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Pastimes : Current Events and General Interest Bits & Pieces -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elsewhere who wrote (423)	2/4/2003 1:37:49 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 603

Well, the US defense budget is sort of an unfair point of comparison; I'd say that costs too much too, but that's another story. The total cumulative program cost for ISS is usually listed at around $100 billion, and what's to come out of that, scientifically, is pretty unclear. An amusing take from a moderately suspect source, on US DoD/ISS contrast turned up high in my google search: What some may not realize is that before the Clinton Administration, the ISS was to be a US-only space station. First envisioned as a floating science project called Space Station Freedom by President Reagan in 1984, Freedom was to cost a total of $6 billion and be in orbit well before 1990. The Challenger shuttle explosion in 1986 hobbled the US space program with fear and Space Station Freedom suffered greatly. By the end of Reagan’s second term, the project racked up costs of over $11 billion and not even a tiny piece of the station had been placed in orbit. Space Station Freedom was eventually turned into an International project with costs and knowledge shared amongst the member nations of the project. When the brutal Soviet empire crumbled in 1989, the newly-freed Russians were asked to contribute to the project rechristened the International Space Station. Unfortunately, the multinational nature of the ISS project created numerous design and budget problems throughout the 1990s. The ISS went from a $6 billion/six year/US-only project to a $100 billion/fifteen year/sixteen country mess that continues to lose money. n the wake of terrorist attacks on American, Israeli and Australian interests around the world an orbiting military station would have many distinct advantages in the war on International terrorism. Since the United States’ already paid for the lion’s share of the ISS (including billions in loans to the ISS coalition members), relatively little would be owed to the coalition if they were to be “bought out.” The US could then take charge of the space station with a single purpose rather than worrying about the demands of a coalition committee. Yes, anyone with any experience in the US military knows that there’s plenty of bureaucracy and committees involved with military projects – keeping everyone happy and still getting the job done is what private contractors like Lockheed and Raytheon are for). The unfortunate fact is that politics will hinder any US exit strategy on this orbiting boondoggle. Until some horrible calamity befalls the ISS, it will continue to drain money from the American taxpayer with no useful scientific or economic purpose. worldtechtribune.com Some more conventional reporting from a more known and reputable source: Nasa in dock for overspending news.bbc.co.uk A bit from that one: The report detailed the severe spending problems Nasa has faced since the ISS, a $95bn joint project with Russia and agencies from Europe, Japan and Canada, began construction. These included: * A projected $4bn to $5bn in space station cost overruns over the next five years; * An increase in the estimated cost of the ISS from $17.4bn in 1993 to roughly $30bn, due to launch delays and unreasonable budget caps set by Washington; * The requirement of $8.3bn from Washington to finish the job over the next five years. . . . To combat the cost overruns, the panel recommended a strict regime of cost cutting, including: * A reduction in the space station's work force; * A reduction in the number of shuttle flights to the space station from the current six to four a year to save $668m from 2002 to 2006; * Changes in space station management, so one person oversees both the construction of the project and the scientific research on board. From Easterbrook's figures of $500 million/ shuttle launch in time.com , the $1.5 b / year US share looks highly fudged, but the whole thing is admittedly pretty hard to get a handle on.