Recently, Kyle Boatright posted:

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On 2 Oct 2005 05:04:08 -0700, "Jay Honeck" wrote
in . com::

The fact is, the ONLY long-term reason for a space station is for
use as a launch point for interplanetary (or, eventually,
interstellar) travel.

Please provide the name of one other single human endeavor that has
brought so many nations together for a CONSTRUCTIVE purpose.

The International Spaced Station is a start on the "long term" goal
of peaceful coexistence among the nations of our would, if not a
meaningful scientific achievement.

You could argue that this is the UN's function.

Only tangentially. The UN is primarily a forum to address grievances in a
peaceful manner, not to work collaboratively on a complex technological
problem that could benefit the human race.

Also, the countries
which are participating in the ISS generally are not the bomb
throwing loonies who are the real concern in today's world.

True, its participants are the bomb-dropping loonies who *should* be the
real concern in today's world, largely because we're creating the need for
the existance of "bomb trowing loonies" (and in more than one instance
arming them) in the first place. But, what does that have to do with the
value of the ISS?

In hindsight (always 20/20, right?), I'd say that the shuttle and the
ISS were both boondoggles. The shuttle was built in order to
transport stuff to a space station that didn't exist until 20 years
after the shuttle's launch. The US joined the ISS effort because NASA
needed a space station to validate the shuttle. Circular logic and
justifications like these have cost US taxpayers hundreds of billions
of dollars.

The shuttle was, and largely still is, a platform to test the viability of
reusable space vehicles (the notion of this kind of vehicle seems to be as
deeply imbedded in our psyche as flying cars). Giving it missions such as
supplying the ISS is to provide further knowledge about working in space.
We are still quite primitive in that area, as the most recent in-flight
shuttle repairs show. There is still much to learn, and at this point,
there is no other space vehicle on the planet capable of providing the
same quality of "classroom" in which to obtain that education.

The ISS was, and largely still is, a platform to perform low-gravity
experiments and to address the effects of long-term space living on the
human body. A manned mission to Mars (much less anything further) would be
an impossibility without the information and systems resulting from these
experiments. And, the notion of long-term space travel is also deeply
embedded in our psyche, so the value of the ISS should be self-evident; do
it or give up the idea of long-term manned space travel.

Neil