Let’s Put My Telescope on the ISS!
Photo Credit: Who Else?
(I sure as hell didn’t take it)
The New Scientist Space Blog is reporting that there is not much interest in the International Space Station from government or private agencies.
Duh. Could that be because no one knows what the hell it’s good for? Or what it’s purpose is? Or that whatever we use it for will turn out to be too goddam expensive?
From the article:
NASA’s invitation to other government agencies and private companies to make use of the International Space Station (ISS) appears to have generated little interest. The high cost of getting payloads to the station is deterring potential users, even though NASA is offering room on the station essentially for free.
Yah. You can use it for ‘free’, but…
But Uhran said users would have to pay for any time the space station crew spent on the outside projects. And asked who would pay the costs to launch experiments and equipment to the station, Uhran said the agency was “still working” on this.
This thing is a tremendous waste of money and one of the worst planned and politically man-handled projects NASA has ever had.
But wait, that’s not all…
“It remains to be determined how the transportation will work out,” he says. “We all recognise that there’s going to be a challenge there.”
So, feel free to use it all you want, just pay for figuring out what you want to do with it and, oh yeah, get your stuff there.
First, it was called Freedom, way, way, way back when Ronald Reagan was president. It seems to me that from the beginning, no one seemed to really understand why we needed to have a space station, other than ‘”Cuz it’s cool”.
Here’s what Reagan said,
“We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful economic and scientific gain”.
Oh. Well, then. That’s clear, let’s spend billions on THAT.
Scientists weren’t clamoring for a permanent space platform, NASA didn’t seem to want it, it seemed to be a solution waiting for a problem.
Here’s a challenge: Can ANYONE tell me how much we’ve spent on this damn thing so far? Accurately?
I think we should use it to drop water balloons on our neighbors. Charge me, oh… I dunno… 50,000 dollars to drop one on my neighbor with the obnoxious porch light.
I wonder how many robotic spacecraft we could have around other planets or observing deep space for the cost of this thing?
Ooooh, I know! Maybe they’ll let me mount my Meade 10-inch SCT on it? I’ll charge for telescope time and make millions!
Technorati Tags: International Space Station, ISS, NASA, telescopes
Related Stories
POSTED IN: NASA, space program
6 opinions for Let’s Put My Telescope on the ISS!
Astrogeek
Jun 27, 2007 at 11:28 pm
stick a giant net on it and let it scoop up some of the space debris we’ve been leaving up there.
I saw an analysis recently that concluded that we are at a critical tipping point as far as the number of junk objects we have floating around up there. Sooner or later there’s going to be a collision, and that will result in a scattering of debris and a cascade effect that will endanger some of the live sats we use every day.
Beau Kemp
Jun 28, 2007 at 7:47 am
I’m surprised to see that you think the space station is a waste of money. To be honest, I don’t know much about it at all, but is it really a waste of money? Surely we can do research there, mounting a telescope is a great idea (something a little nicer than your Meade), place to pit stop when astronauts have to go potty, etc.
It just kind of took me by surprise to see such a space buff like yourself denounce the space station. Maybe it is too expensive, but it sure is cool :-)
Tony
Jun 28, 2007 at 10:35 am
@Beau: It’s just been a very poorly concieved and managed program since it’s inception. When you compare what it has cost over it’s lifetime and compare it to what we’re getting out of it… Well, it’s just not worth it.
I am a big fan of space and space exploration, but I want to us to be smart about it, the ISS is not a smart project.
There’s never been any scientific reason to build it, as far as I know. There isn’t much science being done nor planned and when you consider that NASA is cutting back so many other things to continue paying for this, I just can’t support it.
Many of my colleagues feel the same way. NASA doesn’t have all that much money to begin with and a HUGE chunk of its budget goes to building and maintaining this thing. The simple question we all have is, where’s the science?
Yeah it’s cool, but that seems to be the only motivation for building. It’s a boondoggle, plain and simple. When I think about the space probes and space based telescopes that could be built for the money this has cost…
Tony
Jun 28, 2007 at 10:39 am
@AstroGeek: I think I saw that analysis. You raise an important issue. The days are gone when we can just throw something up in orbit and just let it die. We’re going to have to consider how to clean up after ourselves up there or we are heading for a disaster.
It is particularly crowded at the altitude where geosynchronous satellites are placed. That’s prime orbital real estate.
I love the idea of using the ISS as a garbage collector. Use a big net to sweep up the crap that’s laying around up there.
Shannon
Jun 30, 2007 at 8:08 am
That’s a really cool idea of using the ISS to collect debris. I remember when NASA first started developing the ISS. I was so young all I could think about was how f@&king cool it was. I would have given my right arm to hang out up there, and probably still would. But you raise some excellent points. I can’t believe there’s no REAL science going on up there. Nothing that’s even remotely useful? It seems like such a huge waste of money and time if that’s the case. Maybe we can start testing the effects of space on…oh I don’t know a thirty year old women with no training and who’s only usefull skill is reading and arguing. Yeah, there’s an experiment.
Now, Don’t Go ‘NASA’ On Me!
Jul 27, 2007 at 1:58 am
[…] Now they have people running around cutting wires on space computers for a boondoggle space station no one wants. […]
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: