How about at home teleoperating your robot spaceprobe & able to come up with a handy fix for it’s problems (that are non-fatal if sometimes disappointing) in comfort? Like happened with the software fixes for the Mars rovers & Galileo’s antennae issue and Voyager II and so forth. That’s what I’d prefer.

” Am I the only one thinking it [the International Space Station] should just be scrapped already? Or sold to the Chinese and Iranians. … Or fitted with its own propulsion or I dunno .. Something???”

I like the “fit it with its own propulsion” idea – I gather the ISS can already move a little and change its orbit to dodge space junk etc ..

Now if we can boost its orbit gradually – shift it first to one of the Lagrange points then maybe further into a quasi-moon horseshoe / ‘trojan’ style solar-earthly orbit ..

Then mission by mission take it further out as we get more confidant with it … Could we eventually transform the ISS into a real travelling spacecraft? One that can journey to visit oh, say :

1. The Moon again (with however many people the completed ISS contains – a fe more than two!)

2. Asteroid Apophis & other Near Earth Asteroids,

3.Comet Wild-2 – where it could land a few people to check out the cometary crater we made with ‘Deep Impact’ & perhaps even Mars and beyond?

Is that at all plausible or just my wild flight of fancy?

Does that inspire anyone?

Are we maybe expecting a bit too much toos oon & not being grateful or appreciative enough of the truly remarkable & impressive things NASA and even the ISS (& yes I’ll admit it doesn’t really tingle my spine much at present either) have achieved?

So I’d say no, don’t scrap the ISS – but, yes, lets do something really imaginative and clever and inspiring and novel with it for sure!

Oh & I agree it could use a proper name rather than an acronymn – might I suggest ‘Babylon-One’?

Or, more seriously, the international space station ‘Friendship’ or ‘Partnership’ or ‘Unity maybe?

If nothing else, I can see the ISS playing a useful diplomatic and co-operative peace building, bridge building role – and it may enable us to learn from – & teach others – things that help everybody in the long run.

I would like to see us invite the Russians, Chinese and yes, even the Iranians up there to see our Earth and ourselves in a different light from a literally higher ground perspective!

The ISS was supposed to be a place where we could do micro-gravity construction/manufacturing,ie, find out what it takes to do that, what kind of new products we could create in such an environment and to possibly act as a staging area for further expansion into space.

It is NOT useless!!!(cool! A functional double negative,,,)

Granted, it COULD have been built of expended shuttle main tanks and would have cost a bare fraction as much, but the USA always seems to have to have the coolest, shiniest new toys of anyone. I expect we learned a lot about trying to build large structures in a micro-G environment. Funding constraints seem to have seriously impeded the new product development, but hey, we’re really just getting started here.

Industry is constrained in it’s investments to reasonable/timely returns, thus for long term planning and development, we require governmental investment(since governments have no need to make a profit). On the down side, we have developed a sound bite oriented government, in which, if a rationale can’t be reduced to 30 seconds of explanation, it don’t get funded,,,I sometimes think the entire species is developing ADD,,,Then I remember China,,,

If your exploratory craft encounters an unexpected problem, where would you rather be? Half way to Mars or 250 miles from home?
Give the ISS 25 more years and I expect you’ll then be able to see how good that investment really is. In space, any investment which expects a return in less than a couple of generations is just unreasonable. Developing space resources isn’t like taking a shovel to a coal seam in Appalachia. We need to be thinking really long term(like, THOUSANDS of years, rather then the next quarterly review.)

GAry 7

Meh. Numerous weather sats and astronauts have been doin’ that for ages.

@ kuhnigget: Wasn’t the boring thing christened “Freedom” by some politico? Maybe even His Royal Reaganess? I kenna rememba. L-5 in ‘95. Er…’25?

Well I was going answer that but looks like Michael L has done it for me already -THX!

So yeah, I gather it was going to be called “freedom” or “alpha” or whatever but nobody could be bothered with it. Politics maybe? Whatever, we’re stuck with plain dull ISS.

We need to be moving forward & going further the ISS doesn’t cut it.
Scrap it & put the money towards return to Moon or folks on Mars I say.
If the international partners scream, tell them to take it over & do it instead. We’ve got shinier better things to do & places to go!

However, the first commander did receive the go-ahead to use the radio call sign “Alpha” withing hours of entering the station. The logs of that Expedition One can be found on the ISS home-page. That is the only Expedition where the Commander kept a daily log, and I do not know if the radio call sign “Alpha” still stands.

If only it were so,,,

GAry 7