Can't help but think that another reason for the ISS was to keep the Shuttle busy. What else would there have been for it to do besides a few more maintanance missions for the few more complex satellites which could have been launched?

I wonder what it is that takes to keep the ISS flying that takes 2.5+ full-time people. I believe 'em when they say it does, and I believe those folks are busy, I can't imagine what they are doing. "Monitoring systems and performance" would seem to me to be suseptible to automation.

I would think attitude changes would be automated to a large degree. Maybe calculating the orbit and planning for adjustments of that, but that was done on the ground by Mir for long periods.

Dunno. I'd be curious to know if anyone out there has an idea.

Arf