Thursday, September 10, 2009

Just what is the point of the International Space Station ?

I only ask as the end of life date of 2016 is getting closer and closer.

Will it be finished in time to be destroyed I wonder.

What was the point ? Apart for as a job creation scheme for rocket scientists and engineers ?

Just wondering ....

PS Thankfully the UK Govt. of Mrs Thatcher saw all this coming and refused to waste UK money on this flying white elephant.

4 comments:

wobblyjim said...

space based weapons, communications and intercepts, photography, etc the Murkins only ever want to spend their borrowed cash on weaponry or military so it aint the restaurant at the end of the universe with the best viewing platform known to man, as they say it is, 90% military/intelligence with a bit of civvy thrown in to make the budgets slip through easier.
IMHO

Unknown said...

It's potentially also a staging post. We need to start colonising our Solar System right now.

Our current civilisation is looking more and more like the end of the Roman Era with its over regulation and onerous taxation - along with another set of imported barbarians with a wholly different ethos.

We seem to be making all the same mistakes. For example, did you know that the Romans deliberately disarmed their population? It was illegal for Roman subjects to possess arms and armour, so they were defenceless in the face of the incursions.

A debased currency along with heavy taxes just led to a swelling population living on "bread and circuses" but which the leaders could not afford to ignore and so had to pamper.

It all sounds horribly familiar doesn't it?

Which is why we need to colonise the Solar System now.

Because if we don't do it soon we won't get another chance for a very long time, if ever.

Man in a Shed said...

@Wildgoose I agree about your objectives. I just don't see the ISS as helping much. Indeed there are those who argue that the combination of the ISS and Space Shuttle program has eaten up a lot of money for no benefit.

But its not hard to see a time where groups of people are no longer willing to accept the state's control over their lives and beliefs and wish to leave.

300 years ago there was a world to move into, no longer.

Barking Spider said...

It's taught them a lot about constructing bases in space and it's also giving the best opportunity so far to find out the long term effects on our bodies in a weightless environment.

There will be other scientific experiments which could not be reproduced on Earth because of gravity and if water is found on the Moon, which it seems like it will be, then a base will be constructed there for mining purposes and it will then also be used as a staging post because of the low gravity, (cutting drastically the amount of fuel they would need to carry on board), for sending humans to Mars and probes to Europa and Titan and mining missions to asteroids. As Wildgoose said, we need to start colonising our Solar System right now.