4 ms·

Not much to show for $19.6 million per day for 15 years.

api 11y ago
The highest value of the ISS is not as a scientific experiment but an engineering undertaking. It's given us a lot of operational experience on long duration space habitats and space flight, as well as constructing and operating large structures in space that are launched via many payloads and assembled in orbit. From the ISS we have learned how one might actually build and operate the life support and habitat systems of a sci-fi scale spaceship like Discovery 1 (2001). Now that we have reusable rockets, it will soon be possible to actually launch and assemble such things in orbit somewhat economically. IMHO the money could have been better spent but also might have been much worse spent. I'll take it.
- LoSboccacc 11y ago
  It's not even that much money compared to, say, F-35 research.
  - djaychela 11y ago
    Good point! I just checked out the cost, and reuters says that it's $1.45 Trillion! 10x the ISS cost, and hardly as inspiring. Even accounting for the 50 year lifespan vs the ISS' current 15 years, that's still 3x as much per day. Crazy.
  - api 11y ago
    The ISS delivered far more bang for the buck than quite a few other megaprojects. Last but by no means least it provided a target for the nascent private space industry, leading to things like reusable rockets. That would have been possible without it, but it's being there helped.
  - claystu 11y ago
    It's telling that the only way to make the ISS look good is by comparing it to one of the biggest boondoggles in US funding history.
    - LoSboccacc 11y ago
      Nah that's just interesting because it's a 1000x expenditure with yet uncertain returns Otoh, I've seen NASA ROI calculated anywhere from 5$ to 20$ per dollar spent. Hubbard places it at 8$. This article gives a good entry point to the topic http://www.21stcentech.com/money-spent-nasa-waste/ http://www.21stcentech.com/money-spent-nasa-waste/
      - claystu 11y ago
        Oh I'm a big fan of NASA and think we ought to spend a lot on space since it's the future, but that doesn't change the fact that the Shuttle and the ISS were terrible investments. For one thing, the shuttle could lift only a fraction of what the Saturn V (used for Apollo and Skylab) lifted. In fact, Skylab actually had more space than even the largest module on the ISS (almost 2x) and was launched all in one go with a Saturn V. Think about that: Skylab was bigger and was launched in a single day by a Saturn V. It also only cost $2.2 billion vs $150 billion for the ISS. If we had stuck with Saturn V's and the Skylab solution, we could have around 50 space stations right now--as opposed to just one. Or better yet, we could have colonies on Mars, and deep space manned missions (remember...the ship in 2001 A Space Odyssey wasn't supposed to be science fiction), and many more super-sized space telescopes, and who knows what else. Anyway, I look at what we've done with NASA for the past 40 years compared to what we could have done and I can't help but feel like we squandered an incredible opportunity.
- drjesusphd 11y ago
  That operational experience dies out the longer we don't apply that hard-fought knowledge.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
snsr 11y ago
Are you being serious? Maybe you need to do some reading? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

api 11y ago

The highest value of the ISS is not as a scientific experiment but an engineering undertaking. It's given us a lot of operational experience on long duration space habitats and space flight, as well as constructing and operating large structures in space that are launched via many payloads and assembled in orbit. From the ISS we have learned how one might actually build and operate the life support and habitat systems of a sci-fi scale spaceship like Discovery 1 (2001). Now that we have reusable rockets, it will soon be possible to actually launch and assemble such things in orbit somewhat economically. IMHO the money could have been better spent but also might have been much worse spent. I'll take it.

LoSboccacc 11y ago
It's not even that much money compared to, say, F-35 research.
- djaychela 11y ago
  Good point! I just checked out the cost, and reuters says that it's $1.45 Trillion! 10x the ISS cost, and hardly as inspiring. Even accounting for the 50 year lifespan vs the ISS' current 15 years, that's still 3x as much per day. Crazy.
- api 11y ago
  The ISS delivered far more bang for the buck than quite a few other megaprojects. Last but by no means least it provided a target for the nascent private space industry, leading to things like reusable rockets. That would have been possible without it, but it's being there helped.
- claystu 11y ago
  It's telling that the only way to make the ISS look good is by comparing it to one of the biggest boondoggles in US funding history.
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    Nah that's just interesting because it's a 1000x expenditure with yet uncertain returns Otoh, I've seen NASA ROI calculated anywhere from 5$ to 20$ per dollar spent. Hubbard places it at 8$. This article gives a good entry point to the topic http://www.21stcentech.com/money-spent-nasa-waste/ http://www.21stcentech.com/money-spent-nasa-waste/
    - claystu 11y ago
      Oh I'm a big fan of NASA and think we ought to spend a lot on space since it's the future, but that doesn't change the fact that the Shuttle and the ISS were terrible investments. For one thing, the shuttle could lift only a fraction of what the Saturn V (used for Apollo and Skylab) lifted. In fact, Skylab actually had more space than even the largest module on the ISS (almost 2x) and was launched all in one go with a Saturn V. Think about that: Skylab was bigger and was launched in a single day by a Saturn V. It also only cost $2.2 billion vs $150 billion for the ISS. If we had stuck with Saturn V's and the Skylab solution, we could have around 50 space stations right now--as opposed to just one. Or better yet, we could have colonies on Mars, and deep space manned missions (remember...the ship in 2001 A Space Odyssey wasn't supposed to be science fiction), and many more super-sized space telescopes, and who knows what else. Anyway, I look at what we've done with NASA for the past 40 years compared to what we could have done and I can't help but feel like we squandered an incredible opportunity.
drjesusphd 11y ago
That operational experience dies out the longer we don't apply that hard-fought knowledge.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

snsr 11y ago

Are you being serious? Maybe you need to do some reading? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html