http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=18825Appears to me this has common sense written all over it. Which begs the question, if points 1 through 4 haven't been addressed, what exactly is the ISS projected to be used for by NASA?
Doesn't exactly fill you with a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Maybe they simply cannot plan what the ISS is going to be capable of why the Shuttle flights are still not set in stone?
Was that the full text of the report. Did they have nothing positive to say?
Regardless on whether they had any additional information, the text published on SpaceRef won't be reduced in context and information by any potential counter points they may have made (which I doubt anyway).
The problem we have is NASA's budget has for years now been almost exclusively being spent on the Shuttle and the ISS. While the Shuttle is multi-purpose and our only access for transport to space on a US vehicle, the ISS has already failed to balance the billions spent by not carrying out the science.
While I know certain factors have not helped, the report linked gives me a real problem as who the hell is looking to get as much out of the ISS as can be possible to at least have some level of a plan to utilize it?
I'm not wholly against the ISS, I just wish they'd find a way of using some of its potential.
Though I won't quibble over the accuracy of the points they make, it sounds like there's a real disconnect between NRC and reality. There NASA is busting their humps just trying to provide launch capability and meanwhile the NRC's getting all bent out of shape over microgee research.
It appears that there are no plans to provide a back-up alternative to the shuttle launch of ISS structural components and research modules, if the shuttle does not complete this process by 2010.
Geniuses. Still, maybe this report will provide some ammo for Griffin to use to accelerate SDLV development.
The critical reason the U.S. continues to drive this rocky path with the ISS has very little to do with science, and everything to do with International Relations & Politics.
Back in the 90's, when the U.S. couldn't afford to build Space Station Freedom on its own, the U.S. pleaded with a number of other countries to help finance the building of ISS. Those countries were sold on promises of glorious scientific benefits which only the station could offer. Those benefits, if we're really going to be honest, were blown out of all reasonable proportion, and everyone now knows it.
But everyone else got on board with the U.S. because they don't have any direct access to space, and this would give each of those countries at least some access to useful science done in orbit.
Now though, the U.S. wants out of the project because there isn't much scientific return from that project compared to the money burned on it. But the U.S. can not renege on its commitments on such a large international project without incurring some pretty serious wrath from its partner countires. Every nation the U.S. is working with buys U.S. goods, and many supply a lot of goods to the U.S. too. So if the U.S. simply birdied the other nations and walked away, those nations would in return, start international trade disputes, and start collecting on the national debt the U.S. owes - and that would probably ruin the U.S. economy. Think "Crash of '29" kinda thing.
So, what that all boils down to is that NASA is obligated to finish the ISS to keep the international partners happy.
As that article pointed out, there isn't a lot of science to be done on ISS to benefit the VSE. What I could see the U.S. benefiting from having the ISS for is to prototype more reliable and low-maintenance life support systems for use in long duration voyages. Also, to gain more hard data on the effects of very long duration weightlessness on the human body. Thanks mainly to the Russian MIR station, we already have lots of data for stays in space of up to a year, but a Mars trip will require astronauts staying even longer than that, so ISS could become the perfect testing ground.
The only problem now though, is that there isn't the budget available to conduct any of this ISS research - its ALL being used just to construct the damn thing. So ISS becomes useless once again.
I won't let up with my refrain. We could be doing so much more and finish ISS into the bargain too.
Ross.
I'm not wholly against the ISS, I just wish they'd find a way of using some of its potential.
Well, at the rate we're going, a half-built ISS will be the prime destination for what's looking like the 2015 maiden voyage of a much-delayed, stripped-down CEV.
I think this is partly a question of priorities.
The current plan (whether you agree with it or not) is to retire the Shuttle in 2010; use it in the meantime to build as much of the ISS as possible, and simultaneously begin the development of the CEV to provide LEO access (including to the ISS).
Everything is subordinate to this. That includes planning what you are going to use the ISS for after it is built. Especially if those plans relate to research/development for manned Mars missions, which are way down the line.
realtime - 28/11/2005 11:38 PM
Though I won't quibble over the accuracy of the points they make, it sounds like there's a real disconnect between NRC and reality. There NASA is busting their humps just trying to provide launch capability and meanwhile the NRC's getting all bent out of shape over microgee research.
It appears that there are no plans to provide a back-up alternative to the shuttle launch of ISS structural components and research modules, if the shuttle does not complete this process by 2010.
Geniuses. Still, maybe this report will provide some ammo for Griffin to use to accelerate SDLV development.
You'd think they'd have answers for them, or don't they answer to the NRC?
As Yogi Berra said "It's Deja Vu all over again".
I heard the same sort of thing during Gemini, complaints that the Astronauts were all test pilots, even though test pilots are the exact kind of people you need to fly prototype spaceships and to work out the basic procedures of spaceflight. I heard complaints that scientists weren't sent on the Apollo 11 mission instead of test pilots to work out the basic procedures of a Moon landing, that test pilots were flying too many missions when the Shuttle came on line before it was declared operational. I heard the same complaints that the DoD was flying too many of the Shuttle missions in the early days after it became operational.
Let's not lose sight of one thing here, if NASA had told the scientists "put a sock in it, we are building the damn thing first" instead of flying logistic missions to do some science before the Columbia accident ISS construction would be further along than it is now.
If the Wright Brothers had to deal with scientists like the ones NASA has to deal withe they would have had one group demanding they quit wasting time on human flight and just build unmanned versions of that first airplane to carry instruments aloft, and the rest demanding that they spend all of their time hauling scientists aloft to make observations instead of working on improved designs.
Science is important, but the prima donna attitude of many people in the space science community got old a long time ago.
kraisee - 29/11/2005 12:43 AM
The critical reason the U.S. continues to drive this rocky path with the ISS has very little to do with science, and everything to do with International Relations & Politics.
Its really all about having something to sell to someone, so money can change hands, and a lot of it.. then again,sometimes one starts on a journey and one ends up at a dead end,sometimes with learning and sometime the journey ends up in new wonderful places.. ISS is not the latter.. Oh, well, it has done some great things in terms of getting a group of nations together on a grand project.. maybe the next will be better.. its as a start