HST v ISS; scientists v engineers; robots v humans
An interesting debate!
Several things about the ISS: it has become a destination in its own right; it has no specific goal which means if it had one and it had been reached (like the Moon in 1969), it would be dropped as well. The ISS' immense merit is the possibility for it to have its goals re-oriented, its owners changed, its purposes re-adapted....and it still up there, orbiting the Earth at the first place where humans can spend some time above Earth. And it has an out-of-this-world view.