Space questions, iss?

Question

My question is, with NASA's focus on the moon, mars, and beyond, can the international space station remain a relevant par of the united states space program? Why or why not?

please include some website or something where i can find reference and where on the page it is. <--- please do if u can :)

Answer 1

Well, it can still relevant, since obviously there's a need for a space station orbiting Earth to act as a relay station for mission elsewhere. Plus the I.S.S. is basically next door.

The problem is, so far I have seen no big publicity on I.S.S. Beta or even an I.S.S. successor.

It's possible they want to keep the I.S.S. in operation for a few decades (2010's, 2020's, and maybe even 2030's).

Either that or they will scrap the whole program (hand it over to a private hand or bring it down) for a Moon station program.

The Moon is only around 3 days of travel (Apollo era) in comparison of around 2 days of travel to the I.S.S. (Soyuz era), so there's only 1 extra day for travelling to the Moon. Also if the space hardware developed quite nicely, then it would be relatively easy to travel to the Moon



While there's no big publicity on I.S.S. Beta or even an I.S.S. successor, I have seen some big publicities on private space stations, especially on private Earth orbit crafts.

Maybe N.A.S.A. planned to hand over the developing, the building, and the operating of Earth orbiting space stations into private hands?

After all, N.A.S.A. was ordered to stop developing on the TransHab. Leaving Bigelow Aerospace to pick up on where N.A.S.A. left with TransHab, with perharps in the future N.A.S.A. buy products from Bigelow Aerospace .

Answer 2

Your question suggests that the ISS might not be revalent to future expeditions to other planets, and or the Moon...

That is not correct.

Voyages to the distant planets and possibly beyond will require enormous stocks of consumeable supplies and fuels.
It is not practical to launch all of the required supplies in one vehicle, rather, the most practical solution would be to send up as much as is practical and drop it off at the ISS. When sufficient stores are gathered, the space ship would launch from Earth, dock at the ISS, collect all of the materials and then disconnect from the ISS to blast off into space.

There is a fixed limit to the amount of things one can launch and accelerate to escape velocity at one time. If you wish to carry more supplies than that, you need more fuel to power your ship up to Escape Velocity. If you need more fuel, your ship will have to be bigger to carry it. If your ship is bigger, it will weigh more, and that also takes more fuel to accelerate it.
So you need a bigger ship to carry that extra fuel, and the extra fuel, plus the larger ship will all weigh more. So you need more fuel to accelerate it to Escape velocity. Etc., Etc.

The trick is to build stock piles in space at the ISS.

Answer 3

Well just the last space mission they have installed and repaired parts on the ISS ... so it's been kept up to date relatively well

Answer 4

http://www.space.com/internationalspacestation/