Precisely. It was conceived as part of a geopolical Cold War strategy; labeled an ‘aerospace WPA project’ by the late Deke slayton and first broached in a Reagan SOTU speech nearly 30 years ago. It has more in common with the Berlin Wall and Minuteman missile silos that the geopolitics of today in this austrer fiscal era. Label it a ‘success’– and splash it. LEO is a ticket to no place, going in circles, no where fast.

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“The problem with ISS and science is that science was always a very dishonest justification for the thing. Science is slow to get started there because there’s not all that much science that’s worth doing there.

As a specific example, look at protein crystallization.”

Just like there was the dream that the Shuttle would be able to be turned around in one week, and flown 50 times per year (thereby lowering the $/lb to orbit tremendously), so too did some people think that space manufacturing would be a significant output of the ISS.

However I didn’t see the value of the ISS as being a manufacturing facility (and it wasn’t the main justification), I saw it’s value in being a research and test facility to figure out how we’re going to be able to live and work in space. From that standpoint, it’s doing pretty good.

And though the ISS has challenges in increasing the amount of science it can do, the reasons for that are not because it’s not capable of doing more, but because we have horrible logistics to support the ISS. We can’t currently fully staff the ISS because we only have the Soyuz to keep crew in orbit (the Shuttle couldn’t keep crew in orbit, only rotate crews), and because we’re limited to no more than two Soyuz being docked at any one time, we are limited to six people, and sometimes only three.

The solution for that problem is the upcoming Commercial Crew vehicles, since all of them can carry up to seven passengers. NASA is reportedly planning to increase the ISS crew complement to seven as soon as the first operational Commercial Crew flight, and that will allow an additional man-year for science work. After Commercial Crew is going, then NASA and it’s ISS partners can address the other factors limiting how many people can be supported on a full-time basis, and by addressing those limitations the science output and usefulness of the ISS can be increased even more.

Without the ISS, we won’t be able to field test the technologies and techniques that we need for expanding our presence out into space. Certainly not in any cost-efficient way.

And in any case, what’s the alternative? Splash it in the ocean like all the other disposable space systems we’re built? It’s time for us to start keeping assets in space usable as long as possible – to maximize our financial investments. So if changes do need to be made, the ISS is very modular, so let’s change out what we need, but let’s not throw it away and expect the U.S. Taxpayer to pay for more disposable space toys…

As a specific example, look at protein crystallization. This has gotten a huge yawn from everyone not feeding on NASA grants. Between improvements in terrestrial protein crystallization (for example, the demonstration that growing the protein crystals at the top of a container rather than at the bottom completely suppresses convection), and advances in x-ray lasers (which have gotten good structures from nanocrystals, and have the potential to get structures from individual protein molecules), protein crystallization on ISS looks like it will never deliver anything of much value.

“Missions more expensive? Yes? Just the launch vehicle costs are rising at a rate far exceeding general inflation.”

Uh, didn’t I just point out that SpaceX, who is now one of the options that NASA has for sending hardware to space (per the NASA Launch Services II contract), is lowering costs for NASA?

“But if you want to get into facts then as mentioned above, I don’t have the specific numbers but I’d accept any bet that RGO and I have the right of it.”

Everyone is allowed their own opinions, and as I’ve stated before, I have a different one than RGO does – likely one of those glass half-empty vs half-full things…

Not worth you losing any money…

“NASA is in for flat or declining budgets…”

Agreed.

“…missions are becoming more expensive…”

Considering each mission is not like any other, this is really a supposition. While I do agree that inflation would indicate that costs will always go up, SpaceX is showing that some things can actually go down in price over time.

“Labour is a large component of that cost overhead therefore if it costs $3 billion a year to keep the ISS flying ”

What is “large”? More undefined suppositions

“I don’t have insight into NASA’s cost structure so I’ll have to utilise my argument above rather than any specific facts but I do recall … where a number of NASA administrators were interviewed and admitted that NASA had too many centres.”

OK, but that has nothing to do with the ISS support costs.

“If you can provide a counter-argument and /or facts, happy to discuss.”

I’m not seeing enough information to make rational arguments for or against anything… but I’m not seeing anything from RGO either, so maybe we’ll just have to move on to the next topic. Hey, how about that overweight Orion capsule, huh?

What exactly is it that the EWST is supposed to do?

Discover the home planets of the little green men and the grays?

What part of the NSF report did you not understand? Most people in this country simply do not share your “vision”‘s.

I am more interested in keeping people alive on Earth than spending billions to fly a few people to Mars.

While you’re on the couch here, what exactly is it that you think a few people on Mars will be able to accomplish?