http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/05/space.station.ap/

I starting to have doubt about the usefulness of the ISS.

Without sound crass, I am beginning to wonder who supports our current space
program?

Am I being paranoid in thinking that because of budgetary cuts over the last
30 years in NASA's budget, that the existing ISS and its support structure
is wasting its time? What part has begun to become useless? The scaled down
version of the ISS?

Babbler, can you recall any useful things that have come out of ISS? Space
exploration, or in this case low orbit space stations is dangerous. If the
public wants a more vivid program they need to spend money on it and not
choke it to a slow death.

It appears that people become excited about space, but start to cower when
funding is needed.

It's quite obvious that I am a pro NASA supporter here, and hope that I am
not in the minority.

Thanks!
Rick Fischer
rick.fischer@...

Inside KSC.com
http://www.insideksc.com

Join the Inside KSC Yahoo List Group
mailto:inside_ksc-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

From: babbler36 [mailto:babbler36@...]
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 9:36 PM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [spacesettlers] ISS leaking air

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/05/space.station.ap/

I starting to have doubt about the usefulness of the ISS.

_____

Rick, I'm pro-NASA too.

It's really depressing all the anti-NASA baloney I read on the net
knowing the value derived from NASA research far exceeds the costs
involved.

NASA is making and saving money for all of us. The research has
benefitted medicine for example and, interestingly, is also used by
some aerospace folks that are at the same time doing some of this
whining. lol.

I've got a couple of thoughts on this I'd like to
bounce around, so bear with if they don't all seem to
coherently fit together :)

The space program is and has always been a tool to be
used for foreign and domestic policy. In the
beginning, NASA aimed to show the superiority of the
American way of life. This can be seen while reading
the National Aeronautic and Space Act of 1958
(http://www.hq.nasa.gov/ogc/spaceact.html). See
Section I in the section titled "Declaration of Policy
and Purpose".

The ISS in its current envisionment was to fulfill a
foreign policy goal of getting Russia to incorporate
its space program into a peaceful enterprise. This
was done by first insisting that Russia create a space
Agency similar to NASA and then by trying to only deal
with this agency to give it power. This was
successful in many ways, both in creating a
government, civilian-based space agency in russia and
keeping its scientists from going to countries that
the US does not like.

In terms of future habitation of space, its helped
somewhat further our understanding of space biology.
I think if we ever got it completed and were able to
man it to its full crew of seven, it could prove to be
a good asset. If nothing else, its a good launch
platform for sending out missions further out. This
was one of the first visions as outlined in SP-509
(http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/spaceresource84/toc.html)

I was a really big fan of the plan outlined in this
document. I still think it makes sense in its
incremental approach towards space habitations. Sure,
the Mars Direct may be more ambitious and grandiose,
but I don't hink the public will shelter the hefty
costs associated with it.

I think it makes sense for the internation space
effort to go at an incremental approach towards
colonization. The benefit of this approach is that at
each stage (LEO/GEO/Lunar/Mars/Oniel), the pace of
technology keeps up with the pace governmetn progress
and is able to follow it commercially. What I mean is
that once we are ready to build a habitat in GEO,
industry will be able to commerciallize humans in LEO.
Once we goto the moon, GEO human habitation is
commercially available, and etc.

In each stage, the community of governmental space
agencies blaze the trail and industry comes on its
tail and fills in the gaps. This process to me is
good in terms that it is sustainable at every step.
Its not glamorous, but its at a pace in which
commercial interests can follow governmental programs.
(which gets back to what I think what a government
agency should be doing, blazing new paths that its
industries can then serve).

Thats enough of these thoughts for now. I'll try in
future postings to clarify any of these thoughts if
you'd like.

Ryan Z

--- Rick Fischer wrote:
> Without sound crass, I am beginning to wonder who
> supports our current space
> program?
>
> Am I being paranoid in thinking that because of
> budgetary cuts over the last
> 30 years in NASA's budget, that the existing ISS and
> its support structure
> is wasting its time? What part has begun to become
> useless? The scaled down
> version of the ISS?
>
> Babbler, can you recall any useful things that have
> come out of ISS? Space
> exploration, or in this case low orbit space
> stations is dangerous. If the
> public wants a more vivid program they need to spend
> money on it and not
> choke it to a slow death.
>
> It appears that people become excited about space,
> but start to cower when
> funding is needed.
>
> It's quite obvious that I am a pro NASA supporter
> here, and hope that I am
> not in the minority.
>
> Thanks!
> Rick Fischer
> rick.fischer@...
>
> Inside KSC.com
> http://www.insideksc.com
>
> Join the Inside KSC Yahoo List Group
> mailto:inside_ksc-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> From: babbler36 [mailto:babbler36@...]
> Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 9:36 PM
> To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [spacesettlers] ISS leaking air
>
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/05/space.station.ap/

On Jan 5, 2004, at 7:38 PM, Rick Fischer wrote:

> Am I being paranoid in thinking that because of budgetary cuts over
> the last
> 30 years in NASA's budget,

NASA's budget has grown a great deal in the last 30 years. In the 25
years I have worked at NAS Ames, NASA's budget has almost always
increased. Perhaps we would like it to go up more, but the notion
that NASA's budget is shrinking is simply false (although is was true
for a couple of years in the 90's).

So how can the budget be going up when things are constantly being cut?
Because if anyone *proposes* any expenditure, which is later reduced
or eliminated, they say that their 'budget was cut." Since most
programs ask for more than they expect to get, everyone's budget is
'cut.' Nonetheless, each year they get more money, because all that
was cut was an expectation created in one or a few minds.

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect
and deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

On Jan 5, 2004, at 8:21 PM, George Perkins wrote:

> It's really depressing all the anti-NASA baloney I read on the net
> knowing the value derived from NASA research far exceeds the costs
> involved.
>
> NASA is making and saving money for all of us. The research has
> benefitted medicine for example

It's important to remember that NASA launched the first communication
satellites, the first Earth resources satellites, and (I think) the
first weather satellites. Comm sats, at least, are a quietly
profitable business. The others are extremely valuable, although not
always commercially.

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "babbler36"
> http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/05/space.station.ap/
>
> I starting to have doubt about the usefulness of the ISS.

While I too have my doubts as to the usefulness of the ISS, it has
nothing to do with whether it leaks or not. I expected that it
would leak from time to time; the question is whether they can find
the leak and have a system in-place for patching small leaks.

Ed

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:
>
> On Jan 5, 2004, at 8:21 PM, George Perkins wrote:
>
> > It's really depressing all the anti-NASA baloney I read on the net
> > knowing the value derived from NASA research far exceeds the costs
> > involved.
> >
> > NASA is making and saving money for all of us. The research has
> > benefitted medicine for example

Okay, maybe I misworded myself. I wanted to say that it is behind
schedule and costing billions of dollars, and there seem like there
is not idea on what role it should play. Kind of like NASA itself,
simply because the two are tied together.

I don't know. Maybe if NASA makes the ISS the forefront of
humanfight, and get some more cash, it could do wonders.

> It's important to remember that NASA launched the first
>communication
> satellites, the first Earth resources satellites, and (I think)
>the
> first weather satellites. Comm sats, at least, are a quietly
> profitable business. The others are extremely valuable, although
>not
> always commercially.

I did not know that.

i am sure I am pretty naive, but I do love space, and have my
opinions, so here goes.

The way I look at it, the ISS is already up there, so why not use it
as much as possible? I think the ISS can be a great place to test
things close to Earth for preparing to go to the moon and beyond. I
mean what a great place obviously to find out more about long term
exposure to space travel, so we can learn more about what to expect on
long voyages, and still be in a relatively safe place if things go wrong.

It's to bad MIR went the way it did, but I guess as long as it was
there, the Russian program would have also been focussing on the MIR.

I think what needs to be done, is that we need to develop an
International space agency that oversees all nationally funded space
programs. I mean we have India, NASA, China, the European space
agency, (maybe more I don't know), and I am sure there could be a more
efficient way of doing things. Kind of like a United Nations or
something for space programs.

perhaps this sounds more like science fiction, but it just seems that
there is a lot of redundancy of progams around the world.

i just think we have to get away from thinking national, when it comes
to space, and that includes the way decisions are made.

Chris

> From: smile_soccer [mailto:smile_soccer@...]

> The way I look at it, the ISS is already up there, so why not use it
> as much as possible?

That's the general idea, except for a few problems:
1) There's a slight transport problem at present
2) It's half built
3) NASA's dumb minimum weight obsession means things are over design, over tested and under reliable once they get in orbit.

Thing is it's been known for a very long time that the easiest way to survive in space is to tether two pods together with 100m long steel cable and spin them. There's no secret trick to it and the construction presents no real problems, and the 'gravity' would actually simplify many engineering problems, like life-support.

Of course it would make micro gravity experiments difficult, but then again, *astronauts* and life support do that. Strange how NASA insists the two go together isn't?

> I mean we have India, NASA, China, the European space
> agency, (maybe more I don't know), and I am sure there could be a more
> efficient way of doing things. Kind of like a United Nations or
> something for space programs.

You mean like a UN army or UN navy? Or even a UN space navy? ;) For that matter why not have a UN strategic nuclear force?

> i just think we have to get away from thinking national, when it comes
> to space, and that includes the way decisions are made.

The US does what it wants because it is rich.
Russia does what it wants because the world ignores it.
China does what it wants because no-one thinks they will ever succeed.
ESA does what it can afford and hopes it doesn't go wrong.
India is too busy playing nuclear chicken with Pakistan to do much of anything.
The Japanese effort is (IIRC) on permanent hold pending economic recovery.
The rest of us chase the X prize and make believe that a three seater X-15 is one day going to be capable of getting into orbit.

The 7 groups have little in common, and none have any interest in giving control of funding over to anyone other than themselves. :(

ANTIcarrot.

On Jan 10, 2004, at 5:34 PM, ANTIcarrot wrote:

> 3) NASA's dumb minimum weight obsession means things are over design,
> over tested and under reliable once they get in orbit.
>

If your system weight goes over you can't get into orbit, at all.

Of 36 objects sent to Mars by humans, only 7 have worked correctly. 6
from NASA and 1 from Europe. All of Japan's and Russia's probes have
failed. Some of the US probes that failed avoided NASA's ... "over
design, over tested, ..." approach --- oops. Based on the evidence it
seems the level of testing and design needs to be very high.

As to unreliability, many of NASA's systems have lived far beyond their
design life. Other's have failed prematurely. I'm not aware of any
other organization that does a lot of space work that has a better
reliability record. I know of some that have a worse record.

If the dinosaurs had a space program, they'd still be here.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:
>
> On Jan 10, 2004, at 5:34 PM, ANTIcarrot wrote:
>
> > 3) NASA's dumb minimum weight obsession means things are over
design,
> > over tested and under reliable once they get in orbit.
> >
> If your system weight goes over you can't get into orbit, at all.
>
> Of 36 objects sent to Mars by humans, only 7 have worked correctly.
6
> from NASA and 1 from Europe. All of Japan's and Russia's probes
have
> failed. Some of the US probes that failed avoided NASA's ... "over
> design, over tested, ..." approach --- oops. Based on the evidence
it
> seems the level of testing and design needs to be very high.
>
> As to unreliability, many of NASA's systems have lived far beyond
their
> design life. Other's have failed prematurely. I'm not aware of
any
> other organization that does a lot of space work that has a better
> reliability record. I know of some that have a worse record.

It like what the what was said of the intellengce agencies (CIA,
fomer KGB, MI6, etc.): They won a few, lost of few.