Hmmm!

Justin, you're right!
The ISS at this stage is boring.
Boredom also afflicted most of the voyages Christopher Columbus took.
There were the odd storms of course, and the near mutinies, but the voyages
were mostly humdrum and knee-scraping hardwork in dangerous, cramped, stinking conditions. Sound familiar?

Oh, yes!
The voyages of Columbus were not
intended to be for ADVENTURE, EXCITEMENT....That was the last thing
on Colombus's mind... The PRIME AGENDA for the voyages of Columbus were for COMMERCIAL purposes; specifically for SPICES.
When the spice agenda failed to
materialize, Columbus and his successors turned to looking for gold and slaves.

Am I agreeing with Kim's arguements?
Yes, and no!
NASA PR over the past thirty years
touted first the shuttle, then the "spacelab" [frequently send up onboard
one of the shuttles], and the ISS
as great places to manufacture exotic ceramic-metal alloys, superlight & strong foam-metal, 'perfect' ballbearings, cancer, HIV & diabetes curing pharmaceuticals, etc...
Well...The promises have not
materialized over these past twenty years of shuttle & spacelab missions.
But I would agree with Kim that,
inspite of those disapppointments, we shouldn't give up on the ISS as the means to achieve very useful scientific
research & discovery sometime in the future.
Who knew [in the 1830's] that when Michael Faraday was tinkering around in his lab with electric batteries, coils of wire & pieces of iron that it would lead to the technological world of today.
Michael Faraday, and other scientists
in the past 3-4 centuries, usually "experimented for the sake
of experimenting" & not to invent something useful like a television or computer. But, their 'pure science'
research and activities usually
did result in useful products...over time...even if it meant decades later.

As far as exploration goes? It's upto
you to convince George Bush and your
congress to cough up the money to send human beings to Mars, instead of robots...
So far, those who advocate sending
unmanned probes instead of humans to Mars have the President's & congress's ear...Those advocates have the more persuasive arguments so far.

Jacob