What is the value of the ISS?

What we really needed to put into orbit was a real space station that
spun on its axis and utilized kilometer long cables to produce 1G
centrifugal forces in habitats at the ends of those cables. And this
was advocated by Regan's National Commission on Space back in the
80's. But the Regan administration pretty much ignored about 95% of
what that commission advocated and played it safe by advocating the
construction of the international space station.

And NASA still doesn't know if humans can survive under centrifugal
simulated gravity conditions in space. So that's something we really
need to know if the large O'Neill type of space colonies are ever to
become a reality.

Marcel F. Williams

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Ed Minchau wrote:
>
> Well, Mir was also assembled from a large numer of parts, and the US
had experience with orbital rendezvous back in the 1960s, so even the
experience of assembling ISS isn't new. It isn't like they built a
large rotating space station a la 2001 - they basically redid Mir a
little bit larger. The only difference is that multiple countries
cooperated to build the ISS... which is fine if only governments are
going to "do space" now and forevermore. There has been zero
knowledge passed on to the general public, not even something as basic
as the design of the common berthing mechanism (oh, heavens no, the
Iranians might use that to make weapons. Thanks, ITAR, for making
everything about space a State secret). As an exercise in waste and
porkbarrel spending, it would be hard to top the ISS. As a vehicle
for science or exploration or gaining operational experience it has
been a big fat zero.
>
> So, I will expand my question a little bit. Can anyone name
anything learned or any experience gained on the ISS that
_wasn't_already_known_ from the Skylab and Mir experiences?
>
> C'mon, we're space geeks here. If there was anything, no matter how
obscure, then this group would be far more likely to have heard of it
than would the general population.
>
> Ed
>
> --- On Sun, 7/6/08, Joe Strout wrote:
>
> From: Joe Strout
> Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Re: NASA should prioritize space
colonization over pure exploration