5 ms·

There hasn't been much good science out of it yet. I don't think the future will bring much either. If science were our goal we could have done much more scien

by dalke 10y ago

There hasn't been much good science out of it yet. I don't think the future will bring much either. If science were our goal we could have done much more science with the same money.

krallja 10y ago
> There hasn't been much good science out of it yet. I strongly disagree with this statement. Here are 1052 pages of summaries of the results of scientific experiments on the ISS. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/iss_technical_publication_030116.pdf http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/iss_tech...
- dalke 10y ago
  I'll modify my statement, since "good science" has two meanings. ISS has produced competently done science (one definition of "good"), but at a high prices. The same amount of money spent either on the ground, or on unmanned space science missions, would have given more science for the dollar. But a lot of those experiments are "let's see what X does ... in space!", or rather, "in microgravity!." When all you have is a hammer, then you will do a lot of hammer science. But it's not that transferable, except in the most vague of terms - which that document does over and over. To quantify it, that's 1052 pages of summaries across 11 years. And not all of them are science. Call it 95 pages of summaries per year. BTW, it's about 550 individual items, so 50 per year. ISS cost, what, $100-$150 billion over 20 years, or 5-7 billion/year? The NIH budget is $32 billion/year, which goes to 50,000 grants. That's about 6x larger. In terms of science per dollar, I'm pretty sure an equivalent summary of the NIH-funded research would exceed 6x95 = ~600 pages. The other definition of "good" is "better than average". For example, if microgravity gave a significantly better to make protein crystals for x-ray analysis, then that would be great science. But in practice, no, it isn't. There are only a handful of crystallization experiments in those 11 years of experiments, and one of the things we've found out is that ultra-centrifuges are more useful than microgravity. A lot cheaper too. The quality of the science is about average for the fields I'm used to, and the cost is much higher. That's why I say "there hasn't been much good science" out of the ISS.
  - krallja 10y ago
    So, a lot of science has been done, but it isn't "good" science because it costs way more than other alternative lines of inquiry. I think that's fair.

by dalke 10y ago

There hasn't been much good science out of it yet. I don't think the future will bring much either. If science were our goal we could have done much more science with the same money.

krallja 10y ago

> There hasn't been much good science out of it yet. I strongly disagree with this statement. Here are 1052 pages of summaries of the results of scientific experiments on the ISS. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/iss_technical_publication_030116.pdf http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/iss_tech...

dalke 10y ago
I'll modify my statement, since "good science" has two meanings. ISS has produced competently done science (one definition of "good"), but at a high prices. The same amount of money spent either on the ground, or on unmanned space science missions, would have given more science for the dollar. But a lot of those experiments are "let's see what X does ... in space!", or rather, "in microgravity!." When all you have is a hammer, then you will do a lot of hammer science. But it's not that transferable, except in the most vague of terms - which that document does over and over. To quantify it, that's 1052 pages of summaries across 11 years. And not all of them are science. Call it 95 pages of summaries per year. BTW, it's about 550 individual items, so 50 per year. ISS cost, what, $100-$150 billion over 20 years, or 5-7 billion/year? The NIH budget is $32 billion/year, which goes to 50,000 grants. That's about 6x larger. In terms of science per dollar, I'm pretty sure an equivalent summary of the NIH-funded research would exceed 6x95 = ~600 pages. The other definition of "good" is "better than average". For example, if microgravity gave a significantly better to make protein crystals for x-ray analysis, then that would be great science. But in practice, no, it isn't. There are only a handful of crystallization experiments in those 11 years of experiments, and one of the things we've found out is that ultra-centrifuges are more useful than microgravity. A lot cheaper too. The quality of the science is about average for the fields I'm used to, and the cost is much higher. That's why I say "there hasn't been much good science" out of the ISS.
- krallja 10y ago
  So, a lot of science has been done, but it isn't "good" science because it costs way more than other alternative lines of inquiry. I think that's fair.