For $100 billion dollars, what did we get?
Its objective also has shifted over the years. NASA views the space station as essentially a place to learn more about astronaut health and other issues that could make or break future expeditions to the moon, Mars and beyond. Before, the emphasis was supposed to be on basic scientific experiments, like protein crystals and cell tissue.
I bet you that if it was sold in the very beginning as "a place to learn more about astronaut health and other issues that could make or break future expeditions to the moon, Mars and beyond", it would NOT have been funded, and certainly not for $100 billion, to build a glorified human lab.
The only saving grace for the ISS is (or was) the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, and even that got canned until recently because they were more interested in finishing building the ISS (for what?) rather than actually making it useful.
The ISS currently is a symbol of wasteful spending on something disguised as science.
Zz.
*Does best imitation of Carl Sagan*
ReplyDeleteThat's $100 Billion
$100 million would have been a steal!
Thanks for the correction.
ReplyDeleteZz.
You missed the second 'million' :)
ReplyDelete[On a side note, do you know where the fire was tonight? I was checking my Google alerts on my way home from my other job and I saw this. Hope I still have an lab to go to in the morning :D]