Why is it dead? You cant just write off the investment made. The Public would never accept another adventure like this, I dont think this stuff should just be outsourced to private actors.
I think the actual science we get out of the ISS per buck is worth it. At this point we’re in a sunken cost situation where he have to spend enormous amounts of money to keep the lights on and it’s not clear what its mission is.
There’s been a ton of incredible space exploration that’s been done recently by robots and ground-based measurements, but no one ever seems to notice. If it were me, I’d mothball the ISS and focus on sending more robots out to space.
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Great. So robots can take over earth AND space before space force is even in place to fight them off?
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Imo there is just still too much work to be done to survey how the human body reacts to long periods of space time. They had the experiment with the two twinbrothers and how the one who was in space changed. But how will you find out if new techniques can reduce the influence on your body in space if you dont have a “lab” in space to test it out?
Why is “how will the human body react to prolonged time in space” a significant question? Isn’t there other research that we can burn billions of dollars on and let the robots explore space? And anyway, rich assholes who want to die on Mars will do the research for free eventually anyway, win/win.
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There was a guy involved with managing space research projects who used to post here occasionally on 22 and IIRC he also thought the ISS was a boondoggle.
Is spending 700 billion a year on the military a better option? Seriously if you take this line of discussion then we can end it right here. There will always people who say we can spend the money better elsewhere and there will be people who are willing to spend the money and dont want to wait for the next world or cold war to make the next jump. The ISS is already up there so I just want to use it longer. Once you are able to somehow make a profit these rich assholes wont share their knowledge anymore. Or they pull a Gates and use public funded research for their own enrichment.
Enough Sci-Fi and Neill deGrasse Tyson made me curious enough that I would love to see the next step being made.
Fun fact: Starship is supposed to have a pressurized volume ~equal to the ISS, so it should be a great lab for orbital science. Just configure the interior on the ground, launch it into space, science for however long you need, then bring it back! Plus, you can use the same vehicle to launch a 50 ton robotic probe to Jupiter.
I’m talking about moving whatever money we spend on dumb experiments on humans in space and moving it to good science experiments. Just moving around money that we already commited to science research in space. If you can convince the marines to shitcan the F-35B and spend that money on dumb human weightlessness experiments, sure that would be better I guess. But more and bigger and cooler robot probes seems like a much better option than either of “what happens if we shoot triplets into space” or “what if we spent 70 billion dollars on an airplane that doesn’t work as a performance art piece on post-industrial America”.
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Thats where I differ from a lot of people I think. If we cant or dont want to find a way to reach it I dont see much reason to make pictures of pluto or get data from Europa or any asteroid. Then we should save the money altogether and and put all resources in making live better here and save this planet. I mean overall that might be the better goal for the majority anyway and space exploration will always be the expensive toy of few people. But I just dont see much value in spending billions on pure scientific missions if the bigger goal isnt “getting there with humans”. There are only few people who can use data on the rings of Saturn or if there is water beyond the ice of Europa. And the rest would probably see other things they would have spent the money on.
Couple of things as far as “getting there with humans” is concerned. Even if the cost of spaceflight decreases ten or a hundred times, only the rich and elite or astronauts sponsored by government will end up going there. And astronauts sponsored by governments will go if prolonged flight it is found to be safe or not! So let the rich and elite private space travelers of ten and twenty years from now do their own damn research on if their hobby is safe or not. Anyway, it’s probably not all that safe but that won’t stop the adventurous in spirit from going if they have the chance.
As far as pictures of planets and asteroids and comets, obviously it’s something that we can all do without. But it actually is interesting basic science that answers questions about how the solar system was formed, which intrinsically is pretty cool.
Where is the difference when you say one thing is too expensive only for the elite but on the other hand you happily invest in other expensive research missions that producse results for only few that can work with these and serves no immediate purpose for a big majority of mankind? And its not that I dont enjoy science. I read articles and magazines about space. Hell I bought a fkn book about rocket science(even so the math is too much for me). But in the end one thing only makes sense if you also pursue to other thing. Huge parts of Mankind will struggle soon enough with having less of a purpose because their jobs are getting done by robots.
I mean I guess that I’m making an extremely narrow point that is probably dumb and not worth arguing about. I’m saying that
- I think that research into human physiology in space benefits only an absolutely tiny fraction of people, and even that’s questionable. It’s a waste of money.
- Pictures of Mars are cool and I’m OK with the US spending ten or twenty billion dollars a year on NEW AND IMPROVED robot probes that will take even cooler pictures of that and other planets, comets, and planetiods. I’m sure that many millions of others feel the same. I hear actual science guys might get some use out of that as well but who am I kidding I don’t give a shit about that, I want some fucking Venus pictures, make it happen NASA.
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The people that are nuts everything fails eventually, the hard part is timing it.
How is the science of how the solar system was formed more interesting than the science of how the human body behaves under micro gravity? That is just a personal preference. I actually think it is more likely we get some applicable discoveries from the latter.
Sure, but I’m saying those applicable discoveries are only applicable to asshole billionaires who can afford to pay to get themselves shot into space and want guinea pigs to get those tests done first to make sure their space travel plans don’t interfere with their stem cell injection live forever plans. And to gung ho astronauts who will go into space no matter what the risks are. So the benefits are accrued to like a hundred or a thousand people or something, all of them rich assholes.
Fuck that. At least everyone gets to look at Mars pictures.
Let’s not forget that beside it’s scientific and engineering value, the ISS also has an important diplomatic value. The program that led to it started shortly after the cold war. When tensions rose after the Crimean invasion, the Soyuz still carried international astronauts. I don’t know if and for how long programs like these might delay WW3, but I’d argue it’s worth it even for just that purpose.
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The history of science is littered with examples of dorks pursuing weird pure scientific missions with no obvious payoff. Some dork is coming up with math to calculate the value of pi beyond three figures, who will ever need that? Oh here is some weird German dork who invented a fantasy non-Euclidean geometry, who will ever care about that? Letting science nerds pursue weird impractical curiosities like gravity waves and exoplanets is one of the best investments humans have ever made.
I mean, for real, science dorks were fucking around with prime numbers 3,000 years ago and no one could have explained why we should care about that bullshit but fast forward to 2020 and all of your online purchases are based on the mathematics of cryptography. Imagine you’re living 2,000 years ago and some nerd proves to you that there’s no largest prime number, whoopty-fucking-doo. Whole lot of good that does you, it’s like today’s science nerds investigating the water on Europa. I have no idea where any of this is going but it’s interesting.
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I think you are missing the point here. Your examples dont cost millions or billions of public money.
This example cuts both ways. It was pretty useless for 3000 years. As Habs has pointed out it probably didn’t cost that much. If this were a billion dollar project back then that money is better spend elsewhere.
We have enough urgent problems that need solving on our planet. Let‘s tackle these first before we start space exploration. Nasa and SpaceX can still create a lot of scientific and technological advancements but they should have at least a vague idea how that will help humanity with a price sticker that is justified.
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