Talk:International Space Station/Archive 5

Speed of the space station
In the wiki the speed of the ISS is cited as "Average speed: 27,685.7 km/h". Can it be assumed that this is the orbit speed of the ISS?


 * To a fair approximation yes, because the station's orbit is nearly circular, so its speed is constant to an accuracy of the order of 1%. More precisely, it should go about 0.5% faster when 1% lower, 0.5% slower when 1% higher, etc.  (Here I mean not really "higher" and "lower", but distance measured from the center of the Earth.)  The orbit is maintained low to make it easily accessible to the shuttle, etc, but high enough to avoid excessive losses due to atmospheric drag.  I think the range of total variation allowed must probably be around 60 km or less (which would be ~1%), though I have not checked the historical records.  There would also be an effect, even smaller, due to the fact that the Earth is not precisely spherical.


 * From this point of view the precision of the average is not very meaningful, and should perhaps be rounded to three digits or so, maybe 27,700 km/h or something like that. I see that this change has already been made in the introductory paragraph, though not in the "Station Statistics" panel on the right.  Wwheaton (talk) 00:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Are any experiments with time sequencing being carried out on the space station related to the theorized time slowing process that should occur due to the increased orbital velocity of the orbital station? WFPMWFPM (talk) 00:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This effect (I assume you are referring to the special relativistic time contraction) has been observed for other satellites, definitely for the GPS constellation (which have good clocks on board and good orbit data), but I am not sure about the ISS. I think it has even been observed for atomic clocks on jet airliners, and the effect would be around 1000 times larger for a low-earth satellite, as it is proportional to the square of the speed. Sorry I can't give a reference. Wwheaton (talk) 22:45, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

===You would think that in this fastest velocity location of human occupancy, the difference in the rate of time passage would be an interesting statistic. Or does every body know what it is but me? WFPMWFPM (talk) 23:56, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

===I once used the 1 second time ticks from the NBS (short wave radio) to time photography exposure times and I'm aware that we live our life spans one second at a time. And I wonder how often the crew on the ISS save a life second. And remember, it's an accumulative process. WFPMWFPM (talk) 04:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It is accummulative, but still quite small. The effect is proportional to the square of 0.5*(v/c), where the speed of the station v is around 8 km/sec, and the speed of light c is 300000 km/s.  This amounts to less than 0.007 sec, if accumulated over a year.  Wwheaton (talk) 19:28, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * There's another effect due to gravity though- down here on Earth our clock runs more slowly due to the gravity field we're in. So when they climb up to the ISS altitude, their clock starts to run a bit faster. I think that's bigger and dominates IRC, but they're of the same order.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I neglected the gravitational effect, considering only speed. I believe the GR (General Relativity) effect at the surface of the Earth is about twice the SR (Special Relativity) effect noted above (and goes in the opposite direction, as you say), but the ISS is almost as deep (~95%) in the Earth's potential well as we are on the surface, so the difference between the ISS clocks and ours here, due to GR, is much smaller.  I think.  I'm not so competent about GR, though.  Wwheaton (talk) 21:46, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Error in Orbital Altitude
In the station statistics section the Orbital Altitude is stated as 101.3kPa - which is a pressure (probably the internal) not a height. Anybody got the Altitude ? Muzzah 14:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it should just be the average of perigee and apogee altitudes (which I just added to the article); that is the same as the altitude of a circular orbit with the same period. --Derlay 23:41, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * No, it varies around the orbit, being generally higher at apogee and lower at perigee. There is also some effect due to the slight oblateness of the Earth, as the Equator bulges out a bit.  But the average altitude is close to the average of the apogee and perigee.  See http://www.heavens-above.com/issheight.asp for the average height for the past year, which varies.  The orbit is reasonably circular, but not exactly.  Therefore the apogee and perigee have no fixed value except at a particular time.  The drag is concentrated mostly at the low point (perigee) if the orbit is strongly enough out-of-round that the apogee and perigee differ by much (which generally they don't).  From the graph at the link it looks like they might have ~330 km as a lower limit to shoot for. Wwheaton (talk) 06:15, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I think there is some problem with unit conversion km<->nm in the station altitude: Typical altitude is higher then apogee in km. Value in nmi is ok (between perigee and apogee).
 * Perigee: 	331.0 km (183.2 nmi)
 * Apogee: 	339.0 km (184.6 nmi)
 * Typical orbit altitude: 	340.5 km (183.86 nmi)

I'm also wandering what is the km/nmi ratio here: Nautical_mile states 1852 m/nmi (or 1828.8 in US rocketry) 213.158.194.224 (talk) 08:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Perigee: 331.0/183.2 = 1806 m/nmi
 * Apogee: 339.0/184.6  = 1836 m/nmi
 * Typical: 340.5/183.86 = 1851 m/nmi

P6 Solar Array issue as an incident
I believe that the incident ocurred during STS-120's mission, on P6 4B Solar Array should be included in the 'incident' list, because: - it's not a minor incident - it put in danger future missions because of power supply for upcoming modules - it required a great effort to be solved --190.136.114.203 23:00, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The rotary joint issue should also be considered. I believe NASA mentioned that the launching of the first Kibo module may have to be delayed if the joint problem can not be resolved. Given the tight schedule to retire the shuttle in FY10, this could be a serious roadblock to completing the ISS. --76.167.43.150 03:35, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

2007 – Damaged starboard Solar Rotary Alpha Joint
I have added a subsection on the starboard SARJ fault, which appeared to be a serious omission, but unfortunately I know almost nothing about it, so it needs a good scrubbing by someone who does. In particular I am confused about the relation of the P6 array problem mentioned above, as this is supposed to be on the starboard ("S") side. I just based it on a "Spaceflight Now" article up today, better sources with more complete information are needed. The bearing is located just between the S3 and S4 truss segments, just before the main array, I believe. It would be great if we had some kind of diagram of the bearing with its large dual redundant gears, trundle bears, races, etc. Wwheaton (talk) 07:29, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I just changed a statement that NASA believes the SARJ problem has been resolved, because there is no evidence that the metal shavings and debris in the SARJ are directly related, and also because the source given expressly states that the motor drives the Beta Gimbal Assembly (BGA) not the alpha joint. It is my understanding (and I could be mistaken, a good diagram of the joint area would be wonderful) that the solar arrays nominally rotate about an axis parallel to the truss axis, once per orbit to maintain orientation with respect to the Sun, as the main axis of the station remains fixed with respect to the Earth, with Node 2 facing forward at all times, and Zvezda astern. I believe the beta joints rotate the arrays around the long axis of the solar panels, to keep them from facing the Sun edgewise. It seems to me that these joints need only rotate slowly to follow the precession of the orbit plane, but I am not certain about that. (It also seems to me that there must be two beta joints on each side, for the two major array units on each side?) A definitive answer from someone more knowledgeable would help. Wwheaton (talk) 06:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Minor Incidents
I believe that two problems should be remove from the list (2001 – 6A Anomaly and 2007 – BGA 1a Primary Power Loss), both are irrelevant because none threaten the evacuation of the space station as all the others.

Should we removed it ? Y-E-S. Onsly 03:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The article is now at 85kB. That really isn't a problem, but the size of the article was the first thing I thought of; should we start thinking about moving this material to a new article & just summarize it here? Just a thought. E_dog95'   Hi ' 04:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't believe we need a new article showing "all the problems that happened up there", we should just delete the two minor problems from the actual article and forget about it. Onsly 23:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onsly (talk • contribs)
 * OK. I read a few of the references regarding these incidents. As you said, they're not major incidents, but I'm neutral on whether they stay or go. I'd like to hear from some of the other regular contributors to the article before we axe anything. Cheers E_dog95'   Hi ' 12:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I think we should scrap that 2001 6a incident, but I think the BGA 1a is relevant in the context of the SARJ failure. Normally this BGA failure would have been a low priority issue, but due to the SARJ failure and the upcoming launches of the ESA/JAXA labs this one became an immediate priority for EVA work in January. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The BGA thing isn't related to the SARJ failure, anyways I'm excluding both right now. There's no need for them. Onsly 16:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Griffin speech
In Remarks to the Space Transportation Association 22 January 2008 NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin made several comments about ISS which might be worthy of inclusion in the article: throughout four presidential administrations and twenty-plus Congressional votes authorizing tens of billions of dollars for its development, the ISS has remained an established feature of U.S. space policy. We are, of course, concerned that Station operating costs after 2016 will detract from our next major milestone, returning to the Moon by 2020. But while the budget does not presently allocate funds for operating ISS beyond 2016, we are taking no action to preclude it. ...think “Space Station”, in terms of mass. I hope we’re smart enough that we never again try to place such a large system in orbit by doing it in twenty-ton chunks. I think we all understand that fewer launches of larger payloads requiring less on-orbit integration are to be preferred. The last seems particularly appropriate for inclusion in the article! (sdsds - talk) 18:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It looks like space junk. Aliens would vaporise it to keep the space clean. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.191.107.197 (talk) 17:19, 10 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I favor a shanty town, modified and growing organically, not designed years (& G$) in advance. Read A. C. Clarke's Islands in the Sky for the alternative view, but there was one giant wheel at 1-g, for tourists and passers-through, and the real working station at 0-g, which was a mess.  My reasons are flexibility, and because that is the way we will learn how to live in space cost-effectively: what works and what does not.  Elegance is not what we want at this stage of the game. It's a bit risky, but it is worth it not to price ourself into oblivion.  Wwheaton (talk) 19:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Attitude vs altitude
I've seen a few changes back and forth between attitude control and altitude control. Just to clarify, it is attitude control. No permanent module on board the ISS, such as the MLM, will have the capability to control the station's altitude. Altitude change requires significant thrust which can only be delivered by the craft visiting the station such as the shuttle and soyuz craft. It may not seem right at first glance, but attitude is an appropriate term for the orientation of the station to the Earth's horizon. It's not a typo. aremisasling (talk) 17:29, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * This is one of the reasons I think the "Altitude control" section should be retitled "Orbit". The ISS has some little propulsion capability (it can move a few km to avoid debris I think), but not much, as it is basically ballistic (? $$\Delta_V$$  capability would be an interesting thing to specify -- depends on mass of propellant that happens to be on board and mass at a given time).  A bigger effect is variations in drag due to changes in the upper atmosphere density due to solar heating, due to variations in UV flux.  Changes in solar panel orientation are also a factor in drag.  The first three orbital parameters, semi-major axis a, inclination i, and eccentricity e, are nearly constant with e=0, i=53.6 deg, a~6680 km and variable with time due to drag & reboosts. The other three are variable in ways that are essentially not controlled or just meaningless (ie, argument of perigee for a nearly circular orbit). "Attitude" really is controllable, and its control is constant and essential, involving large and complex on-board systems.  Cheers, Wwheaton (talk) 19:04, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Modules tables
It seems to me that there should be a column in the tables listing the modules to show the nation or space program of origin. Almost every "purpose" entry has this information, despite it not relating to the purpose of the module at all. If this would add too many columns, then I would suggest removing the "docking date" column, or rolling it into the "launch date" column. I think it's understood that a module will dock several days after it was launched, plus this column is obviously useless for all of the unlaunched modules. 66.74.216.218 (talk) 04:51, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * To avoid having to remove columns, nationality should be denoted by small flag images. (with the EU flag for ESA) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:23, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I've switched the docking date column to one for the module's nationality, as suggested - how's that looking? Colds7ream (talk) 15:22, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Kennedy Space Centre
I changed it from "Centre" to "Center," as that's the way both NASA.gov and google earth spell it. 72.195.189.98 (talk) 11:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I've changed it to "KSC", to avoid any possible dispute. --GW_SimulationsUser Page 11:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Volume
We have a listing of 454 m3, but how big (or small) is that, exactly? It would be helpful if readers had something which compares to the ISS for interior space. It is, after all, an orbiting lab, office, and house!

Plus, all units of measure in the article should be in SI and Imperial. 68Kustom (talk) 09:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I think there is no unique way to go from volume in 3-dimensions to area, which is normally used for surface buildings. One could pick a typical ceiling height for a surface structure (3 meters, maybe?) and divide by that to get an area of 150 sq meters (about 4500 sq feet), comparable to a fairly large house. Because of the 5 m (15 ft) diameter of the shuttle payload bay, habitable modules are essentially limited to that cross section.  A uniform tube of that size would have a length of about 20 m (65 ft).  Better might be to take the cube root of the volume, here a bit less than 8 m (~25 feet), to get the general size of a compact structure of the same volume. Short of specifying the detailed dimensions of every habitable component, I don't see a simple way to do much better. Wwheaton (talk) 14:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, saying that the ISS has about as much room inside as a six-room house is, I think, more descriptive (and human) than mere data. If we're to keep up interest in the space program, especially in children, we gotta talk about how people live and work Up There!  I recommend you add your results to the article. 68Kustom (talk) 04:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Mass in pounds?
The table in the Pressurized(sic) Modules section gives the mass of each module in Kilograms and, bizarrely, in pounds. Surely some mistake? Markb (talk) 12:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Nope. The pound is a unit both of mass and of force.  Schoop (talk) 19:26, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Clearly science has moved on! When I was at school in the 70's we where taught that a pound was a weight, where as a kilogram was a unit of mass. when did this change? Markb (talk) 06:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * According to the pound (mass) and pound-force articles, the pound has been a unit of mass since about 1300, while the pound-force dates back only to the 1700's. The relationship between the two is based on earth's gravity, and both are defined in terms of SI units.  Ot, you could read the pound (mass) article yourself instead of taking my word for it. Schoop (talk) 12:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

ISS Operation After Retirement of Space Shuttle?
In this article, it is said that ISS is planned to operate until 2016. In the article on Space Shuttle, it is said that Space Shuttles are scheduled to be retired in 2010. What will happen to ISS after 2010 without space shuttles? CuriousOliver (talk) 13:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It will be serviced by Soyuz, Progress, ATV and later HTV. The shuttle was only ever really critical for the construction phase. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Life on ISS
For our one day to be written "living on a space station article".. the sleep station in Destiny: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Temporary_Sleep_Station.jpg --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Another image we can use there: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Daniel_Tani_in_ISS_sleeping_bag.jpg --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:36, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

United Kingdom and the ISS
The flagbar in the infobox indicates that the United Kingdom is an ISS partner. Is this really the case? The ESA website says otherwise:


 * "The Intergovernmental Agreement, establishing the International Space Station cooperative framework, has been signed by fourteen governments: the United States of America, Canada, Japan, the Russian Federation, and ten Member States of the European Space Agency (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland)."

Can someone explain? -- Nidator T / C 16:40, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No idea. The flags is simply the banner used by NASA for every Expedition crew photo. It's a good question though. I guess someone at NASA messed up. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * That could be, but it is also on the image of cover page of the Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement. I'm confused. -- Nidator T / C 15:24, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Originally the UK wanted to be part of the ISS, but then they bailed out and have not contributed to it. The flags where not changed though. Themanwithoutapast (talk) 17:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Can someone confirm that the official language is English?
I have read the citation http://www.nasaexplores.com/show2_articlea.php?id=04-016 and it makes no mention that the official language is English, it talks about how astronauts have to learn each others languages so that they can communicate better. Am proposing that the language used by the astronauts is mostly English but most of the astronaut are multi-lingual and can communicate in different languages. Perun09 (talk) 11:20, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. As far as I know the communication is russian between ISS and Moskou, and english for all the other ground communications. The language onboard usually depends on how many russians are on board. If the majority is russian then the interperson communication is usually russian, but if there is only one russian then its usually english. With the increase in International partners onboard the station, its mostly English these days, but i do not think that there is ANY official language. Well perhaps because the modules are much like "embassy territories in space", the module you are in does have an "official language". So Russian in russian modules, English in american modules. But i doubt anyone cares. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:20, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I could also imagine that Non-convergent discourse occurs between the crew members (depending on their knowledge of the other language) --GluonBall (talk) 10:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Sighting
I have a photo of mission STS-116 where Discovery was docked with ISS that I took in December 2006. I think it may be used in the Sighting section. The said photo is available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fongky/322573770/

--Fongky (talk) 04:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Toilet malfunction
With this edit User:Onsly removed from the article discussion of the current toilet malfunction. I agree that material doesn't need to be in this (already over-long) article, but it would be a great addition at Environmental_Control_and_Life_Support_System! (sdsds - talk) 04:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Construction Costs
People are constantly changing the 100 billion EUR figure to USD. This is not correct. There is no USD figure. The only source mentioning a total overall estimated cost is ESA which of course quotes that estimate in EUR. The USD figure presented in the lead in is a conversion of this estimate into USD. Themanwithoutapast (talk) 07:16, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If that is the case the figure should be presented in € since the conversion is different depending on when it's made.U5K0 (talk) 17:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

ESA's cost estimate gets removed frequently, lastly with the explanation this is a 2005 estimate and in EUR in thus not valid. In fact it is still the current ESA estimate as of 2008 and the only official source of a cost estimate for the whole project (not just ESA's contribution) and thus very significant, especially in light of frequent media articles quoting a 100 billion USD estimate which is mainly a misquote of the ESA estimate. 83.215.3.71 (talk) 11:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The construction costs are not only available in Euros. Read the cost section carefully and you'll see that the construction costs are more complicated than just a single estimate made in 2005 by the ESA. The majority of the funding has been in US Dollars and given the huge change in exchange rates from 2005 the ESA estimate is flawed in 2008 and does not warrent high placement in this article. It is still included in the ESA section of costs where it belongs. 70.170.125.247 (talk) 21:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no official source of construction costs beside the ESA estimate. The cost section (I actually wrote most of it) is an attempt to reconstruct that estimate, but honestly is no replacement for the official estimate of ESA. Exchange rate changes can be disregarded if we just state the 100 billion EUR estimate without converting it to USD. Including the cost estimate in the ESA cost section is misleading, as the cost estimate is ESA's overall cost projections. Themanwithoutapast (talk) 07:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I want to quote the edit summary that an anonymous user has used three times in an effort to remove the cost entries altogether: "The ESA cost estimate of €100 billion made in 2005 reflects an out-of-date and misleading estimate of costs associated with the Space Station. The primary source of funds has been US dollars." There are a few things that bother me with the rationale provided for this removal of material:


 * "Out of date" - 2005 is not very long ago
 * "Misleading" - ''It is accurate enough for what we're doing - This is something that is significant to the readers of the article
 * "Primary source of funds has been US dollars" - Whose money it is has little impact...Yes, a breakdown of contributors is good, but to remove the section based on the fact that the US has been the major source of funding is not legitimate. E_dog95'''   Hi ' 19:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The facts are:

1.) The United States has been the largest contributor (80% of the total expenses as of 2005) of funding to the ISS and that those funds are allocated and spent as US Dollars.

2.) Quoting the total expenses in Euros versus US Dollars is very misleading because the total costs change significantly when the exchange rates between the Euro and the Dollar move further apart. If by 2005 NASA had already spent $100 billion dollars on the ISS (quoted from the costs section of the article) and the exchange rate was 1.25 Dollars to the Euro the cost be €80 billion plus the €20 billion the ESA estimates they and other parties contributed giving us the €100 billion figure quoted in the article.  But in 2008, that same $100 billion spent by NASA with an exchange of 1.56 Dollars to the Euro, the cost would now be €64 billion plus that same €20 billion from the ESA and would make the total costs only €84 billion.  That is nineteen-percent difference in total costs just because of the fluctuation in exchange rates.

3.) A nineteen-percent change in costs is significant and needs to be reflected in this article for 2008. Additionally, quoting the cost in Euros does not adequately respect the contributions of the taxpayers of the United States of America.

I believe that moving that part of the article which quotes the costs in Euros be placed in the section on ESA costs and to be correct and a logical edit to this article.

70.170.125.247 (talk) 21:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Here at wikipedia, we normally not start edit wars (remove things a lot of times) before issues are resolved. The sections in question have been in the article for months if not years. So I suggest, you do not remove them again until this dispute is resolved. To address your point again, exchange rates do not matter, for ESA the estimate was 100 billion EUR over the lifetime of the project in 2005 Euros. It is the only official source of a total cost reflection and is not misleading. The cost section alone is an attempt to reconstruct this estimate, but is definetly only original research. Official cost estimates are better than original research in an article, so I again want to leave it in. I would say we have a decision by vote: I am for


 * Keep reasons as stated above. Themanwithoutapast (talk) 21:53, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia allows for people all over the world to make changes to articles as they see various events and other factors influence the facts found in text of an article. Unfortunately, there are times when two editors see the facts differently. In this case, I see a significant error in statement of fact by the above editor who is unwilling to allow for any changes to be made in this article. How can it be that a 19% change in total costs not be a significant event to make a change in this article? Exchange rates do matter and matter a lot in business and government affairs. In this case the amounts spent by the largest contributor to the ISS is being ignored.


 * Change reasons as stated above. 70.170.125.247 (talk) 22:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep The nature of Wikipedia encourages us to say what the references say. In this case it's from http://www.esa.int/esaHS/ESAQHA0VMOC_iss_0.html. I don't think the text on that webpage is misleading; average readers are aware of exchange rates. So in terms of Ref, I would like to see the text quoting the €100 billion stay. E_dog95'   Hi ' 22:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment - The article should be very careful to alert readers that the cost estimate is probably inaccurate, and that there probably does not exist an accurate, published estimate of the cost. Just as one tiny example: construction of ISS was dependent upon the development of the Proton launch vehicle. How much of that development cost did ESA include in their estimate? How much should be included in the cost of ISS construction? Whose rules of accounting would we be using? (sdsds - talk) 02:57, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Change The person who writes on exchange rates having an impact on total costs makes a valid point. 65.173.88.159 (talk) 06:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment - The estimate should be in US Dollars for the reasons stated above; if the bulk of the cost is allocated as US Dollars this becomes the predominant source of funding and should therefore be used as the currency to use when documenting the overall project cost. Further, the ESA estimate is dated at this point, and should not be the sole source from which to determine the cost of the ISS.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.109.49.80 (talk) 01:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I count 2 wiki-users that have been registered as keeping the reference, one also citing a wikipedia policy, and 2 anonymous comments (could thus be from the same person) as well as an unsigned comment. Someone just removed the cost estimate once again. I disagree, but I give up. The boulevard media will without doubt cite the construction costs of the ISS with "100 billion USD" anyway, no matter how often people try to say, that's not the case. The ESA estimate would have provided an official statement to construction costs which is no unappropriately in the section of ESA's cost contribution, a section were noone would suspect a total cost estimate to be. Themanwithoutapast (talk) 07:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Criticism section
The criticism section, especially the paragraphs on 'spin-offs' reads too much like two wiki editors debating. All criticisms and 'rebuttals' need to be attributed to notable 3rd parties and all unsourced opinions removed. Ashmoo (talk) 11:53, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Griffin e-mail on ISS/shuttle scheduling problems
The following article http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=29133 from Sept 7, 2008 on spaceref.com, is fairly appalling to contemplate. I am not sure how this should be addressed in the ISS article, but it seems worthy of some note. Wwheaton (talk) 16:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Hearing no suggestions, I have summarized Griffin's 18 Aug e-mail in the the "Future of the ISS" section of the article. Wwheaton (talk) 07:30, 12 September 2008 (UTC)