Thursday, January 09, 2014

ISS Get Life Extention



Science Recorder posts an article that is certainly good news to ISS fans.  

 NASA officials announced that the White House has agreed to fund the International Space Station  until at least 2024.  Very good news in deed!

NASA has been lobbying  the government to extend the life of the ISS. Operation of the space station was slotted to end by 2021 at which time the station would be set on a controlled re-entry to burn up and what ever was left would crash into the South Pacific.  Yep crashing a 10 billion investment into the ocean.  A machine that took 13 years, more than 100 rocket and shuttle launches, and 160 spacewalks to construct.

From the article:
  • NASA officials maintain that the ISS, ... has provided a unique site for some 1,500 scientific experiments, not only continues to provide a wealth of information relevant to a wide range of scientific disciplines but is a crucial step towards sending humans into deep space.
Of course the continued support won't come cheap.  Each year of the extension will have a price tag of $3 billion, but the alternative is just abandon the multi-billion dollar investment. 

For the complete article, click HERE

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