Talk:International Space Station
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List of visitors
Is this in any particular order? Would someone mind ordering it chronologically if not? Mr. Jones 15:23, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I tentatively removed the list, on the thoughts that 1) it's not very useful; 2) it's visually horrendous, and 3) all of the information is duplicated at List of human spaceflights. - Seth Ilys 15:28, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Criticism of the Project or Non-sequitir?
There are many critics who argue that the $100 billion USD would be better spent providing food and clean water for the 24,000 people who die every day on Earth from malnutrition and starvation.
This is a non sequitur with regards to the ISS in particular, in that it could be applied to any expenditure. It is also a piece of rhetoric and advocacy, not a neutral description of criticism of the ISS. --FOo
- No, the ISS is a particularly heavily criticized boondoggle, and the space program in general has been criticized in this way since it's beginnings. It is also an absolutely neutral factual statement. It is hardly a 'non sequitur' - look at the article on particle physics where similar statements are made and properly balanced. Anything that spents tens of billions of dollars and gives back no clear benefit to the people that are taxed to pay for it is subject to this kind of general criticism - it's a matter of scale.
- Also, if you want to read 'rhetoric' and 'advocacy', just read the article on Wikipedia itself. It's a mess that basically promotes the hell out of itself. That error should not be carried over into all discussions of the ways science and technology are supposed to be useful to us 'eventually' (even if we died waiting). See scientism.
Disappointed that my famine sentence has been removed - it was factual and restored some neutrality to the page which I thought had a pro-exploration bias. While I agree that the argument could be applied to any expenditure, it is particularly pertinent to the space station - 24,000 people die every day from hunger on Earth and spending that much so that a few dozen humans can spend some time in a high-tech tin can seems to symbolise the poor sense of reality many scientists have developed. I'm not against space exploration or science - just think that we should address problems on Earth first. As for the statement being rhetoric and advocacy - I'm sure the starving millions would disagree if they had the resources to. And given that someone dies from hunger every 3.6 seconds, I don't think they would think much of the argument that the space station will bring benefits in the longer term.
- The starving millions are not starving because of the ISS, and it is completely unfair to single it out. Leaving aside the argument as to whether it's lack of aid or, as seems to be the case depressingly often, war and corruption, that is responsible for world hunger, there are innumerable other places of arguably less long-term value where funding could be found from. Why not argue that, say, funding for opera, sports, or national parks, should be cut to pay for aid? --Robert Merkel
Especially "profesional" or commercial sports (like paying ridicuols salaries to players), or the entertainment industry. We spend a LOT more on those, they have fewer benefits if any. Mir 06:00, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Excessive political correctness?
While I am all against discrimatory(?) language, isn't the latest change to crewed (from manned, as in manned spaceflight) a bit overzealous? As far as I know, manned spaceflight carries a bit more implications than just not-woman. Crewed spaceflight somehow doesn't sound right in my ears --UsagiYojimbo
Hmm, the contributions of Europe and Japan seem to be somewhat downplayed in this article.
The most important criticism of the space station is that it actually is rather scaled back. All the people will be doing is research. The whole *point* of having a permanently manned space station has always been to also be able to do in-space construction!
In the long run, if you want to see people living in space, you're going to need to expand the capabilities of the space station by quite a bit.
Request for statistics and other numbers
How fast does it travel? How long does it take to orbit the earth? -- Tarquin 14:22, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)
laser brooms
The cited articles mention that laser brooms will be kept low power to avoid even inadvertently infringing on treaties against deploying weapons in space. Their purpose is to clear away "space junk" which can threaten the space station due to extremely high-speed collisions. Plautus however, begins his edit with phrasing similar to "it has been proposed to install weapons on the space station". An outright distortion.
- By the way, it is not a distortion to present this as a weapons system. The tests will be low-powered, but the final system will be capable of vaporizing targets in space (or on the ground via mirrors). But more about this elsewhere, I have a contribution to write. - Plautus satire 01:17, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Plautus has done this several times before. He is bluffing by presenting an external link and hoping that no one will actually click and read the linked article. - Curps 00:55, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I didn't mean to post a misleading article, I misread the article in my haste, I thought they were doing ground tests of a space-based system, since they talk about the ISS. My mistake, I'm sorry about that, I wasn't trying to deceive anyone. - Plautus satire 01:17, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
There is no point in rewriting Plautus's text about laser brooms in a more NPOV fashion because it is entirely superfluous detail. One might as well write about the space station's solar panels, life-support systems, zero-gravity toilets or any of the hundreds and hundreds of other much more key subsystems on board, and make the article ten times as long. Plautus's purpose in introducing this text about laser brooms of all things is purely in support of his conspiracy theories (eg, the Hubble space telescope is really a spy telescope). It deserves removal on grounds of marginal relevance even if he had written it in an NPOV way. A separate laser broom page is the place to put this material. - Curps 01:02, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- This is true, I'm sorry I was so persistent trying to get this in there, I admit I was wrong. - Plautus satire 01:17, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It gets even better. Rereading the two articles cited by Plautus his original edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=International_Space_Station&oldid=2529976)... this is a ground-based system that won't even be installed on the space station. - Curps 01:10, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Ouch. I guess I have to bite the bullet and admit I was wrong here. This is another lesson about posting in haste. I'll try to learn from this. Thanks for catching this error, this "laser broom" deserves an entry all its own. - Plautus satire 01:14, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I'll also apologize for not giving you the benefit of the doubt, Curps, I thought you were still watchdogging some of my topics as per the orders on the ban plautus pages (so I assumed the worst - Plautus satire 01:19, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)). - Plautus satire 01:18, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hey, MyRedDice, thanks for turning my bungled edition into something that I for one appreciate. I think this deserves a mention, but I didn't feel it was my place after my recent blunder. - Plautus satire 01:28, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Thanks Plautus. Perhaps you could help us improve the laser broom article, which is currently quite a short stub? Martin 01:31, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
First ever spacewalk with whole crew
While NASA says "the first ever two-man spacewalk without a crewmember inside" [1] (http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/workinginspace/ex8_spacewalk.html), that's misleading because Soyuz 26 had both of its crew outside, transferring from one vehicle to another and the NASA wording gives the impression that it was first ever rather than only first for ISS. Jamesday 02:32, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
List of unmanned spaceflights to the ISS
Does anyone have suitable knowledge and/or access to information to make a List of unmanned spaceflights to the ISS? I think it's rather a good idea to make one. Ropers 18:26, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- I have added such a list. It mostly consists of Progress cargo flights. Rusty 16:10, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Ready to be nominated for feature article?
This article has improved from head-to-toe since I last saw it. Is it ready to be nominated for a feature article? Astudent 13:20, 2004 Sep 21 (UTC)
- Um... I don't think so yet... "ISS Spacewalks", "Visiting manned spacecraft and crews" and "Visiting unmanned spacecraft" needs a summary first. --Andylkl 15:28, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
list of foregin modules delivered to NASA
- Is node2 already delivered to NASA and is ready for launch?
- Is Cupola delivered to NASA ? if not, what is the progress and expectations
- Are japanese modules are delivered to NASA ?
- is russian SPP is delivered to NASA?
- etc. - I have seen somewhere such a list, but can't remember where...
- also maybe this information about the status of the individual modules should be added to their respective pages and not in a merged list...
count, places, capabilities of docking locations
Can someone try to count and locate the various docking ports of the current (and future) ISS configuration?
- three PMAs for Shuttle / HIIs
- some docking locations for Soyous/Progress/ATV on Zarya, Zvezda, Pris, UDM, etc.
- one airlock with russian spacesuits, one with both russian and american (are there REALY russian spacesuits in the Quest airlock, or it is only POSSIBLE to use them from there)
Soyouz and Progress flights, brought from NASA
count of Soyouz and Progress flights that NASA has brought from Russia - so we can see how much more are left... This should be stated somewhere in the foundation treatry and/or later annexes...
ISS Secret?
How come we never seem to see the space station on TV or hear about it on the radio or read about it in the papers? Most of the worlds biggest economies are pumping $100 billion into this project and you would think that the goings on up there would be mentioned in the popular mainstream media.
It's as though the thing were a secret.
- OK, two guys spinning about the Earth once every 90 minutes. Very newsworthy. Especially considering that all they seem to do up there is take up space. A 2-man ISS is worthless scientifically and practically. The only point in having them up there has been to maintain "a continuous presence" in space. Consequently, you're lucky if the major media outlets report the crew changes and major crises abord the station. And some of them do. I don't see where you're coming from. --Alexwcovington 10:42, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Well if you have Dish Network or DirecTV (I don't know about Bell ExpressVu) you can watch NASA TV and they have ISS Mission coverage everyday and most of the time the astornauts scheduals seem quite full and busy. As busy as a 2 person crew can get. But I do think that they should increase the crew to 3 as soon as the space shuttle program is running again. Anyway with news stations focused on more "exciting" issuses like scandals, wars, to anything else they think will grab there attention (basically anything with shock value). People don't seem to be that interested in the ISS when the news comes in with there shock stories, scandals, and there ocassional human interest story(aka Pre-recorded time filler). --Silver86 01:48, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Purpose of the ISS
It seems like this section doesn't cover the purpose of the ISS as much as a discussion regarding cost/benefit. Isn't the actual purpose to carry out scientific research in many areas, and to prepare for future missions into deep space? And shouldn't things like that go in the section about the purpose, and cost/benefit into another section?