11 Things You Might Not Know About the International Space Station

[Camacha]

In an era of cash-strapped governments, I believe the focus should be on maximizing scientific ROI. If that means scaling back manned spaceflight so that robotic missions can venture farther into the solar system, then that's a harsh reality of economics.

I agree with you when it comes to exploring the solar system. Painful decisions have to be made and robotics missions tend to yield more results in that area. However, I see it as inevitable that we leave our planet at some point. This means that we will need to do the research to get there. No need to go rushing all-in cold war style, but if you keep developing and making steps forwards, you will get there someday. At the same time I would suggest increasing funding, as the cost per capita is actually quite small.

Why would the expansion of mankind stop at the sky? It would be quite a change from what we succesfully did for thousands upon thousands of years.

[Camacha]

I don't know what end zones are, but I assume you're talking about hand-egg; a game that hardly anyone plays or calls "football".

Luckily hand-egg, football and soccer fields are all pretty much the same size.

[Xeldrak]

Nothing in Number 10 makes me happy that we spend billions on the ISS.

Luckily not a single dollar was spent on the ISS; every single dollar was spent down here on earth.

[Vanamonde]

The topic of this thread is the ISS. Not politics, economics, or sports. Please keep the discussion about the ISS.

[vger]

In an era of cash-strapped governments, I believe the focus should be on maximizing scientific ROI. If that means manned spaceflight has to be scaled back so that robotic missions can venture farther into the solar system, then that's a harsh reality of economics.

That's fine if one wants to argue that there's no point in sending humans to other planets right now. But saying that the ISS is unreasonable is a little excessive. NASA even wants to bring an asteroid into LEO so we don't have to bother with expensive manned missions to poke around at one.

I also find it a little odd that xcorps decries all experiments on the ISS, particularly when it comes to Robonaut. It needs to be able to be tested in the real space environment and will make everything simpler (and probably cheaper) in the long run.

I agree with you when it comes to exploring the solar system. Painful decisions have to be made and robotics missions tend to yield more results in that area. However, I see it as inevitable that we leave our planet at some point. This means that we will need to do the research to get there. No need to go rushing all-in cold war style, but if you keep developing and making steps forwards, you will get there someday. At the same time I would suggest increasing funding, as the cost per capita is actually quite small.

Why would the expansion of mankind stop at the sky? It would be quite a change from what we succesfully did for thousands upon thousands of years.

We really do need to be careful though with scaling back. Accepting that expanding into space is inevitable (at some point), we need to keep in mind that Earth will eventually run dry of resources. And it could happen far quicker than we think. If it sneaks up on us, we may suddenly discover we don't have the resources (even in a utopia) to get our butts off the planet. We'll be trapped here, will consume what little is left to sustain our current way of living, and then become stranded in a pre-industrial civilization. And that's a more positive outlook, ignoring things like superplagues, global warming, etc. Constant development is key, because we have no clue how much time we have left to do such R&D. It's similar to the asteroid threat, and needing a solution for deflection BEFORE it's detected. Not after it shows up in our telescopes and only gives us two years to do something about it.

Edited June 13, 2014 by vger

[78stonewobble]

In my opinion, manned space exploration in this century is as frivolous as Saturday morning cartoons.

You could argue, that it is much less frivolous than ie. cancer research and many other kinds of medical research, which has little effect as to whether the entire species survives. It actually might be a detriment in allowing many people to live much longer, further increasing overpopulation.

[vetrox]

Dont like the experiments they are doing on the iss? theres something wrong with you.

no one can predict what discoveries can be made by any experiment. For all you know, studying high speed wireless space internet could indeed bring about a magic new anti cancer laser. Many scientific discoveries have been accidents which have nothign to do with their original experiments or concepts *cough* MRI machine *cough cough*

Edited June 14, 2014 by vetrox

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Dont like the experiments they are doing on the iss? theres something wrong with you.

no one can predict what discoveries can be made by any experiment. For all you know, studying high speed wireless space internet could indeed bring about a magic new anti cancer laser. Many scientific discoveries have been accidents which have nothign to do with their original experiments or concepts *cough* MRI machine *cough cough*

And to follow on directly from this, I'm going to add Vanadium Batteries... have actually existed for probably longer than anyone can remember, only just worked out their use!

But on-topic, the ISS is also about forming closer bonds between nations as well as science!

And it's very interesting to note one of Chris Gadfields more famous quotes; "On the first day, astro/cosmonauts point out thier home countries... after a couple of weeks, no-one even bothers trying to work out borders any more" (sorry the quote is not 100% accurate, but I'm in the middle of some docking...)

[itstimaifool]

I think I've realized the issue here. It seems some of you are arguing in favor of science that immediately benefits individual lives (I.E., a cure for cancer), while others are in favor of that which benefits the species as a whole (I.E., space exploration). Perhaps we should start a new thread that focuses on this issue and the ongoing debate in this thread so that this thread may return to the topic of interesting facts about the ISS.

The reason I don't start such a thread is because I personally have no strong opinion (at least, not that I can strongly support) either way, so I wouldn't have much stake in the thread. Also, I feel that a moderator could more adequately get the attention of the correct people to help move this thread back on topic and move the debate to said new thread.