International Space Station 800 known flaws and ...

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/ft ... chive.html

International Space Station more than 800 known flaws and safety violations

http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/ ... TATION.htm

The words are chilling: "The ISS is a disaster waiting to happen."
That statement was written by one of NASA's flight controllers about the International Space Station, the $100 billion project the agency bills as the stepping stone to sending astronauts back to the moon and to Mars.


This just tells me again.. don't wait for NASA.. but wait for the XPRIZE teams... I think NASA won't go to the moon that quick... with the current problems at NASA.; I think there is even more hope with the private business.. compared to NASA itself... can NASA even get the spaceshutle back to work with their needed safety and finish the ISS in time ? I don't think so... I guess their current problems is similar as a few years back... it will ask a larger disaster, (total destruction of the ISS ...) before they will really change...

While... the X PRIZE teams (and other companies not competing for the xprize) are located in more then 1 country, have several ways of handling things.. so the chance this industry progress will slow down is very small... I think their progress can only go up... and in the end... NASA will have to buy their stuff to go to the moon.. they will need that industry.. to afford it... and to succeed with it..., this is of course some opinion and I can't say to myself I'm sure that it's going to happen like this... but I think the chances are high..

Any other ideas ? information ?... or how you think NASA will be in +- 2020 compared to the Private Space Business ?

While I think that a space station is something of a necessity, it is absolutely ridiculous that it was allowed to be built while launch costs are so high. When the price tag is between $5,000 and $10,000 per pound depending on whose math is used it's criminal in my opinion that a single piece of that station was put into orbit. If NASA was going to spend 100 billion dollars on anything over the past 10 years they would have been better off spending that money on better, certainly more cost effective ways of putting stuff into orbit. There should have been a limit imposed on NASA that not a single piece of paper should have been used to even design a space station until launch costs were below at least $100 per pound.

Frankly, I wouldn't put too much stock in this report, seeing as it was written by the Florida Today newspaper. As Keith Cowing of nasawatch.com puts it, "Florida Today's intrepid reporters have published an expose of many hazards which confront the crew of the ISS. Anyone who reads NASA Watch knows that I am not at all hesitant in pointing things like this out, but you'd think Florida Today would at least have someone do a fact and sanity check on some of the things they print - before they print them. What follows [not included] are a few excerpts from Florida Today's "Potential problems and consequences" and some comments about their accuracy. Instead of putting these highly simplified interpretations of data contained within NASA technical documents online, why not publish the actual documents themselves so as to allow these risks and NASA's action/inaction to be seen in context? Facts and reasoned analysis are helpful. Inaccurate arm waving is not."

Bottom line: ISS may be unsafe, but this particular article doesn't prove it.

yes, it's hard to see them scrapping (the technology of) x-33 while keeping the iss alive. it seems like they do space exploration/presence backwards!

they've spent lots of time making their linear aerospikes work only to cancel the program due to problems with the fuel tanks. fair enough, but why don't they introduce the working parts of the x-33 program (aerospikes) into existing rocketry design to get more efficient payload transport? beats me...

seems to me nasa has a problem with constantly jumping on a new idea (because of its promises), chasing that elusive "all-in-one one-size-fits-all" solution while leaving a trail of halffinished cancelled projects behind them while what they should do is to integrate the new stuff they actually made into existing (time-proven) technology - and to do it without making the new goal an overkill

btw does anyone know what plans nasa have for their second generation rlv's now? is their aim of reducing launch costs from $10,000 per pound to about $1,000 gone?

I don't know but I bet it'll take more than a decade and 50 billion.

afaid you're right

Wouldn't it be funny when, halfway through the development of that 2G RLV, they find out they can buy space launches from private ventures at 50 bucks a pound? I soundly believe we will have a solid civilian space sector with orbital and transorbital ability within 50 years of now. In fact, I think we might easily be looking at real space colonization by then. NASA is falling behind...

The answer is no plans. NASA has gotten out of the reusable launch vehicle business, per the President's directive to concentrate on travel to the moon and Mars. The report of the Aldridge Commission (aka "Moon-to-Mars commission"), which will be released on Wednesday, is expected to call upon NASA to cede all launch activities to the private sector wherever practicable.

thanks The Legionnare