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Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
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gtyellowjacket said:
Elon now wants to decommission the International Space Station. I think that should have happened a decade ago to that white elephant. I would have put that savings into other space exploration programs and Trump is going to put it into wasted border security, but at least its coming out of the ISS budget instead of something more important.

abcnews.go.com

Elon Musk calls for deorbiting of the ISS. Here's what the space station does

Elon Musk recently called for the ISS to be deorbited "as soon as possible." Experts say the station provides vital research, technological development and education
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com
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Elon wants this solely to accelerate his dream of going to Mars.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I don't think its a terrible idea to head to mars instead of spending that money on ISS. We've gotten good science out of ISS, but I don't think we are getting much new research.
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I honestly have no idea because I don't follow space news very closely but what's the basis for your assertion we're not getting much new research from the ISS? Is that grounded in something or just a hunch?
 
lawtig02 said:
I honestly have no idea because I don't follow space news very closely but what's the basis for your assertion we're not getting much new research from the ISS? Is that grounded in something or just a hunch?
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You can really answer it in a couple different ways. We are still getting some research out of ISS. It's still being published in peer-reviewed journals and researchers are citing it. We aren't getting as much new research as we were two decades ago when it first launched and that's to be expected. Most of the best science was prioritized and done first.

The better way to answer your question is what science could we be doing with the ISS budget and then compare that science to ISS science. The total cost for the Mars Pathfinder mission was a little less than $300 million. That was spread over several years but if you just look at the $3 billion per year cost of ISS, the pathfinder mission cost 1/10th as much and there's a pretty good argument to make that the science from Pathfinder is a lot more novel and exciting. We are landing on Jupiter's moons for less than half of the cost of one year of ISS operation.

At this point, ISS is fantastic for jobs at nasa and various government contractors that keep it in orbit. It puts about a dozen people in space per year. It has done some terrific science on the effects of microgravity on the human body and how to counteract it as well as pretty good research on how to keep people alive for years in space. All that is important science and makes a Mars mission much more realistic, but now it's probably time to rededicate those resources away from ISS.
 
You know that at some point a working space station is going to be essential in any sort of regular space travel. Launching out of a gravity well like earth is terribly inefficient. If we're learning how to do that, then we're gaining more than rushing to Mars. Both getting to Mars and any future mining of the asteroid belt will all be easier starting form space.
 
finesse said:
You know that at some point a working space station is going to be essential in any sort of regular space travel. Launching out of a gravity well like earth is terribly inefficient. If we're learning how to do that, then we're gaining more than rushing to Mars. Both getting to Mars and any future mining of the asteroid belt will all be easier starting form space.
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I don't think we know that, but even if you're right, is ISS the best form factor for that? There are no facilities to build anything on that station. Any materials like fuel or foodstuffs can be kept in orbit on an unmanned station or location for a whole lot less than ISS. You can house a few people and keep them out in space while you wait for something, but I can't think of too many scenarios where that's going to be the right solution for the mission to Mars.
 
I seriously doubt that these Trump voters who have lost their jobs or don't like what Trump/Musk are doing are going to suddenly vote Democratic, but they could easily stay home in 2026, which is what happened in 2018.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I don't think we know that, but even if you're right, is ISS the best form factor for that? There are no facilities to build anything on that station. Any materials like fuel or foodstuffs can be kept in orbit on an unmanned station or location for a whole lot less than ISS. You can house a few people and keep them out in space while you wait for something, but I can't think of too many scenarios where that's going to be the right solution for the mission to Mars.
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The science is really clear. Getting out of a gravity well consumes a tremendous percentage of the fuel it takes to go anywhere in space. Jerry Pournelle wrote a long treatise on this back in the 1980s that still essentially holds.

Now, whether ISS is relevant to that , I don't have a single clue. I know that some sort of orbital station is going to be essential at some point in the development of space exploration.
 
finesse said:
The science is really clear. Getting out of a gravity well consumes a tremendous percentage of the fuel it takes to go anywhere in space. Jerry Pournelle wrote a long treatise on this back in the 1980s that still essentially holds.

Now, whether ISS is relevant to that , I don't have a single clue. I know that some sort of orbital station is going to be essential at some point in the development of space exploration.
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Certainly much fuel is consumed leaving the earth but it doesn't necessarily follow that a space station is going to be essential for space exploration. We didn't use a space station for our moon missions and we haven't used a space station for any of our more recent missions to Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter or Saturn.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Certainly much fuel is consumed leaving the earth but it doesn't necessarily follow that a space station is going to be essential for space exploration. We didn't use a space station for our moon missions and we haven't used a space station for any of our more recent missions to Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter or Saturn.
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Not going to argue this on a message board. I don't know enough physics to explain it properly and you don't seem to amenable to the obvious logic. If you're interested , there's a lot of discussion of the whys online. They can give you an educated POV.

It's true that this might not be important to us for 25 or more years but, barring some tremendous breakthrough in propulsion, it's going to be. We'll never properly utilize space as long as everything has to be launched out of earth's gravity well. We might as well lay the foundation as soon as possible.
 
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