Question Usefulness of the ISS (and other space stations) for humanity

[garyw]

If it doesn't help anyone, it is useless.

With that attitude we would not have antibiotics today. It was a MISTAKE by Flemming that lead to penicillin.

Flemmings own quote

""When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn't plan to revolutionise all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or bacteria killer," Fleming would later say, "But I suppose that was exactly what I did."[2][5]"

Your comment is an insult to all scientists everywhere.

 

[T.Neo]

It is not an insult, it is a valid point. Sometimes trivial things turn out to be important, often they do not.

Ok, so, let's see;

- Apollo 15 identified and returned a famous sample composed mostly of anorthite

- The Oppurtunity rover has detected evidence of hematite on Mars.

- The Cassini orbiter photographed a hexagonal pattern at one of Saturn's poles.

Can anyone tell me how and why any of these discoveries are useful in any way?

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

It is not an insult, it is a valid point. Sometimes trivial things turn out to be important, often they do not.

Ok, so, let's see;

- Apollo 15 identified and returned a famous sample composed mostly of anorthite

- The Oppurtunity rover has detected evidence of hematite on Mars.

- The Cassini orbiter photographed a hexagonal pattern at one of Saturn's poles.

Can anyone tell me how and why any of these discoveries are useful in any way?

Useful to what? Useful to learning about the origins of our universe, very. Useful to you, not very.

Whether those things turn out to be useful to Earth or not is not the issue. The point is that with research, you can't know what will be useful and what won't be until you have researched it.

As you said "sometimes trivial things turn out to be important, often they do not". That is right, but the only way you can know whether they will be useful or not is to research it in the first place. Maybe that research leads to something, maybe it doesn't - but that's what research is. If you knew the outcome before you started, you wouldn't need to research.

 

[APDAF]

The hematite on Mars could be used if/when we get there.

 

[garyw]

It is not an insult, it is a valid point. Sometimes trivial things turn out to be important, often they do not.

Ok, so, let's see;

- Apollo 15 identified and returned a famous sample composed mostly of anorthite

anorthosite. One find amongst how many others? They didn't go to the moon just for that.

- The Oppurtunity rover has detected evidence of hematite on Mars.

Opportunity. One find amongst how many others?

- The Cassini orbiter photographed a hexagonal pattern at one of Saturn's poles.

One find amongst how many others?

Single finds are not that important generally but taken together with other finds then yes, they help build up a picture of how something works and that can be very important.

At this point I feel that you have such a downer on science that Warp drive could be tested on the ISS and you'll still be moaning about how that doesn't help YOU. You have your opinion that 'science is bad unless it helps T.Neo' so I'm out of this thread.

 

[Tex]

Thread closed temporarily while under review.

This thread has been re-opened. Several of the latest posts have been removed. If your post was removed, you were contacted by private message. I encourage everyone to participate in the discussion, but lets please avoid any more arguments.

 

[T.Neo]

Single finds are not that important generally but taken together with other finds then yes, they help build up a picture of how something works and that can be very important.

I did not cite those things as sole results of those particular research efforts, but as examples.

Also, from the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_Rock"]this[/ame] article on the Genesis Rock;

Chemical analysis of the Genesis Rock indicated it is an anorthosite, composed mostly of the plagioclase feldspar, anorthite.

Anorthosite is a type of rock, anorthite is a mineral. The Genesis rock is composed of the mineral anorthite, so my sentence should make sense.

At this point I feel that you have such a downer on science that Warp drive could be tested on the ISS and you'll still be moaning about how that doesn't help YOU. You have your opinion that 'science is bad unless it helps T.Neo' so I'm out of this thread.

If I say something isn't useful to me, I'm just using myself as an example of a human living on Earth, and I'm not trying to imply that "if I don't use it, it's useless". One should ask how helpful a warp drive would be to humanity in general.

 

[Tex]

Moving on now...

I for one am grateful for the ISS. It has aided in research that has benefited humanity without a doubt. Of course everyone has their own opinion on the true usefulness of it, but when you consider the overall cost of the ISS compared to the waist we spend on wars and air conditioning in the desert, then I'd say it was money better spent as well as benefiting humanity.

 

[T.Neo]

What exactly are you referring to when you talk about the ISS generating beneficial returns so far? As far as I can see, scientific and technological benefits are in the form of the usual "spinoffs", and most station research that still has a way to go before becoming applicable.

Of course, the international cooperation of the ISS is ongoing... unfortunately the value of this is not necessarily understood ('Russia is evil, don't fly on Soyuz'... that kind of thing).

I don't think it is simple enough to say that money on war is automatically wasted, but unfortunately in recent years several major conflicts we have seen have been deleterious and not had a beneficial outcome. Useless spending with useless disruption and loss of life.

 

[Wishbone]

Let's face it: ISS is a proof-of-concept craft that proves that our technology is not yet mature enough to drastically reduce the maintenance workload on humans. All that basic housekeeping, plumbing and duct taping literally eats into the worktime. I'd say this is the most useful result from the ISS so far. To get significant scientific returns, one needs to spend more money on better toilets, showers, less noisy air conditioning, centrifuge living space - all of that to make research the main activity of station dwellers. The ISS is the third generation of space stations after Salyuts, Almazes, Skylab and Mir, and we have not yet reached the tipping point.

 

[Urwumpe]

Also, what I think what T.Neo willingly ignores: How do you ever get to a space station that can even be commercially (short term gains) successful, if you don't find out how such a station looks like and how it has to be operated?

Just by writing papers of science fiction novels and Pre-Phase-0-studies, you will NEVER get there. If there wouldn't be demand for manned and unmanned micro-gravity research, the Zero-G Airbus, drop towers or the sounding rockets would not be overbooked like they are today.

The problem is not the research that wants to be done in space, if access to space is available. The problem is the operations. And this won't change by insisting that all has to be commercially successful from the first second. By that kind of expectations, even commercially successful companies today like Apple or Microsoft would not exist, because it took them years and a lot of patience by banks and investors to become what they are today.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

I for one am grateful for the ISS. It has aided in research that has benefited humanity without a doubt. Of course everyone has their own opinion on the true usefulness of it, but when you consider the overall cost of the ISS compared to the waist we spend on wars and air conditioning in the desert, then I'd say it was money better spent as well as benefiting humanity.

I couldn't have put it better myself.

I'd just like to say that I won't be participating in this thread anymore. Not because I've gone off in a sulk or anything, but simply because I have made my opinions known, and so there is little point going over the same arguments again and again.

Have a great day everybody!

-Pete

 

[T.Neo]

I would like to say that I don't think the ISS is useless, and many people have made a good point about several things regarding the ISS and similar projects.

One thing I have found about this community, is that certain views are adhered to with an almost religious significance and are perhaps not questioned as they should be.

Things should be questioned not just because they might be unimportant or a bad idea, but because they are important or good ideas, and they should be questioned to figure out why they are important.

The way I tried to make this point was very poor, and was not constructive.

Clearly while the ISS program is very expensive as a whole compared to some other scientific projects, over its lifetime this cost is low and and worth it for the benefits it provides- including the knowledge to build future research facilities, in an ongoing effort for scientific returns.

We all have encountered apathetic and discouraging people in our lives, and it doesn't help to start thinking like them.

I am sorry.