The science on the station will be crap even after they staff it up. It'll just be more voluminous crap.
And why is a station better than nothing? At current launch costs a space station is a useless horribly expensive waste. When launch costs are reduced by a factor of 100, then it might be time to build a space station. It won't look much like this one, and the engineering will be vastly different, but it at least might do something worth its cost.
The Apollo purchases of ICs did help support the nascent IC industry in the early 60s, but they were by no means the only customers. The first big user of ICs was the Minuteman II guidance computer, after all.
The real promise of the space station for us (those of us alive today) is that it may be possible to develope tissues and/or compounds/medications that are otherwise not producable on the surface.
Yep, that explains why all the big pharmaceutical companies are chomping at the bit to spend billions of dollars on research on the ISS.
Oh, wait. They're not. In fact they don't really give a damn about ISS.
Do you have any idea what the concrete results are from manned spaceflight and space exploration?
From *manned* spaceflight and exploration? The answer is 'not anything worth the cost'.
Do you know just exactly how and what experiments can be (and are being) executed up there? Do you have a clue how big the impact on sciences, medical sciences, technology and the whole technological, chemical and phramaceutical industry in general is?
Breathless idiots have vastly overhyped the potential of the space station in those areas. Tell me: how much money are the pharmaceutical and chemical companies investing in research on ISS? I'll tell you: almost nothing. They know it's not worth the bother.
Once we have a space station that is able to store raw materials and build components itself we'll be able to do all other forms of space exploration at a much lower cost.
Why do you say that? Seems to me that a spacecraft factory here on earth is going to be a lot cheaper than one in space. Factory space, labor, food, air, water, shipping, etc. etc. are all much cheaper down here than up there.
Moreover, a spacecraft factory doesn't manufacture all the components of a spacecraft from scratch -- it assembles the spacecraft from complex components manufactured elsewhere. Shipping up those components isn't any cheaper than shipping up assembled modules. At best, any foreseeable space station will be useful for assembling rather large objects, the size of which is dictated by the size of the launch vehicles. That's a far cry from assembling spacecraft from raw materials.
Wouldn't it make more sense to launch the orbiter and payload on 2 separate standard rocket boosters?
Then what exactly is the purpose of the orbiter? Why not just launch the payload by itself?
Granted, it's not so great for *returning* satellites etc. to earth,
Returning satellites to Earth has little to recommend it. What do you want to do, put them in museums? It's cheaper to just let them burn up. The market for this capability is inadequate to justify a reusable vehicle.
just where do you think the money went? it didn't literally get shot into space. all that money was spent right here, on earth, in the usa to pay the tens of thousands of people who work on the space program.
That's a frequently used bogus argument. Money is just a placeholder; spending on space activities does use up real wealth (labor, capital, natural resources).
But if you think you're right, I tell you what: let's get the government to give me a billion dollars. I promise I will spend all of it right here on Earth. That won't cost us anything, since I won't be shooting money into space, right?
Well, the X-33 was a stupid design to begin with. They repeatedly descoped it, the fuel tank technology didn't work, and Lockmart reneged on the commitment to fund the Venturestar anyway (since the market for comsats collapsed.)
If Hubble had been launched on expendables without the possibility of repair, the solution would have been to launch a replacement. This is *not* twice as expensive, since much of the cost of building something like HST is non-recurring engineering cost. We even had a backup mirror, made by Kodak (and, yes, it was tested and found to be in good shape, unlike the one that was actually launched). With the savings from avoiding the massive cost of building and operating the shuttle we'd have come out far ahead.
If this had happened we'd have had two telescopes in space, not one. The pre-repair HST was still useful (for spectroscopy), so we'd have had more observing capability. Space telescopes like IUE often last far beyond their design lives, even without repair.
Without the plan for repair, the telescopes could have been placed in high earth orbit, where they'd be able to observe more effectively. The Hubble's replacement, the HST, will be placed far beyond LEO where repair is not practical. The repairability of HST was something that wasn't needed except to provide a justification for the shuttle.
Try searching google.com for Interferometer and come back when you are ready.
Interferometers would be built in space, not on the moon. The moon offers many disadvantages for space astronomy, not the least of which is much higher initial cost.
I was just using it to point out the insane cost, mostly in fuel, of lifting shit to orbit.
This is a common misconception. Fuel is actually a tiny part of the cost of launching something into space, less than 1%. Most of the cost is labor and (to a lesser extent) replacement of disposed hardware.
I'd say it's done fine for its main purpose of satellite deployment and repair.
Obviously not. Satellite repair has ended up being more expensive than it's worth. Note that the replacement for the HST is going into an orbit where repair is impossible. As for satellite launch, there's a good reason most satellites are going up on expendable rockets these days -- it's much cheaper.
No, the shuttle is horrible for doing what it's doing now, since it's so expensive. We'd be much better off if every shuttle orbiter disappeared tomorrow and they had to use expendables.
The latest Atlas and Deltas are substantially new vehicles. New engines, new tanks, new designs. They reuse some components from the previous designs but then so does Ariane 5.
No, actually, NASA's funding has not been cut a lot in recent years. It's been relatively stable. What's happened is that NASA's lowballing of cost estimates has finally caught up with them, so the budgets they said are adequate have turned out not to be.
ISS is not a jumping off point to thre greater solar system. It's in the wrong orbit. A high inclination orbit is a stupid place to stage from, since the delta-V to get there is considerably higher.
If missions to the moon, Mars, or asteroids are sent out, they won't be from the ISS.
The military abandoned the space shuttle for expendable launchers years ago. The expendables are cheaper and easier to keep under the military's control. They also go into polar orbit as the shuttle does not.
It wouldn't. Zubrin's 'Mars Direct', for example, does not require a space station. There is no reason why assembling a Mars vehicle in orbit should require a space station.
Perhaps you should learn a few facts about space technology before exhibiting your ignorance in public. At least you had the brains to post anonymously.
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The science on the station will be crap even after they staff it up. It'll just be more voluminous crap.
And why is a station better than nothing? At current launch costs a space station is a useless horribly expensive waste. When launch costs are reduced by a factor of 100, then it might be time to build a space station. It won't look much like this one, and the engineering will be vastly different, but it at least might do something worth its cost.
The Apollo purchases of ICs did help support the nascent IC industry in the early 60s, but they were by no means the only customers. The first big user of ICs was the Minuteman II guidance computer, after all.
Oh, wait. They're not. In fact they don't really give a damn about ISS.
Too bad, so sad.
Breathless idiots have vastly overhyped the potential of the space station in those areas. Tell me: how much money are the pharmaceutical and chemical companies investing in research on ISS? I'll tell you: almost nothing. They know it's not worth the bother.
We're not really going to learn those things even with the station.
And we're not going to Mars anytime soon.
But the space station really isn't good for anything except science, and it's not very good at that either.
It's time to knife this baby.
Moreover, a spacecraft factory doesn't manufacture all the components of a spacecraft from scratch -- it assembles the spacecraft from complex components manufactured elsewhere. Shipping up those components isn't any cheaper than shipping up assembled modules. At best, any foreseeable space station will be useful for assembling rather large objects, the size of which is dictated by the size of the launch vehicles. That's a far cry from assembling spacecraft from raw materials.
Returning satellites to Earth has little to recommend it. What do you want to do, put them in museums? It's cheaper to just let them burn up. The market for this capability is inadequate to justify a reusable vehicle.
But if you think you're right, I tell you what: let's get the government to give me a billion dollars. I promise I will spend all of it right here on Earth. That won't cost us anything, since I won't be shooting money into space, right?
Well, the X-33 was a stupid design to begin with. They repeatedly descoped it, the fuel tank technology didn't work, and Lockmart reneged on the commitment to fund the Venturestar anyway (since the market for comsats collapsed.)
Ack, the replacement is the NGST, not the HST.
If Hubble had been launched on expendables without the possibility of repair, the solution would have been to launch a replacement. This is *not* twice as expensive, since much of the cost of building something like HST is non-recurring engineering cost. We even had a backup mirror, made by Kodak (and, yes, it was tested and found to be in good shape, unlike the one that was actually launched). With the savings from avoiding the massive cost of building and operating the shuttle we'd have come out far ahead.
If this had happened we'd have had two telescopes in space, not one. The pre-repair HST was still useful (for spectroscopy), so we'd have had more observing capability. Space telescopes like IUE often last far beyond their design lives, even without repair.
Without the plan for repair, the telescopes could have been placed in high earth orbit, where they'd be able to observe more effectively. The Hubble's replacement, the HST, will be placed far beyond LEO where repair is not practical. The repairability of HST was something that wasn't needed except to provide a justification for the shuttle.
Obviously not. Satellite repair has ended up being more expensive than it's worth. Note that the replacement for the HST is going into an orbit where repair is impossible. As for satellite launch, there's a good reason most satellites are going up on expendable rockets these days -- it's much cheaper.
No, the shuttle is horrible for doing what it's doing now, since it's so expensive. We'd be much better off if every shuttle orbiter disappeared tomorrow and they had to use expendables.
The latest Atlas and Deltas are substantially new vehicles. New engines, new tanks, new designs. They reuse some components from the previous designs but then so does Ariane 5.
No, actually, NASA's funding has not been cut a lot in recent years. It's been relatively stable. What's happened is that NASA's lowballing of cost estimates has finally caught up with them, so the budgets they said are adequate have turned out not to be.
ISS is not a jumping off point to thre greater solar system. It's in the wrong orbit. A high inclination orbit is a stupid place to stage from, since the delta-V to get there is considerably higher.
If missions to the moon, Mars, or asteroids are sent out, they won't be from the ISS.
No, people are willing to risk their lives for all sorts of mundane things, and do it every day.
Lunar colonies aren't being tackled because they aren't worth building. This would remain true even it were perfectly safe.
If they took a page from the Apollo program, they'd just shut the whole thing down when the public got bored.
Like... right now.
The military abandoned the space shuttle for expendable launchers years ago. The expendables are cheaper and easier to keep under the military's control. They also go into polar orbit as the shuttle does not.
Our population doubles every 30 years or so.
The current global population doubling time is around 50 years, and increasing.
Perhaps if you got some facts that were actually true you'd be able to reach more sensible conclusions.
It wouldn't. Zubrin's 'Mars Direct', for example, does not require a space station. There is no reason why assembling a Mars vehicle in orbit should require a space station.
Perhaps you should learn a few facts about space technology before exhibiting your ignorance in public. At least you had the brains to post anonymously.