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[Parch]

The ISS has been scientifically beneficial. There's been a bunch of beneficial testing and experiments.

It's not unreasonable for some people to feel that a space program should be about exploration instead of science experiments. With limited budgets, decisions needed to be made and they settled on finding a balance of both.

Even with the limited budget, how much more exploration could have been done if the money wasn't spent on the ISS? Manned missions. Probe landings. Getting the James Webb up there sooner. Just how beneficial has the ISS really been compared to what could have been accomplished towards better understanding of our solar system?

 

[theWB27]

I'm 31...i hope they get their ( the gov) mind right and properly fund this effort. The us has more than enough money to do this without cutting anything nasa is doing. If only they weren't so military focused.

 

[everyday math]

Isn't part of the point of the ISS to help us understand how to live in space in longer capacities?

 

[vacantseas]

Where are we on a space elevator?

it's 3/4 of the way there. Should be done in the next 5 years.

 

[Parch]

Isn't part of the point of the ISS to help us understand how to live in space in longer capacities?

So was MIR.
There have been stuff learned on the ISS, but it was never really considered a stepping stone for manned mission exploration.

If NASA and other countries had used the ISS money on other projects it probably still wouldn't have been enough to put a man on Mars, but it could have accomplished a lot. Probes and rovers have been very successful. It would have been nice to already have probes on some very intriguing moons in our solar system. It would have been nice to already have the James Webb up there.

It's nice to think "what if" NASA had the military budget or even "what if" they had a bigger budget, but even with the existing budget, I'm thinking it could have been spent better than on the ISS.

 

[The Sum of Zero]

Imagine a NASA with the Military's budget.

It'd be amazing but it won't happen due to the borderline sexual fetish our government has with military spending.

 

[Imperfected]

It'd be amazing but it won't happen due to the borderline sexual fetish our government has with military spending.

I mean, in a way the money was never there for it. Buzz Aldrin went to space as a military officer, educated and trained on military funding.

We just need to somehow convince the Republicans that whichever COD game went down in space is real and the military needs tons of money for space-related things. (And also promise to build the facilities in their districts with the profits going to their campaign donors, of course.)

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

I am more interested in sustaining a new population space stations orbiting earth, and investing in being able to mine astroids for resources, removing a lot of the need for launches for space stations to maintain themselves.


1) The single largest threat to our surviveability as a species (even more than climate change) is astroid collisions. Given that we can monitor about 2% of the sky, it stands to reason that investing heavily in visibility, contingency and liveable space stations that can house and sustain loads of people orbiting earth, would be very beneficial.


2) More than anything what makes "going to space" so gastronomically expensive are the launches. The amount of fuel needed to fire a massive ship into orbit is staggering and insufficient.

3) When we can mine astroids and rocks as building blocks, investment companies will line up like it's a new gold rush to mine and build. Taking and using materials from space instead of deflating and poluting our earth would be one of the best things we can do for the planet.

4) AFAIK having boots on mars is a symbolic victory, and while important, it is less important than starting the terraforming process via creating a greenhouse effect, which will potentially take decades. We need solarflares positioned at the poles to release CO2 to create a thicker atmosphere that can eventually make Mars liveable. In the meantime, we really should be focused on defense, sustainability and growth of the outer earth.