What's the point NASA?
Just learned from /. that NASA has decided to ban experiments on the International Space Station until it's finished. Not that anyone would notice, how many more 'what do ant farms look like under micro-gravity conditions?' experiments does the world need?
I've said it before and no doubt i'll be saying it for a long time to come - most manned space missions are pointless PR excercies, if you want to see where the real research is being done, head over to the Mars rover website or any one of the amazing satellite missions going on at the moment.
Discovery, answers, careers made and broken and not least, a $h1t load more questions - that's science. Sending people into low earth orbit or the moon to twiddle their thumbs? PR, spin and a pork barrel of terrestrial proportions.
I've said it before and no doubt i'll be saying it for a long time to come - most manned space missions are pointless PR excercies, if you want to see where the real research is being done, head over to the Mars rover website or any one of the amazing satellite missions going on at the moment.
Discovery, answers, careers made and broken and not least, a $h1t load more questions - that's science. Sending people into low earth orbit or the moon to twiddle their thumbs? PR, spin and a pork barrel of terrestrial proportions.
posted by Joe at 1:52 PM
1 Comments:
What's the point, indeed. It seems clear to all but the cheerleaders that not only was the ISS a complete white elephant (many of us have been saying that since the start), but that the shuttle is a lemon too. It was supposed to give cheap, reusable access to space. Instead from the very beginning it's been not as reusable as expected (with long cycle times for re-launch) and more expensive that conventional boosters. Combine that with the fact that it only provides access to the lowest of orbits and it's no surprise that it hasn't pulled in much business from private satellite launches.
Anyway, if the ISS and the Shuttle look bad, they'll fade into insignificance compared to the lunatic Mars expedition.
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