What’s The Point
Why do we have the International Space Station? THe only purpose I can divine is that it’s necessary to keep our shuttle fleet in flight. Why we need to give our shuttle fleet something to do, I really don’t know. Especially when the thing is falling apart:
Spacewalking astronauts yesterday found evidence of damage to a crucial part of the International Space Station’s power system.
The discovery of what appear to be metallic shavings in one of the station’s enormous rotating joint assemblies suggested problems for the orbiting space station that could affect ambitious plans to add two power-hungry laboratories.
And why do we need to add these “power-hungry” laboratories?
Perhaps because we may find parts of the solutions to some of our problems down here by being up there.
DanF
October 29, 2007 at 1:56 pm
NASA worries that only manned space flight holds sufficient fascination for the mass public mind to guarantee continued funding of space. That’s why they insist in pouring money into the space station and the shuttle.
Almost all of our new knowledge about the solar system over the last few decades has come from unmanned space probes, which have explored most of the solar system while manned space travel has remained confined to low Earth orbit (plus three years of trips to the Moon intended mostly to beat the USSR at the national-prestige game, not for scientific purposes). The money wasted on manned flight could have funded many more such unmanned missions.
I’m not aware of a single significant discovery made by the space station. Manned space flight is too expensive, too dangerous, and serves no purpose. Machines can do much more for much less money, but the authorities are afraind they wouldn’t generate enough excitement to keep up support for the whole program.
Infidel753
October 29, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Necessity is the mother of invention. The difficulties that must be overcome to put and keep humans in space is a big part of what drives the technology. For example, if we are to put people on Mars, we need to figure out how to create a significant amount of energy to sustain humans for perhaps a year or more in a hostile environment. That technology would have a direct and obvious impact on energy production on earth. Likewise, the only reason we are able to type messages to each other over a computer network was a result of the need to make the electronics on the Apollo missions smaller. No one at the time envisioned that microchips would have the impact that they have had in everyday life. NASA just needed light weight stuff so that they could get three people out of the earth’s atmosphere, onto the moon, and then get them off the moon. The amount of knowledge, money/industry and jobs generated that came out of the “cost-prohibitive” moon program was an enormous boon for the Untied States in the end.
The international space station is in it’s infancy and woefully underfunded. Research modules are still being added – there were significant delays when NASA had to ground the shuttle fleet. It may end up being a waste of cash in the end, but such is the nature of research. My guess is that we have no clue how what is being worked on and discovered will impact our lives in the next twenty years, and we have no way of conducting that research without people.
DanF
October 30, 2007 at 6:29 am