This $100 Billion wasn't necessarily all spent by the U.S. alone, the ISS was split 7 ways (albeit a lion share of it probably fell on NASA/US funding).
The ISS was meant to be completed on a much faster timetable than it panned out. Columbia's crash completely threw their construction scheduling for a loop, and pushed the dates back on lots of research projects.
The ISS is now finally at a point to become "Fully Operational", just without the planet-cracking laser Darth Vader got to play with. We will see a lot of great information come out of this.
Slashdot Mirror
This $100 Billion wasn't necessarily all spent by the U.S. alone, the ISS was split 7 ways (albeit a lion share of it probably fell on NASA/US funding). The ISS was meant to be completed on a much faster timetable than it panned out. Columbia's crash completely threw their construction scheduling for a loop, and pushed the dates back on lots of research projects. The ISS is now finally at a point to become "Fully Operational", just without the planet-cracking laser Darth Vader got to play with. We will see a lot of great information come out of this.
How often am I going to have to swap this out? Is there a MDBF (mean drinks before failure)?
Haha, I really like that term, I've been an engineering student too long I suppose because that literally made me laugh out loud.