Cool animation showing the expansion of the International Space Station from 1998 to 2010.

[onehandle]

http://i.usatoday.net/tech/graphics/iss_timeline/flash.htm

[lob1]

1. That's really cool, but they didn't show the installation of the Cobert

treadmill.

[PhD]

2. Yippee! It'll be finished just in time to start dismantling it!

[comtec]

3. I know, how fucking stupid is that?!

hopefully the rest of the world (the international part) will tell us (the US) to fuck off, and keep it in orbit!
Then keep it up there.
i mean we're giving up on space anyway.
scrapping the shuttle fleet, the only one in existence, with no replacement!
why can't they do that with the fucking military planes?!?!

god forbid we learn more about the universe!

[joshcryer]

5. NASAs new budget extends the ISS until 2020, as long as the Cx'ers don't sabatoge it.

[TheMadMonk]

4. What a boondoggle. Highest achievable cost for minimum acceptable result.

Fact: It cost payload capacity to dump the external fuel tank. More could have been lifted to orbit by bringing it along.

And those tanks represent a hell of a lot of empty gas tight real estate.

With standardised interconnects and services and all that empty cubage the same number of shuttle missions could have given us a much bigger and much more useful orbital foothold with the potential to accomodate dozens or even more.

Combined with the scrapped Shuttle-C (for cargo) what we could have up there hanging over our heads could easily be ten times what's actually up there for not one red cent more.

How much of NASA's money ends up in projects abandoned (strangely enough to DARPA) at the moment they've proven themselves? The SCRAMJET and linear aerospike rocket being the two with the biggest potential to lower launch costs.

How much more goes into building "one of" missions despite the disproportionate success they've had with their very limited forays into cheap standardised mission platforms?

[joshcryer]

6. Yes, but it still ranks up there as one of the top three human achievements period.

[pokerfan]

7. boondoggle is right

Comparison of living volumes:

Skylab: 283 m³
ISS: 373 m³

I probably don't need to remind anyone that Skylab was orbited with a single Saturn V launch.