NASA goes metric! The ISS remains in limbo.
It appears NASA has used the metric system extensively since 1990, but now they've decided to not use anything else. NASA finally goes metric, so what a good oportunity to rant this is.
How about the funding? In 2002 the entire NASA funding was less than 15 billion, in 2006 it reached 16.5 billion. The total cost of the war in Iraq is 350 billion and climbing, with an estimated 600 billion in 2010. The International Space Station seems lost in bureaucracy limbo, and this site suggests the highly inflated figure of its cost reaches 100 billion. So what does that mean? That we could have skipped the Iraq war altogether and build six space stations instead? I am sure this is not the case. Because actually building six stations instead of one would have used only once the cost of design, aproximately the same people and each part would have been built cheaper than the ones before. Critics say that the cost of the ISS goes well above the first cost estimations and compare it to MIR, which has cost only 4.3billion. Well, that may be true, but doesn't that mean that we could have skipped the war in Iraq altogether (well, actually not all of it, Kuweit still had to be liberated) and build over 100 MIR stations?! Or finance 30 years of NASA budgets!
Well, had to be done. I feel much better now. Thank you, I will pay for the damages.
How about the funding? In 2002 the entire NASA funding was less than 15 billion, in 2006 it reached 16.5 billion. The total cost of the war in Iraq is 350 billion and climbing, with an estimated 600 billion in 2010. The International Space Station seems lost in bureaucracy limbo, and this site suggests the highly inflated figure of its cost reaches 100 billion. So what does that mean? That we could have skipped the Iraq war altogether and build six space stations instead? I am sure this is not the case. Because actually building six stations instead of one would have used only once the cost of design, aproximately the same people and each part would have been built cheaper than the ones before. Critics say that the cost of the ISS goes well above the first cost estimations and compare it to MIR, which has cost only 4.3billion. Well, that may be true, but doesn't that mean that we could have skipped the war in Iraq altogether (well, actually not all of it, Kuweit still had to be liberated) and build over 100 MIR stations?! Or finance 30 years of NASA budgets!
Well, had to be done. I feel much better now. Thank you, I will pay for the damages.
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