Question about the International Space Station (ISS)

[Yoga Face]

I am curious as to what the ISS has, or is expected to, achieve ??

Where are all the grand experiments ?



It seems to me all they have done is build shuttles in order to build a space lab and all they do is maintain it with the purpose of learning how to fly to Mars which is in itself an absurd proposition as nothing will be learned except how to fly to Mars

I realize the two accidents slowed progress but they were highly predictable and came as no surprise so that is no excuse for lack of results

Any Terbite an ISS fan ?

James T Kirk do you know ??

 

[oldjones]

Surely the ISS itself qualifies as a 'grand' experiment. Most useful discoveries and experiments are far smaller in scope, like seeing whether you can carbonize bamboo fibres, doing some serious examination of those rainbows everyone knows a triangular piece of glass makes, or seeing why the bacteria didn't grow in the spoiled petrie dish.

 

[Yoga Face]

Surely the ISS itself qualifies as a 'grand' experiment. Most useful discoveries and experiments are far smaller in scope, like seeing whether you can carbonize bamboo fibres, doing some serious examination of those rainbows everyone knows a triangular piece of glass makes, or seeing why the bacteria didn't grow in the spoiled petrie dish.

No, the ISS is a waste of money and scientific genius unless it produces something useful IMHO

 

[fuji]

Continuous human habitation of space, going on over a decade now. That and a bunch of other experiments.

Learning how to survive in space is pretty crucial in the long run, ISS is a seed from which future colonies will grow in the far future.

 

[Why Not?]

The ISS is still under construction. It is only in the last year or so that they have had enough of it completed to do much in the way of experimentation. As others have noted they probably learned a lot simply by building and assembling it. But, give them a while to do some science. They've only just begun.

 

[caseyx]

For the majority of its time on orbit the station only had a crew of three. As I understand it it takes about two and half crew members simply to run the station, so that didn't leave much time for any kind of experimental work. I believe the crew is now the crew is up to six, meaning more non-maintenance work is happening.

I don't believe the ISS has made any great discoveries, per se. I'm sure some the experiments conducted have and will continue to be useful to some degree. In my mind, the greater value of the station is simply the fact that we have people continuously living in orbit and learning more about what it takes to live and work in space. The lessons learned from constructing the station should be invaluable going forward (especially if we give up the fetish of heavy lift). It's a trail blazer.

I suspect a lot more useful space science, etc. to be performed in other follow on venues such as Bigelow's proposed commercial station. But of ccorse we'll have to see if that pans out.

 

[Dougal Short]

I believe they're working on a new recipe for Tang. And perfecting Velcro.

I think these Grand Projects might be more useful if they were conducted in our oceans. They would be much more relevant and perhaps they could figure out how to plug a fucking oil leak as a first step...

 

[Dougal Short]

I agree. Deep Ocean is WAY harder than Near Space. Maybe we could start with shallow ocean and work our way down.

Thanks for the tip on the Vulcans...

 

[oldjones]

OK YF. Since you have a standard for what is a "grand experiment" that excludes a functioning human habitat, in orbit above the earth for over a decade, perhaps you owe the us some guidance as to what you consider would be a grand experiment. Are we to assume you have similar opinions about Antarctic research stations? Or have experiments been done there that you would qualify as grand?

One notes that Columbus's voyage was also denounced as a wasted effort, since it brought back nothing that was obviously profitable. But then there was nothing grand, or even very experimental about renting three ordinary wee boats and just not turning back when everyone else usually did.

It's really all on your point of view, but I'm curious why yours finds the getting a foothold in entire rest of the universe is not the epitome of 'grand experiment'

 

[Yoga Face]

OK YF. Since you have a standard for what is a "grand experiment" that excludes a functioning human habitat, in orbit above the earth for over a decade, perhaps you owe the us some guidance as to what you consider would be a grand experiment. Are we to assume you have similar opinions about Antarctic research stations? Or have experiments been done there that you would qualify as grand?

One notes that Columbus's voyage was also denounced as a wasted effort, since it brought back nothing that was obviously profitable. But then there was nothing grand, or even very experimental about renting three ordinary wee boats and just not turning back when everyone else usually did.

It's really all on your point of view, but I'm curious why yours finds the getting a foothold in entire rest of the universe is not the epitome of 'grand experiment'

No problem

Look it takes years of post graduate work to obtain your PHD and become a scientist

NASA has encouraged the last few generations of scientists to go Star Trek for the sake of knowledge with no pragmatic value to our current earthly conditions which are extremely serious and will be solved by science if at all

Building a space lab is a prodigious accomplishment but like going to the moon has no value and should be left for when we solve earth's problems which are immediate

Conquering space is a millennium project so what is the hurry especially when you consider that the more earth sciences progress the easier and cheaper it is to explore space

So you are saying just building a space station is reason enough to spend valuable scientific currency ??


I disagree and resent the rest of the world being dragged into a project of no pragmatic value when we cannot plug an oil well or feed humanity or stop warming etc etc and resent my taxes having been spent on the Canada Arm.


We were told grand experiments will benefit humanity
The ISS is being shut down in 2015 so were are the grand accomplishments ??

The only other accomplishment of the shuttles, that could not have been achieved with conventional rockets, is the hubble space telescope which is another grand scientific accomplishment of no pragmatic value

 

[red]

The only other accomplishment of the shuttles, that could not have been achieved with conventional rockets, is the hubble space telescope which is another grand scientific accomplishment of no pragmatic value

in your opinion.

 

[Yoga Face]

in your opinion.

I asked Carl Sagan, at a SETI lecture, if the moon landing was a waste on scientific effort and he strongly agreed with me. He said we learned nothing of lasting pragmatic value and the scientific currency was wasted (my paraphrasing)

Now we are building an ISS so we learn how to fly to fucking MARS

 

[oldjones]

So Queen Isabella should have just put messages in bottles and studied driftwood instead of pawning the jewels to finance Columbus?

For all we are able to learn by remote control, there's no substitute for being there. That is 42†. Ask any tourist.

And we explore that way for exactly the same reasons we explore by microscope and particle accelerator in the places we cannot go. "Because it's there", and we are curious monkeys. We're back to 42† again.

Now by all means, a discussion on the most or least expensive space research, measuring knowledge gained against investment should include the ISS and the shuttles. But that wasn't your proposition, although you seem to have accepted the ISS itself was the 'grand experiment' if I read your #11 aright. And if you disqualify knowledge of how to live in and adapt to space as worthless off the get-go, I doubt we'll get anywhere much on the small stuff.

But I'm glad the folks who set off from Africa a few million years back though there was something to be learned by trying to live 'out there'.

†The meaning of life, according to The HitchHiker's Guide to The Universe.