The politicians opposed to the Freedom Space Station more or less had their cross hairs well centered on it (it was poised for cancellation). Vice President Gore saved the Freedom Space Station from termination by recasting it as the ISS through Russian involvement. The space station's mission was no longer about science or functioning as a "floating dry dock in space". Instead, the ISS was focused on keeping idle Russian aerospace engineers busy.
The Devil finds work for idle hands.
The U.S. politicians were afraid that unemployed Russian aerospace engineers would design and build nuclear tipped ballistic missiles for the Iranians. The ISS was supposed to distract the Russians from this activity. Of course, it didn't. The Russians happily took our money and then turned around to the Iranians and took their money as well (What a surprise!).
Gary
Space/Science » in reply to I wish we would've left the Russians out of the station program.
There are reasons why the ISS is a white elephant
The whole thread (27 posts)
- The lost and forgotten missions
- Somehow an appropriate place to put this
- Saturn V