Re:Common sense

[kellymcdonald78]

Actually when originally proposed, the Shuttle was specifically designed as the logistics vehicle for a space station. The phase B space station study contract was issued in April 1969 for a 12 person space station with the ability to be upgraded to a 50 person space base. They were originally marketed as complementary programs under the 1969 Space Task Group study (Shuttle would make supplying a large space station affordable, the station would give the Shuttle enough flights to make it economic to operate). When it became apparent that Congress would fund one or the other, the Shuttle was chosen with the assumption of once it was done, the next big project would be the space station. Freedom was kicked off in 1983 shortly after the Shuttle became operational.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia wants to rule the world, and it should not be allowed to do so. Russia is not a good state.

Re:Common sense

[kellymcdonald78]

It may predate ISS, but not the Space Station program. The Shuttle concept was specifically designed as a space station logistics vehicle. Phase A Shuttle concept studies occurred I parallel the Phase B Station studies and both were marketed as complimentary programs under the 1969 STG report. When the Shuttle was approved without the space station, the assumption was that the space station program would be resumed once the shuttle was operational. Hence the 1983 start on Space Station Freedom which eventually morphed into Alpha and then ISS

Re: Common sense

[kenh]

the reason president spray tan is saying this is a) obama's administration pledged to support the station long into the next decade, with some contracts already extending to 2028.. obama supported it, so it must be stopped. that is this administration's platform. undo everything.

I bet you don't even see it, do you?

President Obama says (quoting you), "to support the station long into the next decade, with some contracts already extending to 2028" and he's a hero...

President Trump pledges to support the ISS thru 2025 and he's a fucking moron with no clue what he's doing...

Tell me, what's the significance of those few contracts that President Obama pledged to support for three short years longer than President Trump?

I suspect there is none, but your passion to defend President Obama's positions against President Trump's slightly different position on the ISS is just as nonsensical as the position you accuse Trump of.

Re: Common sense

[david_thornley]

If the Republicans could find enough unity in the party to get a budget through, which you'd consider one of the basic functions of Congress, the Senate Democrats couldn't filibuster spending. Since Republicans are bloody incompetent, they give the Democrats a chance to filibuster the continuing resolutions the government needs.

And, no, we're not a majority-rule democracy. We're a minority-rule democracy, and I don't see why that's an improvement.

Re: Common sense

[david_thornley]

The shutdown was because of the Republicans. If they could pass a budget, they could avoid these filibusters.

Schumer now has a credible threat to shut down the government over DACA, which gives him some leverage in getting a DACA law through. I'm pending judgment to see how this plays out. If he comes through and gets DACA passed before Trump's deadline, I'm going to call it a win.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong shuttle design though. All of those shuttle concepts were essentially just lifting bodies that could pretty much only carry crews. (this was also the vehicle concepts that were supposed to fly the 50 flights a year).

The shuttle that was built was intended to replace any station proposals, which is the reason why it was so wide.

Re:Common sense

[Deliveranc3]

We need to send bacteria to earth like planets. This is the next big project and I hope the world gets behind it.

It will take dozens of years to reach those planets centuries to take hold and billions of years to evolve into intelligent life but we should make the effort to spread life and teraforming now.

Re:Common sense

[Deliveranc3]

Thousands of experiments were carried out in microgravity.

When you see those big white boxes in the walls of the ISS many are experiments churning away.

Miniaturization and automation means that the astronauts aren't as involved in the experiments anymore.

Many of those experiments were proposed and brought forward because of the international aspect of the results.

That said Terraforming other planets has got to be the next big project.

Anywhere there is water we should be sending oxygen producing bacteria for our later use.

Re:Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the reason it was built was to keep Russian scientists employed so they won't be tempted to work for Iran or North Korea.

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

You just summarized how Trump is hell-bent on undercutting Obama's legacy.
You even forgot a couple, such as Trump's DOD decimating ISIS and normalizing relationship with N.Korea.

As my liberal friends tell me, repealing Net Neutrality killed millions of Americans. Tax cuts will kill billions more.
Impeach Drumfp dotard! Nuke Russia! Reeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Re: Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump, or Trump s voice in the head of some encroached (undyed?) African?

Shouldn't be a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

All you gotta do is replace congress. Don't squander the opportunity to empty the house of all democrats and republicans this November.

Re:Shouldn't be a problem

[Opportunist]

How? You got a nuke you've been hiding?

Re:Shouldn't be a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you're not American. The entire house is up for reelection every two years. That means it is possible to vote them all out. The failure to do so is on the voters and nobody else.

Re:Shouldn't be a problem

[Opportunist]

If elections could change anything they would've been outlawed ages ago.

Re:Shouldn't be a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we won't know until we test that theory. You gotta start somewhere... and that is with the voters. Their vote is also their consent.

Re:Shouldn't be a problem

[Opportunist]

Their vote is basically a capitulation to a system that doesn't offer much choice.

Made more sense

[friedman101]

Post made more sense when I read it as "end NASA funding for ISIS"

Re:Made more sense

[SeaFox]

Post made more sense when I read it as "end NASA funding for ISIS"

I suspect that's exactly what Trump thinks he's doing, too.

Finally

[eclectro]

The ISS mission has exceeded it's original goals and it's far past time to recognize that. To say that it's invaluable to science is nonsense. To say that it is also invaluable to a human mars mission (something that I always thought was kind of stupid any way considering the countless failures we have had sending other spaceships there) is not much better than nonsense. This all has *got* to be a big open secret at NASA.

NASA can finally be unhindered to develope the next generation of propulsion technologies that will be required for any space mission rather than worry about what flavor of bubble gum a handful of Astronauts will need as they check off another orbit done.

I am truly glad that the Trump administration can see that.

Rather than a human mars mission, I much, much rather see us be able to find a way to send another spacecraft to Pluto and have it only need a year to get there.

Re:Finally

[no-body]

I am truly glad that the Trump administration can see that.

Ha ha ha - the joke of the day!

Re:Finally

[AmiMoJo]

This is about winding NASA down, with the ultimate goal of shutting or at least massively slashing its funding. They are hoping that commercial spaceflight takes over.

The first person on Mars will be either a SpaceX employee or working for the Chinese state.

The ISS could do so much more if the US could learn to place nice with China.

Re: Finally

[llZENll]

What about crashing it into the moon or mars? Or setting it at some kind of permanent orbit? That is a lot of metal that could be used for spare parts and such. Is it just too much fuel to do that?

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

astronauts in space. duh.

Re: Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Go play kerbal space program and you will know why.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha - like that's going to happen.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than a human mars mission, I much, much rather see us be able to find a way to send another spacecraft to Pluto and have it only need a year to get there.

I'd rather see us clean up our shitty mess first. Going to be rather hard to explore further into space if we can't manage to safely escape our own manmade asteroid belt of space junk. And given the amount of critical services are reliant upon our satellite network, we're playing with fire. Commercial space travel to LEO? Uh, no thanks. Not while the kids are throwing up microsat "rocks" all day.

Re: Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISS is in low orbit, and it expends quite a bit of energy just to maintain it... Bringing it down is far cheaper than dreaming of trying to boost it to geo-stationary orbit, which is almost 100x further away. (350km vs 35786km)

Re:Finally

[Daemonik]

China would spend 6 months on the ISS copying everything then send up 10 cheap knockoffs made of fake parts that fall out of the sky until the government gets too embarrassed and executes a few executives, then they'll launch something useful.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

This is about winding NASA down, with the ultimate goal of shutting or at least massively slashing its funding

Citation? Oh wait, you don't have one because you're making things up. Seriously, whoever modded this interesting should be ashamed. At least go for insightful. That at least would imply speculation. But interesting? That requires it to at least be factual.

Re:Finally

[grasshoppa]

The first person on Mars will be either a SpaceX employee or working for the Chinese state.

So? Look, I get the whole "big missions bring big scientific rewards" thing, but I'm not in any particular rush to get a human to Mars. Or even the Moon, for that matter. I'd much rather work on drones and propulsion. Think: An AI assisted drone exploring the Mars surface, and it only took a month to get there because of some fancy new tech.

We hobble ourselves by trying to accommodate fragile cargo.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

The first person on Mars will be either a SpaceX employee or working for the Chinese state.

pfftt...The first person was on Mars eons ago. Who do you think put that face and all those pyramids there? And built the Canals? And set up the blasters to shower Earth with small meteors every so often?

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

No, "Informative" implies factual. "Interesting" is even further removed from reality than "Insightful".

Re:Finally

[penandpaper]

This is about winding NASA down, with the ultimate goal of shutting or at least massively slashing its funding. They are hoping that commercial spaceflight takes over.

Right... the one that wanted to get to Mars within 4-8 (overly ambitious) is secretly scheming to wind NASA down. The goal for NASA to leave LEO has been a scheme for years by the 'they' to wind NASA budgets down. Focusing on climate change is what NASA should be focusing on like what Obama directed them to do. -.-

Who cares if SpaceX or China get to Mars first? If it is SpaceX that is an accomplishment of the US pushing for private investment in space. If it is China, congratulations to them we should applaud their effort and achievement.

Those two statements you wrote are not mutually exclusive. NASA has been pushing to get out of LEO for a while to focus on exploration and science in deep space. If NASA doesn't have to waste its budget on LEO or designing rockets to achieve orbit then they have more money to use on Mars and other science exploration.

The ISS could do so much more if the US could learn to place nice with China.

Then let China pick up the tab.

Why would anyone mod this interesting... FFS, it's drivel.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

And just like NASA has been able to do countless times (not excluding other space agencies), they are able to reuse something, spend less money, and continue focused on the mission of the agency.

Time and time again NASA does a lot for very little investment. Nobody here is tired of the ISS. We still sometimes use it for mission proposals.

If you think this is anything more than trying to cut funding to NASA, you're kidding yourself. NASA NEEDS to do the big, flashy things that commercial can't make much money off of.

Re:Finally

[pots]

I don't think this is true. NASA isn't anathema to Trump in the same way that the EPA is, or solar power is, or checks and balances are, etc. I do believe that he would like someone to go to Mars on his order, simply because then he could brag about putting someone on Mars. The ISS, meanwhile, offers no bragging rights.

It's really that simple.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISS, meanwhile, offers no bragging rights.

As someone else already joked, Trump probably thought he was taking down ISIS

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue that as long as the ISS is move valuable than about 0.5% of the military's expenditures than it's still worth keeping. Given the operating costs, a round-error shift from DoD to NASA would pay to operate it going forward.

Re: Finally

[Megane]

Not to mention the trouble of getting it through the Van Allen radiation belts without evacuating it first. But this is what happens when people believe Hollywood's version of orbital mechanics.

F-35...

[Plus1Entropy]

NASA has spent about $70 billion (2010 USD) on the ISS total. You can probably take that outta petty cash at the Pentagon.

The F-35 has cost 10 International Space Stations...

Re:F-35...

[ShanghaiBill]

NASA has spent about $70 billion (2010 USD) on the ISS total. You can probably take that outta petty cash at the Pentagon.

The F-35 has cost 10 International Space Stations...

You know the ISS was a waste of money when the best argument its defenders have is that we also waste money on other things that are even stupider.

Re:F-35...

[Plus1Entropy]

So... you're saying that you prefer Trump cutting the program that you admit is less stupid?

Re:F-35...

[AHuxley]

A big sheltered workshop so people with skills in USA, Russia, EU and parts of what was Soviet Union had good paying day job to keep decades national space skills.
If space engineers have no wage they build big rocket for anyone.
If US wanted a very easy to use space station they could have got turn key modular research station. A Mir 2.0 ready to use with exclusive US branding.
Now real cost of international science busy work cooperation is considered. For so much US funding, US get nothing good back. Just virtue signal for political scientists and engineers for years. They enjoy international work, US get nothing new. Shared science is innovation lost.
Time for USA to get back to new military reconnaissance Manned Orbiting Laboratory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... .
Be ready for war in space for military space.

Re:F-35...

[Plus1Entropy]

Shared science is innovation lost.

Wow. Just... Wow.

Re:F-35...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you know why he's on my Foes list.

--Z.

Re:F-35...

[mentil]

Who said that's the best argument for the ISS? Some useful science has come out of the ISS, but enough to justify its cost by itself? NASA has turned into a pork barrel jobs program. If its budget allocation were decided by NASA itself, and put directly into basic research and advancing the state of the art in aerospace tech, they'd get much more interesting things accomplished. The most interesting upcoming mission they have now is the Europa Clipper, with a vague launch window 4-7 years from now. The NASA human mission to Mars is planned for 15 years from now and always will be. I remember "let's send a man to Mars" being part of George W. Bush's reelection campaign promises (not like I believed it). If commercial space companies will only do what's profitable for them, then NASA should do the R&D that's unprofitable: cleaning up space junk, blue skies science, and basic research. In the near future, "hey we have some humans in orbit" is no longer going to be impressive and their normal PR methods won't be able to save the ISS.

Re:F-35...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, maybe cutting both would be better, but surely cutting any stupid program is a good thing?

Re:F-35...

[ShanghaiBill]

So... you're saying that you prefer Trump cutting the program that you admit is less stupid?

In absolutely no way whatsoever are the ISS and the F-35 "alternatives", so a "preference" for one over the other is meaningless. Both are a waste of money, and both should be defunded. If we don't have the political will to defund one of them, it is idiotic to use that as justification for continued funding of the other.

Re:F-35...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, fat Laowai, you're the one who's stupid. The best argument for the ISS is that it's a valuable tool for scientific research.

Re:F-35...

[Plus1Entropy]

It is idiotic to complain that the roof is leaking when your house is swept away by a flood.

Re:F-35...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point was we would not be saving any real money if we lost the ISS program. It's pocket change invested in a worthy cause, with a incalculable return on investment - both scientifically and geopolitically. The F-35 (to pick one of many silly super-weapons currently under development) is a significantly larger investment and represents a fantasy. It's becoming increasingly clear that the F-35 was never even intended to succeed, it was just an excuse to redistribute wealth to special interests. It would have been a useless toy 40 years ago, let alone in modern conflicts.

Re:F-35...

[Plus1Entropy]

I didn't say the ISS was a stupid program. :D

The F-35 does set a pathetically low bar for stupidity. We should have given bat bombs a second chance instead.

Re:F-35...

[MrL0G1C]

This is one of those situations where you have to recognise you can't win the argument because every time you say something the reply is something that doesn't make any sense causing the argument to increase in mass.

Re:F-35...

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA has spent about $70 billion (2010 USD) on the ISS total. You can probably take that outta petty cash at the Pentagon.

The F-35 has cost 10 International Space Stations...

You know the ISS was a waste of money when the best argument its defenders have is that we also waste money on other things that are even stupider.

Warmongering vs. space exploration driving countless experiments and fostering international relations which help avoid more pointless warmongering? Talk about "even stupider".

The F-35 is hardly the best argument against the ISS; it was just a damn good example of what we really piss money away on. $70 billion over a span of twenty years driving innovation and doing something that didn't involve killing each other? Yeah, I'll take that any day over building a fucking border wall to keep the "shitholites" out of our melting pot.

Re:F-35...

[David_Hart]

This is one of those situations where you have to recognise you can't win the argument because every time you say something the reply is something that doesn't make any sense causing the argument to increase in mass.

Resulting in a black hole of "my politics is better than yours" arguments.....

The point is that no matter what party is in power, none of them are interested in actually saving money or cutting the budget. They all have their pet projects and it's just a matter of shifting the funding around to look like they are doing something.

Re:F-35...

[Anonymous Coward]

"A waste of money", really? What an ignorant claim - google discoveries made on ISS.

Re:F-35...

[Anonymous Coward]

So why did your hero Obama not fix every issue you blame Trump for?
You fucking cry babies have no problem at all with the fucked up shit that happened under Obama course you American's are not well know for being readers. You have liberals protesting every chance they have and when questioned what exactly they are protesting they cannot answer a question.

Thump is Not selling out the American people and moving jobs away asap and it's bitch bitch bitch about shit he said about groupies 10 years ago.
Thump lowered black unemployment lowest ever recorded and still RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA you hate him more for getting things done.

Re:F-35...

[Anonymous Coward]

So the price is irrelevant because research FFS everyone knows it was up there for research.
So should there be a limit to the amount spent just to keep it there or does the word research demand unlimited spending.

Re:F-35...

[bobbied]

So... you're saying that you prefer Trump cutting the program that you admit is less stupid?

Cutting the program? No, following the funding plan for the ISS. This was the sunset date for the ISS set YEARS ago.

Re:F-35...

[werepants]

If commercial space companies will only do what's profitable for them, then NASA should do the R&D that's unprofitable: cleaning up space junk, blue skies science, and basic research.

You know what would ACTUALLY convince me that someone at the top cared about NASA? A rearticulation of their mission to be exactly this: focus on basic research, technological development, and doing the foundational proof-of-concept work that paves the way for space tech to be commercialized. And then politicians should GTFO and let NASA determine for itself the best way to achieve those goals. As it is, this looks more like a first move in a strategy to gut NASA as a whole.

Re:F-35...

[erapert]

NASA has turned into a pork barrel jobs program. If its budget allocation were decided by NASA itself, and put directly into basic research and advancing the state of the art in aerospace tech, they'd get much more interesting things accomplished.

It seems like the reason the US has fallen behind in innovation is that the retards are deciding what the money is spent on (and thus also deciding what the smart people spend their time on). It should be the other way around or it should be set up so that the smart people simply spend their time on what they find interesting.

(The above statement can be taken two different ways, but is still true in both ways)

Re:F-35...

[penandpaper]

As it is, this looks more like a first move in a strategy to gut NASA as a whole.

Honestly, it looks like a way to reset NASA mission to focus on research, technological development (for deep space) and doing foundational proof of concept work. If NASA leaves LEO they have more budget for science and research. If NASA doesn't have to develop a new rocket (heavy lift and human cargo) to achieve orbit then they have more budget for science and research. If NOAA takes over the climate change science then NASA has more budget for science and research.

The ISS is supposed to be international yet the US has contributed far more than the other partners. It would be nice if the international community pick up the tab of their fair share for the International Space Station. That would allow NASA to use their budget for science and research.

In 2010 the cost was expected to be $150 billion. This includes NASA's budget of $58.7 billion (inflation-unadjusted) for the station from 1985 to 2015

From Wikipedia

Re:F-35...

[Anonymous Coward]

And THIS is why the ISS exists. Despite what anyone in Congress said against it, they all wanted to bring home $$ to their districts. NASA has a lot of facilities all over the country and big flash projects bring cash to those districts. This is also a significant reason why the SLS/Orion program, originally Constellation, was authorized with the massive budget it had, and has kept going despite overruns and delays that are getting harder to count.

Even the Shuttle never lived up to its promise of reuseability. It was supposed to drastically cut costs to space, but the thing was ridiculously expensive to launch every time.

Personally I think it's time for NASA to have a good cup of coffee with itself and think about some life changes. Industry is far better at launching payloads at this point and will soo be carrying crews. And with Boeing, SpaceX and Blue Origin building massive rockets the SLS is soon going to be a really expensive moot point. What NASA needs to do is get out of the launch vehicle business all together. Research, technology advances, etc. And interplanetary exploration. No one sends probes places like NASA does. If they focused their budget on that, think of how many more science missions they could get. NASA can pave the way for future human exploration by doing all the hard word before we get there. They can also pave the way with new technology that can then filter down to industry to do "better, faster, cheaper." I just see no need for NASA to continue building giant launch vehicles. Especially when it won't be long before SpaceX has nearly completely reuseable vehicles that will so far undercut the price to launch the SLS that no one will use the SLS but the US Government, and they'll look like idiots for doing so. There is a history and a nostalgia there, but it's time to let that go.

Re:F-35...

[backwardsposter]

I guess one defender represents us all. But sure, "Insightful"

Re:F-35...

[werepants]

If NASA doesn't have to develop a new rocket (heavy lift and human cargo) to achieve orbit then they have more budget for science and research.

Completely unrelated. SLS is not designed to service the ISS.

The ISS is supposed to be international yet the US has contributed far more than the other partners.

In 2010 the cost was expected to be $150 billion. This includes NASA's budget of $58.7 billion (inflation-unadjusted) for the station from 1985 to 2015

So the U.S. has paid a bit over a third of the cost - what do you expect? We're one of only two participating countries that had manned space capability - the other being Russia, who is far, far poorer. We've got an aerospace industry that dwarves all the others. The ISS is cheaper per man/hour of research than single country stations have been. The whole thing has really been a massive project to sustain the leadership of the U.S. aerospace industry, while getting other countries to pick up a good chunk of the tab.

I'll believe that a politician is serious about getting NASA on the right track when they move to cancel the SLS mandate which is an economic and technological boondoggle, and then gets their fingers out of the cookie jar and gives NASA the modest funding increases that are requested rather than treating the agency as a political football.

Re:F-35...

[penandpaper]

Completely unrelated. SLS is not designed to service the ISS

It is related because it part of NASA's budget that could be used for other things. It is related because the shuttle was the last vehicle NASA used that was too expensive.

what do you expect?

That if you want the ISS to keep running those partners pay their fair share. I don't care if the US has a bigger and better aerospace program or is wealthier than Russia. It is the most expensive structure ever constructed by humans and that has been largely financed by the US. At some point, I want NASA to do other science and research while our partners in the international community pull their weight in international cooperative projects.

Re:F-35...

[werepants]

Completely unrelated. SLS is not designed to service the ISS

It is related because it part of NASA's budget that could be used for other things. It is related because the shuttle was the last vehicle NASA used that was too expensive.

No, supporting the ISS or not has nothing to do with supporting SLS or not. SLS doesn't go to the ISS, the ISS budget doesn't depend on SLS, the SLS budget doesn't depend on the ISS. ISS is serviced by Soyuz, SpaceX, and a variety of commercial launch providers.

That if you want the ISS to keep running those partners pay their fair share.

Define "fair share". Do you want it determined by who derives the most benefit? By who gets the most astronaut hours? By who gets the science? The U.S. is the greatest contributor, but it is also the greatest beneficiary.

"It's not fair" is about the weakest argument you can offer, the type of rhetoric that 5-year-olds often resort to, but unfortunately you and a lot of Trumpists seem to think it is compelling.

A better question would be: what have we gotten in return for our involvement? The ISS has given us more knowledge about long-duration manned spaceflight than we ever had, and has actually given the U.S. some significant expertise in building space stations - Skylab was a pretty minimal effort compared to MIR, so this has developed a level of knowledge and capability that we didn't previously have. We wouldn't have the practical knowledge about on-orbit assembly that we now have. You can argue that the ISS was key to starting a new era of low-cost space access, considering that SpaceX wouldn't exist today without the COTS ISS resupply award.

Re:F-35...

[penandpaper]

No, supporting the ISS or not has nothing to do with supporting

Does NASA have a fixed budget? Is ISS part of that budget? If NASA removes ISS from their budget can they do other things with that money?

SLS

How many different rocket systems has NASA developed since the shuttle? Does that come out of the budget of NASA? If NASA doesn't have to develop a new rocket for whatever they need can they use that money for other things?

fair

Investment says nothing about return. I don't care what we got back because we already paid for it. Could we have gotten the same return for less investment if we ignored the international community? What matters is if we should continue paying in disproportionate levels for arguably minimal returns for high investment. If the partners involved are not committing equally in investment why should I care to continue supporting disproportionate investment with minimal returns?

Re:F-35...

[ShanghaiBill]

It is idiotic to complain that the roof is leaking when your house is swept away by a flood.

If your house is being swept away, you are likely to ignore everything else. So by your logic, absolutely anything that costs less than the F-35 can be justified, just by pointing to the F-35 as the "greater stupidity".

Re:F-35...

[ShanghaiBill]

Resulting in a black hole of "my politics is better than yours" arguments.....

Except this is an argument about logic, not politics.

Saying "We should fund X because we already spend even more on Y", where X and Y are totally unrelated, is a fallacious argument, regardless of whether you think X and Y, or both, or neither, is a wise expense. It is simply illogical.

Each expense should be justified on its on merits.

Re: F-35...

[Anonymous Coward]

'cuz excessive honesty?

Re:F-35...

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA has done a lot of blue skies research, and has been attacked for it, because it has no obvious commercial application. One of those being the ISS, hence efforts to demonstrate zero gravity manufacturing to justify the expenditure.

Re:F-35...

[ShanghaiBill]

Does NASA have a fixed budget?

No.

Is ISS part of that budget?

Yes.

If NASA removes ISS from their budget can they do other things with that money?

No.

Re:F-35...

[Plus1Entropy]

Obama presided over the longest period of job creation in US history, in spite of the fact that when he took office the economy was in the worst state it's been since the Great Depression.

Trump has had no real major policy goals completed, so I don't see how he could have had any real effect so far. FYI the tax cut is a long standing Republican policy goal, not Trump's, Trump said he wanted the rich to pay more taxes, remember?

Re:F-35...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but how many shithole countries can you invade with the ISS?

An F-35 can kill hundreds, if not thousands, of poor, brown people a day.

#maga

Re:F-35...

[micahraleigh]

First of all ... are you comparing the protection of US citizens from the armies of the world to space sight seeing? Tell me more!

Second of all ... that is like 5% of the federal budget. What if someone took 5% of your annual salary from you? Would you call that petty cash?

ISS is no so interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

"grounded on Earth for years with no destination in space"

Well, orbit. Nowadays those "astronauts" seem mostly occupied with producing cool videos and pictures for social media, to promote their organisations and their budgets, it's a bit sad really. Look reddit, how cool we are, cooler than cats, we need our billions. We went to the moon, but now in 2018 we're stuck floating in orbit in a couple of stinky connected glorified containers, it's not much more. Ok, the ground research is necessary but boring. But were is the real ambition?

And how long will Trump be around?

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume the next US elections are 2020? Soon enough that hopefully the USA will put an adult in charge of things and need for the ISS will be weight up by someone with better qualified to determine the real merits of keeping it in operation.

Posting anonymously as I have better things to do with my life that listen to Trump supporters. Roll on the flamebait moderation, I know you can't resist using your moderation points to punish views your don't personally agree with...

Re:And how long will Trump be around?

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume the next US elections are 2020? Soon enough that hopefully the USA will put an adult in charge of things and need for the ISS will be weight up by someone with better qualified to determine the real merits of keeping it in operation.

So you have faith that the democratic party will be able to produce such a person... Someone with the qualities you list, with a charisma good enough to beat Trump (Hilary missed this part entirely), but has these traits low enough to actually win the democratic primaries. It's a narrow call and there isn't really that much time to get such a person.

Re: And how long will Trump be around?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lisa Simpson, as prophesied.

Re: And how long will Trump be around?

[Anonymous Coward]

They also had a scene with Ivanka Trump president in 2028...

Re:And how long will Trump be around?

[geekmux]

I assume the next US elections are 2020? Soon enough that hopefully the USA will put an adult in charge of things and need for the ISS will be weight up by someone with better qualified to determine the real merits of keeping it in operation.

We've managed to elect a peanut farmer, a movie star, a member of a gang (Choom), and now a social media celebrity.

The next election will likely be won by a corporate shill that will make Ajit Pai look as neutral as beige paint. Corporations have been manipulating government for decades; might as well officially hand it over to them.

Re:And how long will Trump be around?

[Anonymous Coward]

YES if only Hillary the saint won.
She does not have a single scandal on her record the people around her and bill dropping like flies all bad luck.
You don't give a fuck about what Trump has done it's all about a private conversation 10 years ago is making you a sad panda or is it Russia who Hillary the saint made deals with.
The Left helped get Trump elected and you will do it again cause your arrogance knows no limits.

Re:And how long will Trump be around?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up +999, Le Ebin Trump-bashing!!!!!!1111 :^) :^) :^) :^) :^) :D :D :D :D

Re:And how long will Trump be around?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how The only thing Trump ever did was reality TV according the liberal cry babies.
He was successful in business then broke into TV and had a popular show (i think never saw it) and then entered politics and got the top job in the country.
Name one person on the left or anyone who has done that and he did it all (according to the left) while being a very stupid man if it's so fucking easy why did Hillary lose?
He destroyed the usual republican candidates with ease silenced the christian right and if it's so fucking easy why did Hillary lose?
Quotes from Trump over the decades he did not like where the country was heading and he said he did not want to run but he did and won at 70 years of age.
Normally i would say that's to old for a president but he has the energy to do it Hillary not so much.

Re:And how long will Trump be around?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it really a gang when all they do is smoke pot? When I think gang I thing violence, not hanging out and lighting up.

Re:And how long will Trump be around?

[Archangel Michael]

Actually, the next election will likely see someone like Bernie Sanders, or Elizabeth Warren. Or Ben Shapiro.

Re:And how long will Trump be around?

[Anonymous Coward]

A peanut farmer -- who was also a nuclear submarine officer in the US Navy, a local politician who rose to become governor and then president.

A movie star -- who was also a labor leader who rose to become governor and then president.

A member of a gang? Seriously? I'm sure it was unintentional that the one thing you could think of for our first black president was the word "gang," usually associated with violent criminals, as opposed to a humorous name for his high school clique. Of course he was also a constitutional scholar and local politician who rose to become a US Senator and then president.

I noticed you left out "a saxophonist," "a former fighter pilot," and "a baseball team owner" from your list. And you might as well call Lincoln "some 19th century rural surveyor" or Washington "some dude with wooden teeth" for all the point of your characterizations.

Re:Time to dump Traitor Hillary down a black hole

[Fancy Feast Cat Food]

I'll jump on the SEO bandwagon as well. Today's -1 unburiable posts have been total lol.


-

-
Treasonous Hillary sold the country out to the Russians and deserves to be prosecuted over Uranium One, the emails scandal, the server scandal, the genocide scandal, and so forth.

Barry Soetoro aka "Obama" sold the US out to the Russians when he killed the Shuttle program with no replacement due for a decade. Sickening.

According to plan...

[hyades1]

Such a move would effectively concede control of Low Earth Orbit, and the "high ground", to Russia. Putin will be pleased.

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this thing was always planned to be decommissioned by the mid 2020's?

This story just seems like more of the liberal media grasping a straws looking for every little thing they can twist around to blame on Trump.

In reality this whole thing is probably just business as usual confirmation of plans that were set forth when the ISS originally went up into space.

Re:So?

[bobbied]

This funding "cut" was exactly the plan put forth by NASA.. When I read the ISS long term plans, 2025 was considered the end of the ISS's probable service life and the point where it was going to be time to start replacing a large portion of it for safety reasons.

Of course, we could leave it up there and let it degrade into a death trap like Mir did before the Russians even admitted it was time to move on.

The only thing I would change here is that before we leave, we take the parts of the station we paid for and deorbit them... Or if the Russians want to cough up some rubbles, we could sell some stuff to them and use the proceeds to work on the next project.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

media grasping a straws looking for every little thing they can twist around to blame on Trump.

Like they've been doing all day every day for the past year. They reek of desperation and have no credibility.

Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[Solandri]

The ISS was only designed with a 15 year life expectancy. It is currently about 18 years old (some modules are older, some newer), and by 2025 it'll be 25 years old. NASA figures the absolute deadline is 2028. So 2025 is a good retirement date if you want a safety margin. It's commensurate with a previous NASA study which green-lighted keeping it operational until 2024.

Discussion should be focused on what comes next. Not on how to keep the ISS flying. The Space Shuttle was retired for the same reason - its components were designed with only a max 30 year lifespan in mind. Retrofitting it for longer service would've involved replacing all these parts. And if you're going to do that, you might as well design something completely new that takes advantage of new technology that's been developed in the previous 20+ years.

Re:Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Space Shuttle was retired for the same reason - its components were designed with only a max 30 year lifespan in mind. Retrofitting it for longer service would've involved replacing all these parts. And if you're going to do that, you might as well design something completely new that takes advantage of new technology that's been developed in the previous 20+ years."

That's the same problem however. You retire something without having a replacement ready to go.

Sure, the Space Shuttle was ending it's lifespan. But instead of just building a new one - even if it was the exact same tech - wasn't done. So now the US depends on other countries to get them to orbit.

Basically short sighted policy that makes the US fall behind.

Re:Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, take your logic and common sense somewhere else.
THIS. IS. SLASHDOT.

Re:Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[dunkelfalke]

Mir was designed with a 5 year life expectancy. It spent 15 years in space and only during its last three years or so problems really started to occur on a regular basis.

Re:Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Yeah, and the oldest Mir-derived components of the station are now thirty three years old now.

Re:Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[dunkelfalke]

Like what? Zarya was built in the 1990ies.

Re:Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[aliquis]

Yeah, and the oldest Mir-derived components of the station are now thirty three years old now.

Like what? Zarya was built in the 1990ies.

The crotch swipe-towel.

Re:Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Well, Zvezda's structural frame apparently dates back to 1985. That's a rather venerable age for a life support module in space, I'd think.

Re:Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Flawed logic so keep it regardless of the cost is there any amount you would not spend?
Why is space exploration all about going up a few hundred miles how about focusing on a more important goal instead of floating a money pit?
You make it sound like half the planet is going to space btw wtf fuck is wrong with countries pooling resources for real space exploration was it not called the International space station?
 

Re:Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[coofercat]

I understand what you're saying, but I guess there's a part of me that hopes the next space station will be like an extension of the old one. "oh, that's the old, original part of the house, with no artificial gravity and the worst toilets you've ever seen, but if you come through here you get to the new part which we added recently, we put in bi-fold doors, raised the ceiling height and put in this new kitchen".

Re:Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[erapert]

You retire something without having a replacement ready to go.

It's not actually critical that we have a manned presence in space at all times nor critical that NASA have some certified vehicle that can launch at a moment's notice.

Re:Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the same problem however. You retire something without having a replacement ready to go.

I find this happening in software projects all the time. Teams don't want to work on their old legacy codebase anymore, so all asks are denied, bugs are not fixed, and the service is barely kept running or taken down. Meanwhile, the rewrite is at best a prototype or does not exist and users are forced back to rocks and sticks.

Re:Need to start thinking about retiring it anyway

[Reziac]

I thought the decision to retire it had already been made. So what's with all the outrage?

Here's an idea. Put it up for auction to the highest bidder, with the provision that the private party takes on responsibility if it makes an ungraceful re-entry (eg. a crater in civilized territory), maybe require a bond to ensure compliance. Even if it sells at scrap prices for pennies on the dollar, that's still better than nothing, and who knows, a private party may make something of it. Hell, if necessary give it away (under the same liability terms) and let someone have a go at it. No loss, potential gain.

jihadi

[Anonymous Coward]

He's just playing to his base, the evangelicals who believe science is a religion. The terrorists win!

N1GGERS SPACE AGENCY

[Anonymous Coward]

and it's parent company ISIS will happily take over from here.

ISS? He probably confused it with ISIS :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump probably thought ISS was associated with terrorists so it had to go. We just need to come up with a new name for it. Perhaps it needs to have Trump in it somewhere. Perhaps The Trump International Space Casino? That'll get it funding.

so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't there a story on slashdot relatively recently that they were going to drop the ISS out of orbit in a couple of years because it's getting too old?
This dumbfuck article is making it sound like turmp is cutting some program that is just in its starting phase, not end phase.

Re:so what?

[bobbied]

Some would say this is a display of media bias... Or as Trump says "FAKE NEWS". In this case, he may have a point.

The Reality is that NASA's plans included ending the ISS in 2025, before the thing became a death trap. So the idea that Trump somehow is axing the budget for the ISS is not exactly true. My guess is that the president's budget is just matching NASA's funding request for the ISS and doesn't represent the President actively terminating the program.

So what is this story really about? It's an attempt to keep the program alive by appealing to the public, in this case targeted towards the left who are pre-loaded to dislike anything Trump does, good or bad. Where I don't like the method being used, I think funding the ISS past 2025 might be a good thing. However, we all need to realize that the ISS is rapidly exceeding it's design life and the dangers a life threatening malfunction in the harsh environment of low earth orbit are rising rapidly. We don't want to kill anybody here, so it might be time to pull the plug.

Trump...

[Anonymous Coward]

... the clown piñata that keeps on giving.

It was primarily a political project

[Karmashock]

... the "international" space station was mostly a political project and it is hard to cite any real success it had along those lines. It was about mending fences with the Russians after the Cold War by participating in a shared project that both nations could excel at... the Russians got funding to keep their space program alive without which it probably would have died entirely... and the US HOPED that the Russians would see the US as a potential friend in the world. Whatever our past... the future opens ever wider.

Sadly, it doesn't seem like any of that happened. The Russians seem immune to olive branch gestures.

That being the case... what is the scientific point of it? Nearly everything it does can be done more cheaply and creatively in other ways. We don't need to share funding or technology with what are still stubbornly rival powers. We are not chained to whatever is relevant to the ISS if we don't fund it at all.

The whole thing is likely to be abandoned and de-orbited.

I want humanity to venture into space... to claim the stars and all that stuff. But the ISS doesn't seem to have any role in that ambition. Its not even a good science platform. It isn't even good propaganda. It isn't even good diplomatic fodder to make the Russians happy. What does it do? Really?

I am very happy to fund NASA heavily. But clarify the mission statement and fund according to that clear mission.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Anonymous Coward]

And when the ISS drops into the ocean and there are still Chinese equivalents in orbit, what then?

Will China "own" LEO?

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Gavagai80]

the US HOPED that the Russians would see the US as a potential friend in the world. Whatever our past... the future opens ever wider.

Sadly, it doesn't seem like any of that happened. The Russians seem immune to olive branch gestures.

The US hoped the Russians would see the US as the world's lone superpower and agree to become a vassal state. Turns out they're uppity and have ambitions of being at least a regional power in former Soviet states instead of turning them over to the USA.

Regardless, though, the ISS was meant to keep some of Russia's smartest people employed so that they wouldn't have to sell their skills to other countries that might want space rockets, like North Korea and Iran. The ISS has been fully successful in that task.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[bobbied]

LOL... China has no "equivalent" in orbit and I seriously doubt they can afford anything approaching the abilities of the ISS, even if they had the technology to do it.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[johannesg]

The Russians seem immune to olive branch gestures.

That's rich, coming from the nation that blames absolutely every ill in the world (including everything that's wrong in their own country) on the Russians. Would you care to provide a list of things the Russians have _actually_ done wrong (as opposed to a list of things they've been accused of, without any substantiating evidence whatsoever)? Because to me it looks very much like the US needed a new cold war and a new opponent so its military programs could continue to be funded, and the Russians, without any doing on their part, happened to draw the short straw.

"Ouch, I stubbed my toe!" "Damn those Russians!"

Re:It was primarily a political project

[erapert]

I am very happy to fund NASA heavily. But clarify the mission statement and fund according to that clear mission.

And this is exactly why we should not fund NASA. Not because the boys and girls at NASA are dumb or have failed at what they were told to do; but because NASA is being steered by drunks. It's not intelligent people who decide how much money NASA gets and what they should be spending their time on, you see.

For that reason I think it's best to start rooting for people like SpaceX-- those people who are actually succeeding at putting things into space cheaply and have an ambitious vision and are actually taking steps in that direction.

Everyone at NASA that actually wants us to get into space should be scrambling to get into SpaceX or other private sector space companies.

Those who just want to clock in and take tax payer money while doing something sort of intellectual can stay at NASA and waste everyone's time and money chasing whatever windmills the government points at next.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[DNS-and-BIND]

Immune to olive branch? WTF? The USA totally screwed over Russia after the Cold War. Launched NATO expansion, ringed Russia with hostile bases, and interfered in the 1996 election, causing that drunk idiot Yeltsin to damage Russia even further. Here's TIME magazine in 1996 bragging about how we interfered in the Russian election.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Anonymous Coward]

Even when ignoring the Russian part of the station, it still is an international station. The US can remove there crew with can't prevent other users of the station from taking over. Russia could even invite China, and the US would not be able to restrict the Chinese to the Russian part of the station. Nasa will be funded as along as the Russians stay.

In a couple years, all eyes will be on Mars. The moon (our moon) is mostly a political destination. It is much closer than Mars but has no atmosphere that can be used during landing, so the required fuel and size of rocket isn't much different from Mars. If someone makes a serious and properly funded plans a manned mission to Mars, all moon plans well be cancelled immediately.

China can afford to go to Mars, and is technically capable, especially with a little help from Russia. SpaceX and possibly other private companies will take the lead, mostly because politics moves much slower. Nasa will support private companies but not have sufficient funding for designing and operating there own rockets.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't just about post-Cold War olive branches, it was also about keeping Russian rocket scientists employed so that they wouldn't be tempted to go and proliferate their knowledge of rocketry to the military programmes of other states.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Anonymous Coward]

They can afford it, but have not yet managed to steal enough technology.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Karmashock]

Russia's loss of power is self evident and engaging in a detailed discussion about how obvious that is... is beneath me.

What was hoped was a mending of fences where Russia could obtain wealth, stability, security, and ultimately happiness in the world going forward.

As to the project keeping the Russians away from weapons proliferation... The French have been a bigger problem with that then the Russians.

Regardless, the ISS serves no future purpose. De-Orbit and move on.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Karmashock]

I'm not talking about the pathetic attempt by the Clinton sycophants to blame their election loss on a foreign power.

Why is it that Russia struggles to attract foreign investment?

Russia has a slightly larger GDP than Australia... and yet has like 6 times the population.

Russia could be one of the richest countries in the world. But they're ruled by retards and the price of that is your country isn't successful.

People question this... and then consequences happen. I'm not going to argue the point with you. I'm going to let idiots earn their poverty.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Karmashock]

France can afford to go to Mars... Its not that expensive. We fight wars all the time that cost less than going to mars.

As to X taking over for the US... but will they?

First, there is the money... and second is anyone willing to share like the US is willing to share?

Have fun dealing with the generosity of the Chinese.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Karmashock]

As to a NATO expansion, you're talking about former soviet conquests that begged the western powers for security after a generation and in Soviet bondage?

Cry me a river.

Furthermore, there was no agreement that we wouldn't do that. The Russians sometimes claim there was an agreement... but when citations are asked for... they don't exist.

Tell you what, I'll honor agreements I didn't make if they honor agreements they didn't make... I'll offer that NATO thing... and then I'm going to ask for something they never agreed to... and just expect that gets honored.

Deal?

As to Ringing Russia... only an issue if they persist in being hostile. If they are being hostile then we have counter that and that causes the ringing. It is the responsibility of our military to counter threats. It is hilarious that powers think they can eat their cake and have it too. Be threatening and be treated like you're threatening. Poor babies

As to Yeltsin, you're talking about this:
""And while some Muscovites are debating whether the Americans saved Yeltsin's job or merely provided one voice among many working to revive the Russian president's political chances, the consultants have now emerged to give interviews about how they quietly peddled advice to Yeltsin's 36-year-old daughter and key advisor, Tatyana Dyachenko.

"I don't have candidates generally who are as responsive as Boris Yeltsin," said George Gorton, who worked for Wilson in 1994 and later ran Wilson's abortive bid for the GOP nomination. "Certainly not Pete Wilson."

Hired in February through a San Francisco firm with connections in Moscow, Gorton said that the team members never met Yeltsin. Instead, they sent their detailed, unsigned memos to his daughter. "We were told that we were formally retained as advisors to the Yeltsin family."""

His DAUGHTER HIRED HIRED HIRED an American political adviser team which passed on memos through her to Yeltsin... whom they never met.

And for this you say "DAMN YOU AMERICANS!!!!"... You're a idiot. :D

You're telling me it is bad faith on the part of the American government if the DAUGHTER of a Russian presidential candidate HIRES an American political team to pass advice to her father?

Fucking amazing.

You're all memes, kid. You know nothing. Sit at my feet and learn.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Karmashock]

SpaceX depends heavily on government contracts. Those government contracts require an agency... What would you call it?

The Department of Giving Musk Money?

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Karmashock]

Silly bunny, Chinese don't use Zodiac Astrology... ;)

Re:It was primarily a political project

[DNS-and-BIND]

Well, here's the citation so you can shut up about it now. In 1990, German ex-foreign minister promised the Russians than NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe. He lied.

NATO: yeah, we lied. https://www.nato.int/docu/revi...

However, it was also achieved through countless personal conversations in which Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders were assured that the West would not take advantage of the Soviet Unionâ(TM)s weakness and willingness to withdraw militarily from Central and Eastern Europe.

It is these conversations that may have left some Soviet politicians with the impression that NATO enlargement, which started with the admission of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1999, had been a breach of these Western commitments. Some statements of Western politicians â" particularly German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher and his American counterpart James A. Baker â" can indeed be interpreted as a general rejection of any NATO enlargement beyond East Germany.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Karmashock]

You didn't read your own citation:
""However, these statements were made in the context of the negotiations on German reunification, and the Soviet interlocutors never specified their concerns. In the crucial âoe2+4â negotiations, which finally led Gorbachev to accept a unified Germany in NATO in July 1990, the issue was never raised. As former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze later put it, the idea of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolving and NATO taking in former Warsaw Pact members was beyond the imagination of the protagonists at the time.""

Its nonsense.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[DNS-and-BIND]

Yeah it's a technicality. Nonetheless you can see how it could come off as a gigantic lie if you were on the other side of it.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Karmashock]

No, its an invention of the Russians to justify shitty behavior.

Russia could be one of the richest countries in the history of the world. Dramatically more powerful than they are now. Happier... more secure... the milk and honey of the Earth could be theirs. And the price was so very cheap.

All the Russians had to do was have integrity.

Russia sits between Europe, the middle east, and East Asia... and all that trade bypasses them. Everyone goes around them. No one trusts them.

If they were worthy of trust, freight rail could run through Russia from every major economy in Eurasia. And the US could connect the American rail network through the Bearing strait. It has been proposed and rejected not because it is too expensive but because the Russians are not reliable partners.

Russia would profit in trillions from the traffic through their territory alone. And on top of that, it would justify vast investments in Russian industry as Russia became the place between where goods from around the world were recombined to produce whatever others desired.

Russia pisses this away every day. They're a foolish country with no integrity and no vision. They are destined for the ash heap of history unless they wake up.

Whining about nations they formally enslaved fortifying themselves to prevent being enslaved again? The complaint is beneath contempt.

It is taken as seriously as the Nazis complaining about nations they ravaged in the past taking steps to prevent it from happening again.

Not only does it not pass the laugh test, the very fact that the Russians would think it was a valid complaint in the first place demonstrates a lack of moral growth, a lack of empathy for the people they have victimized, and a comically selfish attitude that justifies the nearly inevitable fate of their entire culture.

Russia has had their chances. They've demonstrated themselves to be unworthy.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[DNS-and-BIND]

Wow, I have never seen anyone so stridently anti-Russian in my life. It reminds me of all the rants I've seen by far right-wingers against the (((bankers))). They are judged completely unworthy of life, and a continuing disaster to the world. You've gone to a dark place, friend, I hope one day you can find a ray of light in your cave of hate.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Karmashock]

I didn't dehumanize them. I judged their foreign policy.

If you can't tell the difference then your ability to judge such things is void.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[DNS-and-BIND]

"Their" foreign policy? You mean (((their))) foreign policy, right? You repeatedly said "Russians" like southerners said "negro". Trust me, I've read enough of this stuff to know. And they always go off and have these really detailed complaints against people you've never heard of before. It's like finding someone who really really hates Botswanans and can tell you all these wonderful facts about why they're the worst people in the world. Like, WTF.

Re:It was primarily a political project

[Karmashock]

You can play the victim card here as if the Soviets were oh so oppressed by the meanie Americans. But the Russians dominated a series of countries that remember Soviet rule.

Why don't you play the victim card to the Polish? Try it.

Whining that the countries that escaped soviet enslavement want to secure themselves against Russian aggression is the opposite of being self aware. The Japanese have expressed regret for their fascistic behavior. The Germans have expressed contrition for their misdeeds. Consider Stalin for a moment.

The Russians are complaining about former conquests they brutalized taking steps to not be brutalized again. That's morally monstrous and logically idiotic.

Trying to associate my position with racism when we're talking about foreign policy is just sad.

For the record, I don't hate the Russians and would be very happy to accept them as equals amongst nations.

But they have to come to grips that the price of their lost empire was the suffering of millions. No one is crying for the fall of the soviet union.

Their society is dying. TODAY. Russia has no future unless it changes. That isn't hate from me, that is a prophesy. The country has a crashing birth rate, net emigration, flat lined investment... The whole society is in deep crisis. They have a huge land mass they can't hold on to if this keeps up.

They don't need to worry about the Evil Americans... Our work is done. Russia is snake bit. If they don't shape up they'll suffer the death of a million cuts by their neighbors nibbling at the borders while the center collapses.

Putin is talking tough... but he's already an old man... he will die of natural causes... and what then? They've made no plans for the future.

This isn't racism. I'm just pointing out a society that is dying and won't change to save itself.

Again, they could be one of the richest and most powerful countries in the history of the world. All they have to do is have a little vision and a little integrity. If they can't find either of those, then you're done.

Its another Sky Lab its done

[Anonymous Coward]

I think its another Sky Lab that has served its purpose and we need to tidy up in the next few years and prepare for it to become a dinosaur. If we are to go further in space with limited funding. We need to stop holding on to the past and differ spending to new projects that expand our interest in space.

The real reason...

[VeryFluffyBunny]

I think we all know the real reason that Trump is trying to kill off the ISS: He's a Nazi spy working for the 4th Reich who are waiting on the dark side of the moon for their chance to invade and the ISS is our best line of defence! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:The real reason...

[Anonymous Coward]

As chance would have it, I finally watched Iron Sky a few days ago. Not too bad considering the budget. It was very corny and unrealistic (both the science and the way politicians acted). I'm not sure if it was intentionally bad at time or what (like aiming for that 'so bad it's good').

Anyway, I do not not recommend seeing it. Given that they predicted a President Palin, I'll give reality props for being stranger than fiction.

Just an Acronym Misunderstanding

[turp182]

ISS is too close to ISIS, and therefore, should not be funded.

Anti-science fever rolls on

[quonset]

This shouldn't come as a surprise. This entire administration has been built around two policies: A) if Obama did it, get rid of it and B) mysticism and flimflammery over science.

This is the same man who said he wants to bring back coal despite its known hazards (acid rain and greenhouse gases to name two), and recently upped tariffs on solar panels which will all but destroy the thriving solar industry in this country, an industry which has more jobs than oil, coal and gas combined.

This is the same man who denies climate change, yet says he needs to protect his failing Irish golf course from climate change by building a sea wall.

“If the predictions of an increase in sea level rise as a result of global warming prove correct, however, it is likely that there will be a corresponding increase in coastal erosion rates not just in Doughmore Bay but around much of the coastline of Ireland. In our view, it could reasonably be expected that the rate of sea level rise might become twice of that presently occurring. As a result, we would expect the rate of dune recession to increase.”

“As with other predictions of global warming and its effects, there is no universal consensus regarding changes in these events,” it states. “Our advice is to assume that the recent average rate of dune recession will not alter greatly in the next few decades, perhaps as far into the future as 2050 as assumed in the [government study] but that subsequently an increase in this rate is more likely than not.”

He's made numerous comments anti-vaccine comments:

        Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes – AUTISM. Many such cases!

        — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2014b

“You take this little beautiful baby, and you pump — I mean, it looks like just it’s meant for a horse and not for a child,” Trump said. “We had so many instances [in which] a child had a vaccine, and came back and a week back had a tremendous fever, got very very sick, and now is autistic.”

And considered appointing an anti-vaccine proponent to a commission on vaccine safety and "scientific integrity".

That he would now defund the ISS is inline with his anti-science stance. Because he is incapable of seeing any benefit to its continuation (who needs scientific research anyway?), and he can't make a dime off it, it's no good. And especially since Obama touted the numerous successes and scientific knowledge coming from it.

Re: Anti-science fever rolls on

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, just shut up, shut up, shut up!

As so many others have said, ISS is old, has produced nothing interesting and was ALREADY SCHEDULED TO BE TERMINTED AROUND THAT TIME!!

You are a fucking idiot with serious TDS. If Hillary had done the exact same thing you'd be praising her insightful understanding of space tech and the budget process.
,

Re: Anti-science fever rolls on

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, just shut up, shut up, shut up!

The truth hurts, doesn't it ?

Despite all your efforts, you Trumpists filth will never be able to erase the unescapable truth: You all freely, wllingly and knowingly elected at the most powerfull position on earth a pedophile, rapist, narcissist, psychopath and con-artist who basically conned the entire country all the way to the White House.

Because of you, Donald Fucking Trump, of all people, will be listed for eternity among the long list of illustrious people who ruled that once-great nation of yours. That shame and humiliation will be carried by you and your descendents forever, immortalised in history. You will never be forgiven for this, and your children and granchildren will look down on you with disdain and disgust for the rest of your life.

Torn

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a bit torn. I'm all for manned space flight, but (exagerated) the ISS only reason for existence was as a destination for the Shuttle. The Shuttles only reason for existance was as a mode of transportation to the ISS...

This all goes back to Nixon and the post-Apollo planning. NASA wanted 1) a shuttle 2) a space station 3) a system of modules that can be assembeled at the station into a wide range of manned missions spanning the solar system.

Nixon said: "You can have one". NASA chose the Shuttle, without a destination... Then decades later they got the station. Still no modules, and the shuttle is decomissioned and the station soon will be :-(

2025

[Anonymous Coward]

This won't be until 2025.

Good thing then that Trump will be gone by 2024[1], giving someone else a chance to reverse the decisions.

[1] 2020 if the Dems finally start working on all the things that sent their own voters into the arms of Trump, rather than blaming everybody but themselves - but that doesn't seem likely.

Keeping it longer than Obama wanted

[sproketboy]

FYI:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

"Obama also announced an extension of funding for International Space Station operations, 90% complete by mass[15] at the time of the speech but scheduled to be deorbited by as early as 2015 before Obama announced the extension, which will provide funding through 2020."

Trump wants credit for winning the war on ISS

[jolyonr]

that's all!

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Perhaps better context is necessary

[Candyman_JAC]

The Obama Administration signaled the end of support for the ISS back in 2014 when funding for only another 10 years was authorized. That's right, he wanted to end US financial support for the ISS by 2025. While it might be convenient to blame this on the Trump administration, continuing to fund a mission that is well past its life expectancy is a losing proposition. Amazing how readers get sucked into the narrative that news organizations want you to believe just by the inflammatory headlines.

What Science?

[sycodon]

"The value of the science done there..."

I have to say I haven't read anything recently that suggest they are doing any Science that is going to affect the greater society recently.

I am seriously interested in reading about what science they are doing that's worth all that money.

That said, I am ambivalent about the funding cut.

Re:What Science?

[gtall]

Yep, just like funding basic mathematics. No one can point precisely to where leads. Off with its head, we don't need no stinking mathematics.

Re:What Science?

[I'm New Around Here]

We're not spending billions of dollars keeping young mathmeticians in LEO.

Re: What Science?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're spending hundreds of billions teaching math to people who grow up unable to count.

Re:What Science?

[Anonymous Coward]

"young" is debatable but I would guess many people who have been in LEO were mathematicians or had degrees in applied mathematics (engineering, physics, etc.)

Re:What Science?

[vtcodger]

I think many of those favoring a funding cut plan to spend the money on revisiting the moon. And not in a sensible way with a bunch of lunar rovers that will tell us what's there and whether there is any point in sending people. They want to wave flags and brag about going back to the moon.

Re:What Science?

[sycodon]

Thanks for the link.

You can shove the snark up your ass.

Re:What Science?

[sycodon]

Ya know...Fuck you.

I asked a simple question.

Apparently you don't know the answer.

that's-so-kash knew it, but even he couldn't avoid throwing in some dumbass snark.

Re:What Science?

[vtcodger]

"We're not spending billions of dollars keeping young mathmeticians in LEO"

I believe that, incredible as it may sound, many mathematicians are able to work effectively even with gravity constantly dragging blood out of their brains. Were that not true, they'd work standing on their heads.

long duration health research

[Danathar]

About the only thing I can think of that ISS does do is give us data on long duration space health in preparation for a Mars mission. Don't we have enough of that?

Re:long duration health research

[werepants]

We're still missing one of the most interesting pieces - whether artificial gravity works as expected, and what side effects it has on astronauts. Many long-term visions of space travel rely on this technology, but it has never actually been tested. There was a module built for these experiments by Japan, but for funding reasons it never flew.

I think you mean WILL LOSE ACCESS

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you Beau. Y'all broke!

to be fair to Trump... ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

He thought he said we should cut NSA funding for ISIS

Re:to be fair to Trump... ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol...unfortunately, you are probably dead-on correct!

Re: Time to dump Traitor Hillary down a black hole

[Anonymous Coward]

Please put the tin foil back in your hat

Does he think it's ISIS not ISS?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand if he was aboard now, I'd vote to deorbit the station immediately

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Can he do that?

[mark-t]

He's not going to be president anymore by 2025, so how is it that he can even do that?

We've seen that it's entirely possible for one president to undo (at least some) decisions made by a previous one in the past.... what makes them sure that this would stick?

About time!

[p51d007]

As with the Space shuttle...it doesn't GO ANYWHERE. Oh, they might have some experiments and what not they do, but, it is still STUCK NOT DOING ANYTHING. EXPLORE outside of our planet, not circling the 3rd rock from the sun.

Re:Good thing he'll be out of office for 6.5-7 yea

[Vermonter]

Not everything can be accomplished in 8 years. Should we never attempt long term projects because of that? Also there is the possibility that the next president/congress will agree with this decision, meaning that getting this ball rolling now would be good for their agenda.

Space exploration needs a purpose

[iamacat]

The first missions to orbit and moon had important purposes - to see if humans can survive, to make science experiements in microgravity, to look for signs of life on moon, demostrate that Americans and Russians can cooperate without ripping each other's throats out and so on. But space is mostly... empty. Before we continue manned exploration, we need to decide WHY. Are we going to mine an asteroid for materials important on Earth? Will we be able to establish a permanent colony for people to develop as they wish? Is orbital tourism going to become practical? Until then - no hurry. Robotic missions are much cheaper/safer and suffice for most purposes. We could not even dream of having a human take high resolution photos of pluto. Maybe one day we will all be robots.

No more fake 'live' CGI stream from 'orbit'

[Anonymous Coward]

No more fake 'live' CGI stream from 'orbit' for $25,000,000 a day?

On the other hand ...

[PPH]

... we could slap the Trump Hotel brand name on it. And it would be secure forever.

Is this a bad thing?

[jwhyche]

I love space and I'm pretty much rather see a buck spent on that than on many other things. But I'm on the fence with this one. I love the ideal of having a permanent outpost in space but I'm just not seeing what this gets us. I know there is some research going on but I don't see that being worth what we are paying.

Instead of us putting in any more money into this tinkertoy collection in space, I would rather see us getting back to Warnher von Braun ideal of a space habitat.

Re:Is this a bad thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

We had that with Skylab, or at least a prototype of that. The US has a pretty sad history of building space stations, cancelling rocket programs as soon as they are built, then losing the station before they can get the next generation rocket up to it. The ISS was intended as something else entirely. Pretty much we wanted to be able to launch a shuttle, capture a spy satellite, take it to a station for disassembly, then go put it back. Whether that's our own or an enemy nation's. That was the purpose of Space Station Freedom as envisioned by the Reagan administration at the early days of the Shuttle.

Re:Time to dump Traitor Hillary down a black hole

[AutodidactLabrat]

All of which proved to be without supporting evidence of any kind.

This is about Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

The US, in its brilliant move to decommission STS before a replacement was available, is 100% reliant on Russia to get US space monkeys to the ISS. This is a huge handover of money to the Russians, and in addition gives the Russians leverage over the US. The amount of money might not hurt the US, but it sure helps the Russians.

This is not about eventually visiting Alpha Centauri, or discovering unicorns on Pluto.

So alone :(

[nightfire-unique]

This isn't the Slashdot I remember.

Am I the only one willing to commit a large chunk of my income in the form of taxes to subsidize wasteful (or otherwise) space projects?

Like, let's build 5 space stations, and bombard the moon and Mars with rockets until we acheive perfection?

It seems like space exploration is one of the few useful things we can do with humanity's wealth at this point in time.

Nasa's budget should be more like 10% of tax revenue. The military should be more like 1%.

Re:So alone :(

[dacut]

Like, let's build 5 space stations, and bombard the moon and Mars with rockets until we acheive perfection?

Not a bad vision -- perhaps a touch wasteful of money and then some -- but the ISS doesn't help us here.

Just to put this in perspective, the moon is roughly 400,000 km (~ 250,000 miles) from Earth. By comparison, the ISS's altitude is 424 km (263 miles). This is like driving from San Diego to Boston and taking your first rest stop in Balboa Park. If we're talking Mars instead, that stop might be just beyond your neighbor's house (118 feet).

The ISS looks cool -- as do most multi-billion dollar construction projects -- but from a science and engineering standpoint we learned nothing by building or operating it.

I would love to see more spaceflight, but the next meaningful step has to be beyond Earth's gravity well. That means accelerating beyond the escape velocity, 11.2 km/s (40.3 km/h). We've come close, but in the wrong direction: Apollo 10's reentry speed (the fastest a human has ever gone) was 39,897 km/h. Personally, I think it would be interesting next step to put a human in the Earth's orbital path around the sun, but in the opposite direction. This gives you roughly six months to experiment and play, with recapture onto Earth almost guaranteed by gravity. This is more daunting than it sounds. You need to escape Earth's gravity (11.2 km/s), then achieve a velocity that gives you an orbit around the sun that doesn't decay (30 km/s), for a total velocity ("delta-v") of 41.2 km/s. Oh, and then you have to decelerate as you approach Earth.

Intangibles?

[MobyDisk]

Is there intrinsic training value in having an ongoing maintenance project? Ex: Suppose you run the military. But there's no wars right now. But you know you need the best most experienced soldiers in your army. So you send soldiers on humanitarian missions, fighters on reconnaissance missions, subs to follow friendly craft, and run support missions against a small band of local outlaws. All this keeps your people in shape. Is there a similar value with NASA? Perhaps you would want to run missions to the ISS to keep the launch sites ready, add new modules to the ISS and do periodic repairs so that new engineers learn the best practices of the department. It is hard to put a dollar amount to that. I know that in engineering, you rarely want to hire a bunch of new employees to start a new project. You put them on maintenance projects first, then graduate them up to new development. Maybe the same applies to NASA?

Re:Time to dump Traitor Hillary down a black hole

[Anonymous Coward]

"-1 Insightful"

Reminds me of the time I got a "+5 Troll". :D

Simple solution

[fahrbot-bot]

Paint it gold and rename it "Trump Station" - he'll either fund it forever or refuse to pay the workers and declare bankruptcy. :-) It's really a coin toss at this point.

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Deportations

[Anonymous Coward]

Much of the bad stuff that the Russians did, was during the Soviet era. Deportations of Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians to Siberia. Against their will, and on pain of death. Many died during the trip, and did not return. Occupation of those countries, and then colonizing them with the fifth column. Then there's the rape of Berlin and the continuing occupation of Königsberg. Then there's Holodomor. Then there's the kulakisation of any farmer who had any food (I think that was before NEP, but could have continued after that, too). All food was taken away from farmers, and they died of starvation. En masse. Forced collectivization.
 
The First and Second Chechen Wars. The murders of politicians and journalists (not just in Chechnya). Incursion in to Georgia in 2008, and into Ukraine in 2014.

Mod parent up

[martrootamm]

n/t

Article is Misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump admin wants to start the conversation about how and when to transfer the ISS in the mid-â20s. NASA and/or the USG retain some interest in the ISS, or it may shift to purely commercial, or it may be deorbited...no decisions have been made, nor is the Trump admin advocating one solution over another at this point.

About time

[MercTech]

After two decades it is time to retire the prototype platform for work in space. The ISS did its job as a prototype for living environments in orbit and for interstellar long duration voyages. It is time to build a real working model.