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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 c
by 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 agoIt'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.