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David Ashton
I'm with you there, Glen....
zeeglen
I read that 1200 NASA employees are about to be laid off. A fine end to the ...
Space Log: Space station worth $100 billion?
George Leopold
11/1/2010 2:12 PM EDT
A decade after astronauts started living on the International Space Station, the Web site Space.com asks whether the orbiting laboratory has been worth its estimated $100 billion price tag.
It’s hard to make the case that the ISS justified this enormous investment. The space station has produced little in the way of scientific knowledge, particularly when compared to much less expensive projects like the magnificent Hubble Space Telescope.
What the space station has done, of course, is provide a destination for the U.S. space shuttle while maintaining a permanent human presence in Earth orbit. For now, that is the space station’s biggest payoff. Now that station construction is nearly complete, NASA and its international partners need to find new ways to use the space station to expand human knowledge about our planet and the universe.
An upcoming conference sponsored by American Astronautical Society will examine the space station’s role over the next decade.
George Zamka, commander of the last February’s shuttle Endeavor flight to the space station, told me he had tears in his eyes when he looked down at Earth from a cupola window installed by his crew. The sweeping vista of our planet from orbit is one clear if intangible benefit of the space station. But many more are needed.
Asked what he will do after the shuttle program ends, Zamka said he is working to develop new skills so he can live and work aboard the space station. Added the two-time shuttle astronaut, “I’m just looking for my next ride.”
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ReneCardenas
1/2/2011 3:02 PM EST
I supposed that until the basic human needs are taking care of here in earth, any expenditure (as noble as these may be), and human pursuit beyond our atmosphere will be very hard to justify. While more than half the world suffers poverty, hunger and human political conflict. I would encourage more discussion of human kind priorities.
Would it be more efficient to make all humans productive and cooperative to elevate our collective soul, before engaging in colonization of other planets?
But again, we are beneficiaries of great research that has been accomplished in the space program. I would not want to eliminate such investments; however, more thought needs to be given to automation.
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David Ashton
1/2/2011 6:47 PM EST
And until we figure out an acceptable way to prune the human race of all the useless dead wood that consumes so many of our resources, physical and otherwise, we will remain mired in "poverty, hunger and human conflict". And laudable projects like space exploration will be on the backburner.
Criminals, the long term unemployable wasters, and dictators who abuse their countries are some of the first we should start on. Limiting population, legislating maximum and minimum salaries and getting away from the idea of growth for the sake of growth (the idology of the cancer cell) can come next.
All highly impractical unless you get far more hard-assed than we as a race have been in the past.
Who remembers - as a kid - looking up at the moon in July 1969, or seeing moonbases in "2001" and thinking "where will the human race be when I'm old?" Answer: mired in poverty, hunger and human conflict.....
To those who would say I'm a cynical pessimist:
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
"A pessimist is an optimist with experience....."
Acutally it would be more correct to say
“I'm an optimist by nature and a pessimist by experience.”
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David Ashton
1/2/2011 10:25 PM EST
Look at it another way. Can anyone provide comparable figures as to what the USA's politicians have cost the nation in that period? or welfare? or defence? I reckon that 100 Billion for the ISS will pale into insignificance....
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zeeglen
1/2/2011 11:08 PM EST
I read that 1200 NASA employees are about to be laid off. A fine end to the careers of those who have worked so hard to advance aerospace technology.
I think would be much better if 1200 politicians got laid off instead. The space station will return far more worth than any politician.
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David Ashton
1/3/2011 1:21 AM EST
I'm with you there, Glen....
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