The ISS

> [... on ISS...]
> That's not to say there isn't a use for it, but nothing comes readily
> to mind. It is my opinion that any such use is a contrivance and
> does not reflect the building of a real economy in space (if that's
> our objective. It's clearly not NASA's objective.)
>

One use which I've seen cited is as a rendezvous point for pieces of a
mission to go elsewhere. For example a manned lunar mission might
be launched in several pieces, assembled at ISS by an assembly
crew, and then have a separate mission crew to actually
operate the assembled equipment. On the other hand the rendezvous
point might just as easily be anywhere else in LEO space - does
ISS provide any real advantage for such a mission? The robot
arm perhaps? Other facilities? Perhaps it can provide
warehousing in future for supplies, fuel, etc?

Arthur Smith (apsmith@...