Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Say what?!?!?

NASA plans on dumping the ISS into the Pacific Ocean in 2016.

Well, there's another portion of our tax dollars completely wasted. I'm not sure the cost ($100 billion dollars when everything is counted up) will be recouped in the next six years or so. Surely the ISS needs to remain in orbit well beyond 2016.

4 comments:

Genomic Repairman said...

Holy crap, but I guess with us an many nations involved facing budget shortfalls it is likely to happen. Its hard to say to a kid, "lets go watch them fire of a rocket into space," while their school library is shutting down. But it would be a travesty to let this amazing human creation just become another piece of monetary policy-induced detritus.

Philip H. said...

So how about sharing those sentiments with your Congressmen?

Tom said...

Philip, I will. I have emailed my Congressmen more times this year than in all my other years combined. Between the stimulus, health care, and this ... it's been quite a year.

Genomic Repairman said...

Man Mir was cheap and wasn't that thing in space for like 30 years. It was Russian construction using the redneck staples of the day: duct tape and BondO, that held that darn thing together for so long. Can they not at least maybe leave it orbiting, even if unmanned rather than take it down?