Space Station and Iran Arms Link
March 15, 2005 9:25 AM   Subscribe

Funding for the International Space Station may dry up next year. The Iran Non-Proliferation Act of 2000 will prevent further Russian Soyuz flight sponsoring from the U.S. budget. This problem looms large as a new NASA Director is appointed by shrub and the Space Shuttle project hopes to have it's first launch mid-year since the Columbia explosion in Feb. 2003. via
posted by peacay (13 comments total)
 
Anyone who calls the president "shrub" instantly loses every credibility point they ever had in my ledger. It's like saying "Micro$oft". It's so middle-school.

Yeah, I'm derailing, what are you gonna do about it?
posted by Plutor at 9:53 AM on March 15, 2005


What Plutor said.

This post should be deleted, simply because of the 'shrub' thing. It makes those of us that dislike Bush look like petulant idiots.

And enough people already think that I'm a petulant idiot.
posted by veedubya at 10:26 AM on March 15, 2005


Funding for the International Space Station may dry up next year.

Good. I'm sorry, but I fail to see the point of ISS. Is it to prove that we can keep a big chunk of metal modules in orbit, and keep some people on it?

Congratulations, we've done it. Now let's get back to the more important business of exploring space, please.
posted by rocketman at 10:29 AM on March 15, 2005


It's a platform for low gravity experiments. It is also giving us our first experience in space construction.
posted by betaray at 10:34 AM on March 15, 2005


If only the funding had dried up before we'd spent hundreds of billions of dollars on it. (Note: this is not a reasonable argument for throwing good money after bad!)

From Robert Park, Jan 23 2004:

2. REPROGRAMMING ISS: LONG-TERM EFFECT OF SPACE TRAVEL ON HUMANS.
There isn't much you can do with a space station. The President says it will become a space-medicine laboratory to prepare for the return of humans to the moon and on to Mars. Hmmm, that's exactly what his father wanted to use the station for (WN 12 Jul 91). The ISS is inside Earth's magnetosphere, so it can't study space-radiation effects, which is the real show stopper. That leaves osteoporosis. Let's see: it will take at least 12 years to complete our commitment to the ISS. Calcium loss is monitored by a daily urine analysis, typically requiring about 30ml. For a full 8 person crew that adds up to more than one thousand liters. Awesome, we're talking $10M just to launch the water into orbit that will then be processed into urine. We have already been analyzing urine samples collected in space for over 30 years.
posted by Aknaton at 10:36 AM on March 15, 2005


Waste of money. Why are people so attached to manned space exploration anyways? Robots do it better.
posted by bardic at 10:41 AM on March 15, 2005


Shrub is a bona fide nickname. Like Slick Willy. You don't use it because it's too cool for middle school, but because ... um ... I forget.

Anyway. the ISS is important because once we have flying cars, they're going to need somewhere to refuel.
posted by Sparx at 11:41 AM on March 15, 2005


To Mars, bitches!!
posted by nofundy at 11:55 AM on March 15, 2005


I can't wait for the conspiracy theorists to get ahold of the fact that the NASA nominee has ties to the CIA and missile defense.
posted by theonetruebix at 1:06 PM on March 15, 2005


I'm interested to know what well-known and well-proven areas of science the new NASA director doesn't believe in. Isn't that a prerequisite for a Shrub appointment?
posted by aeschenkarnos at 2:26 PM on March 15, 2005


flat earther maybe?
posted by Iax at 5:50 PM on March 15, 2005


Waste of money. Why are people so attached to manned space exploration anyways? Robots do it better.
Because we don't want to just explore space, we want to expand into it. Robots are good for laying the groundwork and exploring, as you note, but they are ultimately just preparing the way for us to move there, which is why we need to study how moving around in space will affect our bodies and minds.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:50 PM on March 16, 2005


Gawd, where to start? Ceasing Progress activity doesn't mean defunding ISS. "Shrub". It's vs. its, ferchrissakes. You don't deserve your UID. Evar.
posted by intermod at 8:26 PM on March 16, 2005


« Older Me+aĆ’iLtéR   |   Delivery :: A short film Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments