Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!fluke!ssc-vax!eder
From: eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Uses of Space Station
Message-ID: <2195@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 30 Aug 88 17:58:58 GMT
References: <1365@eos.UUCP> <13294@jumbo.dec.com> <1765@eneevax.UUCP>
Organization: Boeing Aerospace Corp., Seattle WA
Lines: 28

In article <1765@eneevax.UUCP>, kerog@eneevax.UUCP (Keith Rogers) writes:
> 
>  POINTLESS MISSIONS?!!!  How can you say that!  You know as well as the
> rest of us that the space station could serve as a platform for establishing
> a permanent manned lunar base, and that with a lunar base we could ship into
>earth orbit almost all the materials necessary to build solar power satellites,
> which are  far from useless.  It could also serve as a base for and help 
> develop technologies for missions to go get high metal-content asteroids from
> the belt to assuage future materials shortages.  The other *points* to 

A space station might serve as a staging point for further missions, but
the current international Space Station "Freedom" design does not.  It
is designed to be a set of three laboratories (US, European, Japanese)
plus a support platform for observational (earth and astronomical) science.

If you want a service station for orbital transfer vehicles so you can
refuel them, repair them, and put new payloads on them, you have to
design for that.

"Space Station" is as generic a term as "building" is on Earth.  Building
covers both research laboratories and gas stations, but their functions
are not interchangeable.  The same goes for a Space Station.


-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +100m altitude, Earth