I see many discussions about the future of manned missions on this forum,
so I was wondering about our only current permanent manned mission: the ISS.

Apart from the 'soft results' (international cooperation, etc),
what would you say are the most remarkable (science) results?

Is there anything worthwhile that could absolutely NOT have been achieved by unmanned missions?

NB: I'm not criticizing or defending the ISS,
just curious about the results of the experiments on board...

Well, the ones involving human physiology sort of need humans. But besides that, no I don't think so.

just learning how to build something like that.. in space.. and then keep it running.. in space.. makes it worthwhile to me.

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Things were learned, but at high cost. My own government delined to participate at the onset, as the potential return wasn't seen to be worth the investment, and that projects such as this are vunerable to budget blowouts. In retrospect, looking at what it actually did cost, it's very fortunate for us they didn't buy in.

It might be more valuable to learn how to build and maintain something better than that in space. It's better than nothing, but far from the best possible. Right now our way of "keeping it running" is to pour money into it.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Very little of the biomedical research and none of the psycho-social research could be done on unmanned missions. Without this research we aren't going to spend months and years on missions to crewed Mars, asteroids, and beyond.

None of the development and testing of life support systems could be done on unmanned missions. Without having reliable life support technology we aren't going to spend months and years on missions to Mars, asteroids, and beyond.

The materials and physical science experiments that required human presece would be very very difficult without people on board. Maybe not impossible, but it would require telepresence of a level we have not yet achieved. We can't do long

Experience gained in the construction ands management of very large complex spacecraft can only be gained with building and operating such craft.

Same goes for long duration missions over months and years. It can only be done by flying successive missions of many months duration over a platform life time of many years.

Does this cost a lot of? Sure. But it is the best we are able to do at present. We can only learn how to do it cheaper by experience.

Jon

I agree with everything you said, except this statement. ISS isn't the best we can do, it's just what was done. Better to get some use out of it now than let the bloated hundred-odd billion spent go to waste, but we can do better. We'll have to, or space remains a "boondoggle" for a priveledged few.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

That sounds circular to me. How do you learn from building something that you haven't learned how to build yet?
That's all part of the learning process. Better is when you implement what you have learned from previous steps.
It's better than Mir. It's better than Skylab. It's the next step. Could it be better still? Absolutely, but we are learning.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Is it really better than Mir and Skylab?
Is the life support systems better or just an updated version?
Is the CO2 removed in a different way?
Are the waste systems closed loop in any way?
Do they grow any portion of their food?

I suspect ISS, Mir and Skylab are "the same thing only different".

I think that it's important for NASA to admit that the ISS is/was a failure. It failed because the return for the cost was far lower than it could have been. Once you admit mistakes it's possible to consider how to change things so the same mistakes won't be made in the future. If failure is passed off as success, then why should they change? I think other countries will be much less likely to participate in with NASA in future crewed missions without an admission from NASA that they made mistakes and will take steps to avoid similar mistakes in the future. If NASA asked our country now to participate in a crewed Moon or Mars mission, we wouldn't even consider it.

So there is a magic line for "fail"?
I know it did not fullfill it's expectations... but was it worth trying?

I do think that NASA should put things in better perspective, but you have the news media pushing that perspective anyway, so maybe it works out in the end.

I kind of view it as failing at cash cab. No, I didn't get to my destination, I didn't win that money. But; I was entertained, didn't have to walk as far, and didn't have to pay for a cab.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Only if you regard accountancy as magic.

At that cost no. More scientific benefit could have been obtained if the money had been spent differently.

I don't know what cash cab is, but if you are going to bet your money, it's logical to bet where the expected payoffs are higher.

It could be said that a lot of the cost overruns came from political interference. This is not an excuse, this is a problem that needs to be fixed. A system needs to be developed to keep costs down and avoid political considerations inflating costs.

Is ISS falling out of the sky? It's pretty hard to call something a failure until it has actually failed (I dont mean mechanically). Granted, there are alot of thing that "could" have been done, or "should" have been done, but that doesnt mean there isn't time for stuff that "can" be done.

BTW, I like to think of the ISS as a stepping stone.

There are different types of failure. If I go out and buy a perfectly good computer that works just fine, but I paid ten times as much as other similar computers cost, then I have failed to make good use of my money, even though the computer itself has no problems.

My point is that with better planning the ISS could have been either a much better stepping stone, or a much cheaper stepping stone.

Good Point.

When it comes to government spending, I chose to look the other way because 9 times out of 10 it is going to be a failure

I agree.

We don't have that attitude here, but clear rules and procedures are definitely required to keep spending on government projects under control.

Unfortunately, its either an all or nothing deal. If we want something done, in terms of government spending, it is going to come with strings attached. That is where the real cost of these projects come from.

ISS is shinier and more modern than Skylab or Mir, but I would argue that both were more successful. Mir was a bunny. It just kept going. Skylab was HUGE! ISS is just a bit too much of a trinket.

The point about learning to do stuff long duration is valid. But when I compare it to how Gemini did the same thing for Apollo, it seems so lethargic.

Compared to the ISS, both Skylab and Mir were bargains.

President Reagan proposed a US space station back in the early 1980s. It was supposed to cost about $8-16 billion to complete. NASA spent over $8 billion on design studies before cutting the first piece of material to make actual hardware. Growing up in Huntsville, I remember seeing frequent articles in the 1970s in the local paper about NASA granting multi-million dollar space station rationale study contracts just about every year. They wanted to build a space station, they just didn't have very good reasons so they hired contractors to try to think of some. The space station was a vehicle in search of a mission. In many ways, it still is.

I remember reading an article in Aviation Week & Space Technology back around 1984 that indicated NASA would need to fly a Shuttle full of water every few months to the space station just to have drinking water and do laundry. Fortunately, they found a more reasonable solution to the water problem but I knew then that the space station project was in dire trouble. They were trying to solve space-based problems using ground-based thinking.

NASA- and the ISS along with it- gets funding from the government. the government has never been able to figure out how to spend money wisely, and build something without adding a bunch of useless features to it. but, if it's any consolation, every penny that was spent in it was spent right here on earth, and went to people that were doing the best job they could. that money was used to buy things and support the economy down here on earth, and not just shot into space.
sure- it cost more than it was supposed to, but it's still one of the coolest things we've ever built, and it's been up there for close to a decade with no real major technical failures, so i'd say it's a success.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

This is sounds odd to us foreigners who were saved from facism and imperialism by efficient U.S. industrial production directed by the U.S. government.

As I alluded to above, something can be a technical success and an accounting failure. Skylab cost $3 billion. Directly the ISS will cost NASA about $53 billion. With all development costs, it will cost NASA something like $100 billion. A small step for man, a giant leap backwards in value for money.

By building it. Which we're not, having sunk all our money into ISS. As long as ISS is there, no one's motivated to build a better-designed, dedicated stepping stone instead of a patchwork design-by-comittee political compromise that tries to be all things to all people and ends up being inadequate at all of them. It's not circular at all. As long as ISS exists and remains the focus of manned space missions, it blocks anyone from investing in a better model.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

that was over 6 decades ago- back then, the government was lean and efficient. we have since then decided to somehow make our government about as bloated, corrupt, and inefficient as we possibly could make it.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

I don't want to turn this into a political discussion, but I am unconvinced of that, and I don't believe the evidence supports that.

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
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>>As long as ISS exists and remains the focus of manned space missions, it blocks anyone from investing in a better model.


I'm not sure it's the ISS holding us back. More likely it's the reason, or lack of reason, to have humans up there in the first place.

This NASA webpage lists all the ISS science experiments alphabetically. Quite a long list. Each item is a link to a detailed page.

This page lists the broad categories, each of which is a link to specific experiments:
- Human Research and Countermeasure Development for Exploration
- Physical and Biological Sciences in Microgravity
- Technology Development
- Observing the Earth and Educational Activities
- Results From ISS Operations
- ISS Facilities

This page lists publications

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

can you site any examples of anything that the US government has done in an efficient and timely manner?

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

I'm not American, but I've been to America and I couldn't help but notice a functioning road system, children going to schools, librarys full of books, functioning sewage systems, road rules, a system of air traffic control, a lack of communicatable diseases, street lighting, and many other things that appeared to work. Some things sucked. Your postal service is lousy compared to ours, your customs officials rude and I'm really glad I didn't get sick even though I had a million dollars worth of insurance because I wasn't sure if that would cover everything.

I hate to say it but that scientific paper is output is not very high from a $53 billion science facility.

However, things like the big fold out solar panels. If the astronauts hadn't been there to improvise then could have been a very big scratched mission somewhere using that design, so it is part of learning the hard way about really big space missions.

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