
Trump Cuts US Cash for International Space Station - ColinWright
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43038329
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Firebrand
The ISS is way too high maintenance for a profitable business. Putting humans
in space is too expensive.

Humans jut do not belong in space yet. Most science and astronomy missions can
will continue to be performed through machinery and automation. The
cancellation of all most of the other missions is a direct result from this
focus. We are all very curious about what's out there, and the absolute better
way to satiate this curiosity and to actually discover new things is with
machine focused missions: rovers, landers, and specially telescopes.

Further study into the effects of space on humans for the purposes of leaving
Earth due to some apocalypse is very exagerated as well. Even in a bad
apocalyptic scenario, the resulting Earth would still be better to live in
than any other planet or moon we currently can reach.

The pictures from back from Juno, New Horizons, the Mars rovers, and the
Hubble continue to inspire the future generations, and earn support from the
general populace already.

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craftyguy
> The ISS is way too high maintenance for a profitable business.

The ISS was never meant to be a "profitable business."

> Putting humans in space is too expensive.

It's an investment. If humans do not go into space, we are destined to be a
one planet species, which carries its own health risks (comets, and other high
speed massive objects that would be ridiculously hard to deflect, for
example).

> Further study into the effects of space on humans for the purposes of
> leaving Earth due to some apocalypse is very exagerated as well. Even in a
> bad apocalyptic scenario, the resulting Earth would still be better to live
> in than any

Just because the surface of Mars is not habitable in its current state, I'd
much rather be living in a box over there than on an Earth subjected to the
1918 Flu Pandemic v2.0 or the inevitable collapse of the US (all nations
collapse, don't kid yourself thinking this one won't).

> The pictures from back from Juno, New Horizons, the Mars rovers, and the
> Hubble continue to inspire the future generations, and earn support from the
> general populace already.

It's __not __about "inspiring" or "earning support." I'm guessing you are from
a previous generation where space travel was a great race to be the first to
orbit, first to the Moon, etc. That 'motivation' should have died in the
1970s, but I see it is still alive and well amongst civilians. Politicians
invest in space travel for national prestige, but there is real scientific
value in studying how humans function in space.

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ShorsHammer
> The ISS was never meant to be a "profitable business."

That comment was likely referring to the first sentence of the article:

> President Donald Trump wants to end US funding for the International Space
> Station (ISS) by 2025 with the aim of putting it into private hands.

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adventured
This is a pretty disingenuous framing. You might as well say: funding for the
ISS has been set to expire for two decades and is right on schedule.

The ISS was scheduled as of at least 2010, to cease in or around 2020-2024
sometime.

Trump is interested in privatizing the ISS beyond that. That approach has been
commonly discussed for at least a decade or more at this point.

2010:

[https://www.space.com/9643-tation-disposal-plan-
revealed.htm...](https://www.space.com/9643-tation-disposal-plan-
revealed.html)

~~~
Old_Thrashbarg
Why was this downvoted?

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AstralStorm
And so it goes the way of Mir. Not even Musk could fund such a project
privately as there is no short term profit.

