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I'd be ok with that, provided they have similar or greater inspiration potential. Inspiration is like an investment, do it right and with any luck when all bab
by burgerbrain 15y ago
I'd be ok with that, provided they have similar or greater inspiration potential. Inspiration is like an investment, do it right and with any luck when all babyboomers die and are replaced you'll receive much more funding. For the same reason, that new project should be similarly international. I'd advocate defunding the ISS in a heartbeat if there was another project that I felt met those qualifications.
However, without looking at the numbers, I fear that the cost of running the ISS would only pay for a fraction of the cost of launching a new project. So of course in either case you'll need to find new funding.
- absconditus 15y agoThe ISS budget for 2012 appears to be just under $3 billion. This could fund quite a few robotic missions.
- burgerbrain 15y agoIf you can squeeze that kind of inspiration and international cooperation out of a bunch of robotic missions, then great. Edit: Then again, this is what Cassini cost: "Cost of mission: $1.422 billion pre-launch development; $710 million mission operations; $54 million tracking; $422 million launch vehicle; $500 million ESA; $160 million ASI; total about $3.27 billion, of which U.S. contribution is $2.6 billion and European partners' contribution $660 million" http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/quickfacts/ http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/quickfacts/ So you could get just less than one funded Cassini a year for what we spend on the ISS. You would still need to find additional funding.