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> we've been doing manned research in space for 60-plus years and the manned spaceflight programs that support that have been and still are indispensable Is a
by xnx 1y ago
> we've been doing manned research in space for 60-plus years and the manned spaceflight programs that support that have been and still are indispensable
Is a large portion of this busywork to give the astronauts something to do?
- standardUser 1y agoUsually it is not NASA coming up with experiments, but rather research institutions and companies. They submit proposals to get their experiments done on the ISS and the process is very competitive.
- numpad0 1y agoThey can't fix radiation problems unless they first establish a orbital shipyard. You need multiple feet thick walls made of dense materials to not die from radiation beyond LEO, and those walls would be just too heavy to lift off Earth with chemical propulsion. No one is going to pay for a bunch of Starship launches to completely wrap up a Dragon into a Starship sized concrete ball, and no one is going to sign up to spend years on it. And so they keep doing the busywork you mentioned, hibernation mode operation at minimum costs. It's still a lot of money on Earth but I suppose not so much in space.