• Question: What would you say to people who think we're wasting money on the ISS?

    Asked by spacefan226 to Andrea, Charlie 🚀, Col Op, Kirsty, Vinita on 14 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by Evelyn.M.
    • Photo: Kirsty Lindsay

      Kirsty Lindsay answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      That is a very tough question.

      For me one of the key things about ISS is the international cooperation between the countries involved, even if on Earth the countries aren’t the greatest of friends. An example is USA and Russia- politically on Earth they don’t get a long very well, but in space, and space science they work together really well. I also think ISS is important to inspire people- to study, to work hard, to explore.

      For material things (so the things we can touch) microgravity research is in lots of fields, like growing crystals to make turbine blades for jet engines or making medicines more efficient to treat bone diseases.

      So I guess I would say to them that the ISS is worth it, for many reasons, some we can see, and some that are harder to see a direct link.

    • Photo: Andrea Boyd

      Andrea Boyd answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      It’s a tiny percentage of each country’s budget.

      All of NASA is only 0.5% of the US budget, and the ISS takes only 12% of that. So it’s barely anything.
      In comparison: US spending on wars every year costs 21% of their budget.

      In Europe (including the UK) the ISS cost €1/person ( 80 pence)

      There has never been anything like the ISS and there never will be again – in addition to massive advancements in engineering and science it is the greatest international collaboration in history and it has been a major reason behind peace and stability of the most powerful nations in the world.

      Here’s a list of all the research we’ve done on ISS so far: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_research_on_the_International_Space_Station

      All of that for just £0.80

Comments

  • Photo: spacefan226

    spacefan226 commented on :

    Wow, I never thought of it like that! What will happen to the ISS in 202?

    • Photo: Andrea

      Andrea commented on :

      It crashes into the Pacific Ocean space graveyard like all the other big spacecraft. Mir is there too. http://www.popsci.com/this-is-where-international-space-station-will-go-to-die

      You have to land it while you can still control it because the orbit will decay due to gravity if you stop doing reboosts every month like we do now to keep the ISS in orbit. An uncontrolled landing would be disastrous – imagine something the size of a football field crashing randomly onto a city somewhere on Earth!

      (Disclaimer: There are lots of discussions of what to do with ISS when it finishes in 2024 (or 2028 absolute maximum if engineering analyses says it’s safe to do a final extension of the program) but most of them are just talk. You can’t just ‘move it to the moon’ or whatever. The Russian parts can separate & be used for longer as part of the new Russian space station but the NASA parts are old and won’t last longer than 2020s plus the NASA parts are cooled with ammonia which is toxic to humans. Anyway – the Chinese Space Station will be finished in 2021 and Europe and China work together well – we will send European astronauts to the Chinese space station and the new Russian space station to continue European science. The first flight of an ESA astronaut to Tiangong-2 is booked for 2022. All the European astronauts learn Russian and Mandarin since 2009.)