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It's hard to really quantify scientific returns as a per-dollar measure. The space station has provided a place to do countless experiments that could only be d

It's hard to really quantify scientific returns as a per-dollar measure. The space station has provided a place to do countless experiments that could only be done by people in space. Of course, the results of these experiments rarely make it into pop science articles so they're not often publicized. But they do happen and it's important not to just brush them aside as not worth the cost of the station itself.

trafficlight 13y ago
Not only that, but it's a first step in learning how to construct large objects in space and then live up there fulltime.
varjag 13y ago
> The space station has provided a place to do countless experiments that could only be done by people in space. Most of these experiments though were about effect of space on humans, no? It's a bit of circular reasoning. Even with those, I'm not sure there was really any big discovery since the previous Mir/Salyut/Skylab decades of orbital hanging around.
- PakG1 13y ago
  If humans like Elon Musk and the rest are serious about becoming a spacefaring nation that can actually travel to Mars, this wealth of experimental data would be invaluable when the time comes, if the time comes. Let's not presume that it would never be useful (and besides that, who knows if there ever could be use applied down on earth too).
- jccooper 13y ago
  ISS has made a lot of progress on learning and ameliorating the effects of 0g on humans. It's only about this year that techniques to control bone loss over the long term have gotten really good. Astronauts can now routinely return after six months not crippled, which is a huge advance on the state of knowledge circa Mir. Yes, most of the science on ISS is human science, related to 0g, and it is pretty expensive, but there's not much other way to do it. I'm not sure that 0g habitation has a long-term future (it's still not very good for you) but we wouldn't really know that without the ISS. It also hosts plenty of materials science and remote sensing experiments along with the biology and space medicine. It's a weird environment that we're only just beginning to figure out.

trafficlight 13y ago

Not only that, but it's a first step in learning how to construct large objects in space and then live up there fulltime.

varjag 13y ago

> The space station has provided a place to do countless experiments that could only be done by people in space. Most of these experiments though were about effect of space on humans, no? It's a bit of circular reasoning. Even with those, I'm not sure there was really any big discovery since the previous Mir/Salyut/Skylab decades of orbital hanging around.

PakG1 13y ago
If humans like Elon Musk and the rest are serious about becoming a spacefaring nation that can actually travel to Mars, this wealth of experimental data would be invaluable when the time comes, if the time comes. Let's not presume that it would never be useful (and besides that, who knows if there ever could be use applied down on earth too).
jccooper 13y ago
ISS has made a lot of progress on learning and ameliorating the effects of 0g on humans. It's only about this year that techniques to control bone loss over the long term have gotten really good. Astronauts can now routinely return after six months not crippled, which is a huge advance on the state of knowledge circa Mir. Yes, most of the science on ISS is human science, related to 0g, and it is pretty expensive, but there's not much other way to do it. I'm not sure that 0g habitation has a long-term future (it's still not very good for you) but we wouldn't really know that without the ISS. It also hosts plenty of materials science and remote sensing experiments along with the biology and space medicine. It's a weird environment that we're only just beginning to figure out.