Scrutable

The International Space Station (ISS) could suffer "irreparable" failures due to outdated equipment and hardware, a Russian official has warned.

At least 80 percent of in-flight systems on the Russian segment of the ISS had passed their expiry date, Vladimir Solovyov told state media.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58408911

What a waste it's been. It's purpose was to give the shuttle a role. The shuttle's purpose was to build and service the space station.

Has it done anything useful? And did those useful things need to be done in 2000-2020, when they can be done so much cheaper in 2030-2050?

Like the switch from ICE to EV cars, there's a natural transition point in space - the time when we go fully robotic instead of the current robot-human mix. We should accelerate it, even if robots aren't quite as good at this point.

lpm wrote: Wed Sep 01, 2021 1:33 pm Has it done anything useful? And did those useful things need to be done in 2000-2020, when they can be done so much cheaper in 2030-2050?
d at this point.

It was a platform for some atmospheric science experiments like JEM/SMILES that wouldn't have flown without it, tracking things like climate change effects on upper atmospheric chemistry and ozone depletion. Those are epoch dependent measurements.

Those experiments didn't need humans after installation, but they did need a large pre-existing platform with sufficient power and communication resources, and probably wouldn't have been given a dedicated satellite platform opportunity otherwise.

That's one post-hoc justification. Not sufficient on its own, of course.