> farsighted? (2 articles)
>
> Vision Express
>
> After men landed on the moon, NASA needed to find something
> else to do, so it
> decided to try to put men on Mars. But Richard Nixon turned
> down this grand
> vision. And so, according to Roger Pielke, director of the
> Center for Science
> and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado,
> Boulder, the
> agency simply broke the mission into three more easily
> sellable parts: the
> shuttle, the space station, and then Mars (see article).

This is more accurately a description of the process that lead the Soviets
to develop MIR (for shuttle read Energiya; for ISS, MIR; & for Mars, Mars);
& explains why MIR-class systems even now would be more useful in any human
space flight beyond LEO than any significant ISS-based technologies.

The primary reason why NASA is spending a fortune on ISS is that a group of
Star Trek fans led by Bjo Trimble did a massive mail bomb of the Reagan
administration to get the thing put on the agenda; & ever since, NASA et al
have been struggling to come up with a decent point for the concept. That
they haven't succeeded demonstrates more that there isn't a point to LEO
platforms with current technologies than any real failings on both the NASA
& space science front.

Post the SEI fiasco, an attempt was made to rationalise an ISS-class
platform in terms of manned Mars exploration; but that didn't last long - in
large part because Mars Direct-style architectures chopped the conceptual
legs out from under the argument. The rationale behind the shuttle was
different again; & its failure as a cost effective launch system had more to
do with NASA over-selling its capacities technologically back in the 1970s
than any fantastic integrated plans ending up on Mars.

Live in peace
Robert.Clements@...
endeavour2 project http://www.geocities.com/robtclements/endeavour2.html>