Praise for the ISS

[REBerg]

A silver lining in gloomy times

Why the ISS Is the Single Best Thing We Did

 

[Mirannan]

Maybe you're right. But actually, I disagree - if only because getting to it is so expensive and building the thing was even more so, both for the same reason. We still use disintegrating, single-use totem poles to get there and the Shuttle wasn't any better - a ship with a ground crew of 20,000 and a turnaround time of months isn't really very practical, even apart from its high risk.

Apollo was probably the single most magnificent thing humanity ever did. Many times, when I look at the Moon, I feel like shouting in triumph. There are footprints on it! Even though it was Cold War propaganda.

There is going to come a time, probably this century, when the first baby will be born off Earth. His or her name will be remembered as long as there are people.

And getting to that point will require reasonably safe, cheap access to space. And, IMHO, it won't be a government that accomplishes that. Why? Because for government employees, wasting resources and money is a feature, not a bug.

 

[Alexa]

Maybe you're right. But actually, I disagree - if only because getting to it is so expensive and building the thing was even more so, both for the same reason. We still use disintegrating, single-use totem poles to get there and the Shuttle wasn't any better - a ship with a ground crew of 20,000 and a turnaround time of months isn't really very practical, even apart from its high risk.

Apollo was probably the single most magnificent thing humanity ever did. Many times, when I look at the Moon, I feel like shouting in triumph. There are footprints on it! Even though it was Cold War propaganda.

There is going to come a time, probably this century, when the first baby will be born off Earth. His or her name will be remembered as long as there are people.

And getting to that point will require reasonably safe, cheap access to space. And, IMHO, it won't be a government that accomplishes that. Why? Because for government employees, wasting resources and money is a feature, not a bug.

That's why the costs is shared by several countries agencies. This is not the kind only one country can claim. At least, not as long as the priorities are focused on other domains.

No matter how much ISS costs, it's still worthing. Some medical researches cannot be done on Earth because of the gravity.

 

[Justin Swanton]

The ISS costs US$3 billion a year to maintain. It can support a maximum of 6 crewmembers. It has to remain in low orbit as it has no protection against Gamma rays and Solar flares should it move beyond the Earth's magnetic field. Astronauts can't stay on it for too long as microgravity eventually causes crippling health problems. None of the experiments done on it couldn't be done by automated satellites, or by a much smaller craft with a much smaller crew.

It exists for one reason only: a PR exercise to convince us that we can colonise space. Problem is, we can't. There is no way, ever, we can make space travel as cheap as commercial flight. Also no way of building cheap habitations in space that can support a significant number of humans indefinitely (I'm talking about tens of thousands).

Technology has natural limits. Powered flight advanced in leaps and bounds until the 1950s with the creation of the commercial jet. After that it hasn't advanced an inch. Space travel made great strides after WW2 up to the Moon landings. It hasn't done anything significant since then (the Shuttle was a technological and financial disaster). The technology that gets the Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS is the same as the technology that got Gagarin into orbit.

You reach a plateau, after which no amount of ingenuity will get you any further. Just the way it is.

 

[Justin Swanton]

Actually, thinking about the ISS got me wondering: Why is the US government pumping so many resources into the space programme? Economically, it's the biggest pouring of money down the plughole in human history. But with a little reflection it's actually a very smart move.

The first business of any government is to convince its people the future will be better. A social setup lasts only because people have faith in it. They have faith in it because they believe it will eventually overcome - at least to some extent - the imperfections of the present. The moment the general population loses faith in the system's ability to make things better then corruption becomes rampant, economic production falls off, and the leadership at the top becomes divided against itself. It turns into an every-man-for-himself. The system eventually collapses under its own weight. The fall of the Soviet Union is a perfect illustration of this.

In the past religion did the job for the government. People's innate hope - or their subconscious conviction they are made for a better life than they currently have - was satisfied by religion that promised them a paradise in the next world if they lived good lives in this one. In the 18th century that belief in future happiness was increasingly replaced by a conviction that humans could build a paradise in this world. Once that transition was done governments were handed the job of guaranteeing human happiness, and so far they've made a real mess of it.

Our faith in the current techno-industrial complex rests entirely in our belief that technology will continue to progress indefinitely and will solve all our problems, including the problems created by technology. The techno-industrial complex is difficult to maintain - far more difficult than the agrarian societies of the past - and has stressed people in a way that never existed in the past. Governments have to make enormous efforts to keep up confidence in the system, and this is where space travel becomes important.

Space travel PR tells us, not only that we are going to colonise space, but that space will provide a quality of life far superior to what we currently enjoy. Just how quality of life in space or on Mars or the Moon is supposed to be superior is never spelled out, it's just assumed: a great adventure that will make life worth living. Support NASA, support the techno-industrial complex. Keep working hard and paying your taxes. Everything's gonna be all right.

Like heck.

 

[Mirannan]

Justin, how about this justification for the space programme? Survival.

The dinosaurs died because they didn't have any way of detecting, or doing anything about if they did detect, the rock with their name on it.

Another Chixculub-sized rock would kill most of humanity and almost certainly wreck civilisation; and the way back up would be a lot harder than the Industrial Revolution because just about all the easily obtained stuff is already gone.

Second to that, there are other threats that would be just about as bad as another Dinosaur Killer. A supervolcano eruption would be just about as bad - worse, for the country it happens in.

And both disasters are certainly going to happen. Maybe not in your lifetime, or mine, but they are inevitable. If there are a decent number of people living off Earth then we survive with style. If there are not, then it's back to the Stone Age even if we survive at all. And the Second Bronze Age would be impossible because just about all the easily-mined tin and copper are gone. And won't be back, before Earth becomes uninhabitable as the Sun ages.

 

[Justin Swanton]

Justin, how about this justification for the space programme? Survival.

Here's the problem: we've done space travel for 60 years and the simple, hard, cold fact is that we just do not have the resources to colonise the Solar System anywhere near the extent necessary to ensure humanity's survival if the Earth goes belly-up.

The ISS is the proof of this. It cost US$150 billion to build and costs an additional US$ 3 - 4 billion a year to maintain. All it can do - in low Earth orbit which is a fat lot of use if an asteroid strikes the planet - is keep half a dozen humans alive for a limited period of time. You would need several Bernal spheres orbiting the moon or some other planet if people will be alive after an extinction-level event on Earth. And they are impossibly expensive to build. This is not pessimism, just simple numbers.

The most optimistic (and realistic) projection for the cost of a Mars mission is more than US$ 30 billion, and it will probably cost a lot more than that. That's just to send a few astronauts to Mars, land on the planet, stay for a few days or weeks, and return to Earth. Colonising Mars...hoo boy!

Bottom line: there won't be the motivation to create human settlements in the Solar System even if it were physically possible. The only conceivable scenario would be a mortal threat to Earth that still leaves several decades for humanity to built a generation ship. But I doubt even that would work.

 

[Overread]

Justin - thing is you could probably have made your post with regard to seafaring and supporting colonies in far off lands - yet today we are quite happy to ship shrimp from Scotland to China to deshell and then ship them back again to eat.

The ISS is akin to that; a very high priced pioneer where the expense is likely far greater than the financial gain. Also don't forget that technology often hits plateaus for long periods of time before getting a new breakthrough. So spacefaring might well just be in one those spots whereby there aren't any big gains to be had, but where investment is required in order to keep making those small, important strides; some of which might lead to the big strides to make things more economically viable.

I see it as a long term investment approach to science and research and advance. It's one of those things that is looking 50-100-200 years in advance rather than looking two or three years. Plus along the way don't forge that 0-G research does have direct appliances in modern day. I think that a lot of people forget how much trickles down from groups like NASA 0 mostly because most people are not involved in science and only cotton onto new tech when its made widely commercial (and we have to remember that what we get commercially is often years behind what is actually possible currently)


Don't forget its been 60 years of space; it took us hundreds of years to get further and many more to be able to build things like aircraft carriers and oil tankers - vast ships that would have, at one time, been utterly impossible beyond comprehension.

 

[Justin Swanton]

Justin - thing is you could probably have made your post with regard to seafaring and supporting colonies in far off lands - yet today we are quite happy to ship shrimp from Scotland to China to deshell and then ship them back again to eat.

Seafaring colonies were always self-supporting - even if they weren't meant to be real colonies, like the Dutch settlement at the foot of Table Mountain which was set up as a resupply station for ships of the Dutch East India Company. Any shipping done today is done because economically it is cheaper, not more expensive. My guess is that the labour cost of deshelling shrimps in China is much less than in Scotland, and more than makes up for the transport expenses.

The ISS is akin to that; a very high priced pioneer where the expense is likely far greater than the financial gain. Also don't forget that technology often hits plateaus for long periods of time before getting a new breakthrough. So spacefaring might well just be in one those spots whereby there aren't any big gains to be had, but where investment is required in order to keep making those small, important strides; some of which might lead to the big strides to make things more economically viable.

The ISS could never become self-supporting no matter how big you make it. Neither could a colony on the Moon or on Mars. They would absolutely depend on high-level technology that they could not begin to manufacture, and that would have to be shipped from Earth - indefinitely - at a horrendous cost. If you and every human being on Earth was prepared to pay, say, a 50% tax on your income purely for a Mars colony then perhaps it would work, for as long as the tax is paid. But what are the chances of that happening?

Technology does continue to advance, but notice how each breakthrough is more difficult and more expensive to implement than the one before it. In the 19th century individual inventors made great strides, creating the light bulb, the petrol engine, the telephone, the phonograph. etc. In the 20th century two men created the first flying machine. But after that, what did it take to create the first jet engine, the first nuclear reactor, and the first orbital launcher? Does anyone seriously think that an enthusiast, in his study, is going to come up with a technological marvel that will revolutionize our world?

Technology has natural limits. It's not through lack of theoretical knowledge that we are hitting brick walls. Our theoretical knowledge has far outstripped our ability to make practical use of that knowledge. We know all about antimatter but there is just no way of creating it cheaply enough to use as a viable power source. It's the physics: as we manipulate matter at a deeper level, going from chemical reactions to subatomic particles to changing the nature of those particles, it gets more difficult, until a point is reached when it just isn't economically viable to go any further.

I see it as a long term investment approach to science and research and advance. It's one of those things that is looking 50-100-200 years in advance rather than looking two or three years. Plus along the way don't forge that 0-G research does have direct appliances in modern day. I think that a lot of people forget how much trickles down from groups like NASA 0 mostly because most people are not involved in science and only cotton onto new tech when its made widely commercial (and we have to remember that what we get commercially is often years behind what is actually possible currently)

I'm not aware of any research on the ISS that constitutes significant breakthroughs either in theoretical or practical knowledge. There isn't really much more we can learn, say, about the effects of weightless on the human body that will substantially affect how astronauts will be equipped for future space voyages.

Don't forget its been 60 years of space; it took us hundreds of years to get further and many more to be able to build things like aircraft carriers and oil tankers - vast ships that would have, at one time, been utterly impossible beyond comprehension.

Sure. Aircraft carriers and tankers became possible once steel could be manufactured cheaply and in sufficient quantities to use for shipbuilding. It was a real breakthrough. Notice however that carrier technology, like every other branch of technology, has plateaued: the Ford class carriers are not dramatically different from the Nimitz class that go back to the 1970s. Space travel technology plateaued long ago. We can't come up with anything better than a rocket engine for getting satellites and humans into orbit. There were hopes for the Skylon, but it seems it will be more expensive than Elon Musk's reusable launchers, which, incidentally, are not as reusable as all that. Musk still has to prove his case, and even if he does it will never make space travel as cheap as commercial flight.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

It exists for one reason only: a PR exercise to convince us that we can colonise space.

No. It was built as a way to keep the ex-Soviet rocket engineers busy so they wouldn't go and make missiles for North Korea or some other disreputable nation. It remains because we built it and it would cost a lot to replace.

Problem is, we can't. There is no way, ever, we can make space travel as cheap as commercial flight.

The cost of the power required to lift a human up a beanstalk to space is far less than the cost of fuel for a transatlantic flight. We're a long way from that, but 'ever' is a very, very long time.

Also no way of building cheap habitations in space that can support a significant number of humans indefinitely (I'm talking about tens of thousands).

With robots, AI and 3D printers, building cheap habitations is just a matter of resources and time. Send them to an asteroid to turn it into a nice, cozy habitat, then fly out there when they're done.

Powered flight advanced in leaps and bounds until the 1950s with the creation of the commercial jet. After that it hasn't advanced an inch.

Modern airliners are far more efficient than the early ones. Supersonics turned out to be a dead end because there's no real benefit to cutting a couple of hours off the flight time if you have to spend three hours getting in and out of the airports.

Space travel made great strides after WW2 up to the Moon landings. It hasn't done anything significant since then (the Shuttle was a technological and financial disaster).

Because Apollo was, with hindsight, a boondoggle that was only funded because Cold War Heroics. Were it not for the Cold War, we'd probably not have reached the Moon until the 80s or 90s, and would have built the infrastructure required to do so at a reasonable price. And SpaceX are working hard on getting back there, and on to Mars.

Notice however that carrier technology, like every other branch of technology, has plateaued

Aircraft carriers are another boondoggle in an era of cheap, high-speed missiles. The only purpose they serve is bombing countries that can't shoot back, and fewer and fewer people consider that a good idea these days.