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That's incredibly incorrect the ISS is first and foremost a US National Lab where companies, universities and NASA itself can perform experiments on zero/micro

by rtkwe 9y ago

That's incredibly incorrect the ISS is first and foremost a US National Lab where companies, universities and NASA itself can perform experiments on zero/micro G.

ggm 9y ago
It was a very troll-like comment. To be less troll-y, there has been a long standing criticism in the science community about the cost:benefit side of this. I love the ISS. seeing it pass has been a highspot for me in an otherwise boring week, more than once. I went to every IMAX show I could about it. Thats some amazing stuff up there. I discount the 'research aimed to further space exploration by mankind' side, as being self-serving. (but I totally agree NASA should pay for that, so I guess I killed my own argument right there) it is true research and its good science, and we need to know it, but I've always felt its a bit of a stretch to justify the overall budget on this line. So I wind up asking myself what we got from micro and zero gravity we couldn't have got other ways. The russians got high quality crystals for their soviet chip farming back in the day on their one. I think by the time ISS came along, that was less of an issue for them. A totally unscientific google search shows theres a small amount of rumbling discontent under the covers. Even within NASA. It might reflect the long standing 'sats are cheaper than humans' view about what to put in space, and why.
- John_KZ 9y ago
  The ISS is in fact not very productive in terms of research, but it's running costs are relatively small and if it gets shut down, the next space station will cost incredible amounts of money, and it's possible that much of the current technical expertise on the aerospace systems will be lost by then. I think ISS's value is not on scientific experiments but as a training and testing ground for the space industry. We could scale it down a bit, but imo decommissioning the only manned human outpost in space is a mistake, especially since there's zero realistic plans to replace it.
  - autokad 9y ago
    > "but it's running costs are relatively small" its my understanding that its not small. 92 billion over 19 years? also, if its so cheap, why doesn't other countries want to put up reasonable $$
    - John_KZ 9y ago
      It's budget has been less than $2B/year consistently for almost 2 decades. That's pretty low for a space station. Other countries do put up according to their budget, they don't all have a $19 trillion GDP.
      - autokad 9y ago
        #1, who cares if its relatively low cost for a space station. it just matters whether its costly or not, which it is. 2 billion is ~20% of nasa's budget. > "It's budget has been less than $2B/year consistently for almost 2 decades." first off, that is just factually wrong. Nasa estimates in 2018, even 3-4 bil is overly optimistic. but even if that were true, 2 billion 20 years ago is north of 3 billion in today's money.
- rtkwe 9y ago
  An issue I see with the sats over humans arguments is that with people up there the experiments benefit from having a human vs having to create a robot to do all the experimental steps for ever single experiment. In the end we need people up there anyways to study various mitigation techniques for the ways the human body does not do well under micro gravity so having them also perform experiments with reusable equipment and simplifying the setup is a big plus. For example there's the combustion lab up on the ISS instead of having to make and launch an equivalent apparatus for each new batch of experiments and either leaving it as space trash or throwing it away into the atmosphere we can just send up samples and the astronauts. Sure on a full cost comparison satellites might come out cheaper but I think another important cost is the cost paid by the actual research teams. In a satellite model the costs to the research team go way up meaning fewer teams can possibly afford it where with the ISS a lot of the support equipment is already in place and you get a pair of human hands that can handle complex steps and adapt to issues better.

by rtkwe 9y ago

That's incredibly incorrect the ISS is first and foremost a US National Lab where companies, universities and NASA itself can perform experiments on zero/micro G.

ggm 9y ago

It was a very troll-like comment. To be less troll-y, there has been a long standing criticism in the science community about the cost:benefit side of this. I love the ISS. seeing it pass has been a highspot for me in an otherwise boring week, more than once. I went to every IMAX show I could about it. Thats some amazing stuff up there. I discount the 'research aimed to further space exploration by mankind' side, as being self-serving. (but I totally agree NASA should pay for that, so I guess I killed my own argument right there) it is true research and its good science, and we need to know it, but I've always felt its a bit of a stretch to justify the overall budget on this line. So I wind up asking myself what we got from micro and zero gravity we couldn't have got other ways. The russians got high quality crystals for their soviet chip farming back in the day on their one. I think by the time ISS came along, that was less of an issue for them. A totally unscientific google search shows theres a small amount of rumbling discontent under the covers. Even within NASA. It might reflect the long standing 'sats are cheaper than humans' view about what to put in space, and why.

John_KZ 9y ago
The ISS is in fact not very productive in terms of research, but it's running costs are relatively small and if it gets shut down, the next space station will cost incredible amounts of money, and it's possible that much of the current technical expertise on the aerospace systems will be lost by then. I think ISS's value is not on scientific experiments but as a training and testing ground for the space industry. We could scale it down a bit, but imo decommissioning the only manned human outpost in space is a mistake, especially since there's zero realistic plans to replace it.
- autokad 9y ago
  > "but it's running costs are relatively small" its my understanding that its not small. 92 billion over 19 years? also, if its so cheap, why doesn't other countries want to put up reasonable $$
  - John_KZ 9y ago
    It's budget has been less than $2B/year consistently for almost 2 decades. That's pretty low for a space station. Other countries do put up according to their budget, they don't all have a $19 trillion GDP.
    - autokad 9y ago
      #1, who cares if its relatively low cost for a space station. it just matters whether its costly or not, which it is. 2 billion is ~20% of nasa's budget. > "It's budget has been less than $2B/year consistently for almost 2 decades." first off, that is just factually wrong. Nasa estimates in 2018, even 3-4 bil is overly optimistic. but even if that were true, 2 billion 20 years ago is north of 3 billion in today's money.
rtkwe 9y ago
An issue I see with the sats over humans arguments is that with people up there the experiments benefit from having a human vs having to create a robot to do all the experimental steps for ever single experiment. In the end we need people up there anyways to study various mitigation techniques for the ways the human body does not do well under micro gravity so having them also perform experiments with reusable equipment and simplifying the setup is a big plus. For example there's the combustion lab up on the ISS instead of having to make and launch an equivalent apparatus for each new batch of experiments and either leaving it as space trash or throwing it away into the atmosphere we can just send up samples and the astronauts. Sure on a full cost comparison satellites might come out cheaper but I think another important cost is the cost paid by the actual research teams. In a satellite model the costs to the research team go way up meaning fewer teams can possibly afford it where with the ISS a lot of the support equipment is already in place and you get a pair of human hands that can handle complex steps and adapt to issues better.