A change in thinking about ISS

I shouldn't worry about the ISS. It's a dead end. It cannot really
grow, as it is funded with public money. Things that are funded like
that usually only grow linearly, whereas things funded on a commercial
footing grow exponentially.

Still, if you really want to help the ISS, work out a way to get it
funded say, to launch people to, (i.e. charge for the stay there). Even
partially funded would be a start.

Or some other scheme. It's not clear that ISS is very useful for
research anyway; but even if it is, say $5 million per week would
give ~$250 million a year which isn't to be sniffed at; even if only
1 person stays on average. That's good money; and could be siphoned
back into the pockets of NASAs favourite contractors.

-Ian.

>
>>The REALITY is that the darn thing is going up as is, as poorly
>>conceived as that might be. Rather than say what should have been
>>
> done,
>
>>we all start talking about how to get the most out of what has been
>>done. We need to stop looking backward and lamenting that this or
>>
> that
>
>>is wrong from our point of view. Start thinking about how to get the
>>most out of what IS.
>>
> I agree. As a matter of fact, it would be worse to stop now. With
> the ammount of equipment already on orbit and materials in the
> pipeline, we should be talking about what the ISS could be use for.
> In my perfect world, I'd put $1 billion into Suttle Derived HHLV, $1
> billion into Wet Launched External Tank Habitats, and another $1
> billion into an orbiter similar to the Crew Return Vehicle. Triple
> (hell even quad) those costs for station equipment (life support,
> station keeping, ect) and we'd have an orbital outpost with more
> capabilities than ISS and much less cost. Plus, we have a launch
> system much more in line with SSI (and other organizations) vision.
> On the down side, we would have to discontinue STS and loose manned
> orbital capability for 3-5 years (probably more) but we'd be better
> in the long run.
> This is a chance for us (and other organizations) to express
> opinions on what direction research should take. IMHO, Alpha
> (technically, it's not ISS anymore) should be researching enclosed
> organic life support systems, raw materials refining, metal
> fabrication and tool construction.
>
> king_rodent (putting the eek in geek)
>

civilization?"