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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.
Something that is both cooperative and science based... I'm surprised Trump didn't nuke it on his first day in office!
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.
Table-ized A.I.
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".
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.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
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...
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
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?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
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.
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.
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?
... 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.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
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."