Talk:International Space Station/Archive 1

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Marcos Pontes

Is Marcos Pontes a crew or not of Expedition 13? I am brazilian and I know he is the first brazilian in space!

Pontes is not a member of the Expedition 13 crew, but he is a member of the crew of Soyuz TMA-8. Essentially, he flies up with Expedition 13, then flies back with the returning Expedition 12 next week. Shimgray | talk | 16:13, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

List of visitors

Is this in any particular order? Would someone mind ordering it chronologically if not? Mr. Jones 15:23, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I tentatively removed the list, on the thoughts that 1) it's not very useful; 2) it's visually horrendous, and 3) all of the information is duplicated at List of human spaceflights. - Seth Ilys 15:28, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Update needed!

The International Space Station is the second most-visited...

This comment under 'ISS Expeditions' needs to be updated since the Discovery trip. Kember 23:28, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Criticism of the Project or Non-sequitir?

There are many critics who argue that the $100 billion USD would be better spent providing food and clean water for the 24,000 people who die every day on Earth from malnutrition and starvation.

This is a non sequitur with regards to the ISS in particular, in that it could be applied to any expenditure. It is also a piece of rhetoric and advocacy, not a neutral description of criticism of the ISS. --FOo

No, the ISS is a particularly heavily criticized boondoggle, and the space program in general has been criticized in this way since it's beginnings. It is also an absolutely neutral factual statement. It is hardly a 'non sequitur' - look at the article on particle physics where similar statements are made and properly balanced. Anything that spents tens of billions of dollars and gives back no clear benefit to the people that are taxed to pay for it is subject to this kind of general criticism - it's a matter of scale.

Also, if you want to read 'rhetoric' and 'advocacy', just read the article on Wikipedia itself. It's a mess that basically promotes the hell out of itself. That error should not be carried over into all discussions of the ways science and technology are supposed to be useful to us 'eventually' (even if we died waiting). See scientism.

Disappointed that my famine sentence has been removed - it was factual and restored some neutrality to the page which I thought had a pro-exploration bias. While I agree that the argument could be applied to any expenditure, it is particularly pertinent to the space station - 24,000 people die every day from hunger on Earth and spending that much so that a few dozen humans can spend some time in a high-tech tin can seems to symbolise the poor sense of reality many scientists have developed. I'm not against space exploration or science - just think that we should address problems on Earth first. As for the statement being rhetoric and advocacy - I'm sure the starving millions would disagree if they had the resources to. And given that someone dies from hunger every 3.6 seconds, I don't think they would think much of the argument that the space station will bring benefits in the longer term.

The starving millions are not starving because of the ISS, and it is completely unfair to single it out. Leaving aside the argument as to whether it's lack of aid or, as seems to be the case depressingly often, war and corruption, that is responsible for world hunger, there are innumerable other places of arguably less long-term value where funding could be found from. Why not argue that, say, funding for opera, sports, or national parks, should be cut to pay for aid? --Robert Merkel

I concur with Robert Merkel's point. Considering what this country thows away in food each year (Sources: Americans alone are throwing away $100 billion worth of food each year, Each American Wastes 300 Pounds of Food Per Year or Americans waste 14% of food they purchase), it's not a valid argument. This is especially true when it has taken well over two decades for an international community to design, plan, negotiate, construct, assemble, manage and operate the ISS at the same cost point -- $100 billion -- that is routinely wasted in just one years' time by a single country. WSpaceport 17:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Especially "profesional" or commercial sports (like paying ridicuols salaries to players), or the entertainment industry. We spend a LOT more on those, they have fewer benefits if any. Mir 06:00, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This same argument can be used forever to stifle any endeavour that man ever plans to embark upon. There will always be problems on earth and it is naive and short sighted to believe that not building the ISS will do anything for those who are starving. Some even believe that giving up the pursuit of dreams will spell the beginning of the end for us. Besides the fact that there are many other earth bound things ranging from the mundane (e.g. buerocracy) to entertainment, which are also expensive and could also be deemed unnecessary, what will the engineers and scientists do, who work in the space program, if it would be cancelled? If they are out of work, this also costs money. If they work for another company designing some other stuff that eventually might make our lives easier or more entertaining, what does this cost and does this help the 3rd world? 85.176.99.68 21:08, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Excessive political correctness?

While I am all against discrimatory(?) language, isn't the latest change to crewed (from manned, as in manned spaceflight) a bit overzealous? As far as I know, manned spaceflight carries a bit more implications than just not-woman. Crewed spaceflight somehow doesn't sound right in my ears --UsagiYojimbo

It is difficult to over-emphasize the value of using gender-neutral terms and phrases. Doing so is *not* "excessive political correctness." Appropriate use of these terms is merely correct, and inappropriate use of gender-biased terms is simply incorrect. If "crewed" is awkward, I suggest using "with a human crew." Sdsds 08:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

After my edit to improve the gender neutrality of this article, the log shows: "16:22, 2 January 2007 Cjosefy (Talk | contribs) m (rv - manned is not a gender specific term and is accepted terminology in situations like this.)" Cjosefy did not choose to edit this "talk" page, so we have only that user's edit summary, as shown above, to help us understand the reason for the re-edit. In response to Cjosefy: whereas "manned" may be 'accepted terminology' at Baptist-affiliated universities in Waco, Texas, it is certainly not accepted terminology here in Washington State. Nor do I believe it is the preferred terminology used e.g. by NASA. Why do you insist upon using it, when a gender-neutral phrase like, "with a human crew" is available and, to most readers, not overly burdensome? Sdsds 23:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• The adjective "manned" is not acceptable in Washington State? NASA has changed some references to human spaceflight, but they haven't tried to eliminate references to a "manned mission" or other such things. The fact is you are pushing this POV, while the vast majority of readers obviously are ok with "manned" in certain instances. Cjosefy 17:51, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

As Neil Armstrong almost said, "Your edit is one small change by a man, one giant leap backwards for humankind." You have made Wikipedia that much less palatable for those like myself with a gender-neutral view of human accomplishments in space. Sdsds 00:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Readers interested in this topic might want to review how terminology about human spaceflight has changed over time. For example, some of the earliest documents describing plans for such activity in the U.S. described it as "The Man in Space Program."[1]. Some, perhaps Cjoesfy among them, would say this usage of 'Man' is not offensively sexist. Certainly at the time, it wasn't considered to be so by the authors of that document. Yet most of us with modern sensibilities prefer terminology which is "easier on the psyche" of young, female readers. Those readers, less familiar with historical usages, might inadvertantly think their gender precluded them from being one of the "men" who went into space. They might also think their gender would prevent them from "manning" a space station. But there would be little doubt in their minds that they would be equally welcome as part of a station's "human crew," or its "inhabitants." Yet Cjosefy reverts edits that use gender-neutral phrases like these. Like any loyal Wikipedian, I strive to hold the belief that Cjosefy's intentions are good. That notwithstanding, I (obviously) consider Cjosefy's edits misguided. Sdsds 01:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Is the definition of "manned" wrong? If it is not, then it cannot be a gender-biased term. You do a disservice to females when you assume that they can understand the word "inhabitants" but not "manned." When did it become normal for society to conform to the lowest common denominator?
• Something you haven't touched on is that no one ever uses the term "manned" to describe something that is exclusively male. While early space flights may have only been performed by men, NASA did not select the term "manned spaceflight" because they knew it would only be guys up there. They selected it because it means that people would perform spaceflight. You've come along and assigned a gender to a word that has none by definition and decided that it is harmful to women.
• I guess it's sad that I'm part of the "minority" that assumes women can read and understand the correct meanings of English words. When you assume that their fragile psyches cannot possibly withstand reading the word "manned" you are doing them more harm than good. Have you asked around outside of your circle of influence as to whether this one word has harmed women? I wonder how we ended up having female astronauts when they had to grow up reading about "manned spaceflight." It's a miracle they even exist.
• In any event, good luck with the crusade. There are thousands of more pages you need to cleanse. Cjosefy 16:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

See usage note 3/4 the way down the page in a grey box at [2] which I believe is from the American heritage dictionary. It clearly says that the origin of "manned" comes from a gender-neutral term and a majority of their usage panel supports its use. This isn't to pass a value judgment, but to point out that the word by definition is a gender-neutral term, no matter what your interpretation may be, and also that significant portions of learned individuals support its use in certain situations. As I've argued all along, the use of "manned" in reference to spaceflight is a legitimate use. I'm not arguing for always use man based terms or anything of the sort, just that its use in certain contexts makes sense and is accepted. Cjosefy 12:52, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with Cjosefy in that the term "manned" is not technically gender biased, I must protest its deliberate use here. There is no good reason why we should use the word "manned" instead of using "crewed" or "with a humane crew", and, though it obviously isn't stopping woman from becoming astronauts, it does have gender biased connotaions that contribute, to some extent, to the general bias of the world's population. Thus, we have no good reason to use the term and at least one reason not to. Vsst 00:50, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Europe and Japan

Hmm, the contributions of Europe and Japan seem to be somewhat downplayed in this article.

• Same with Canada's. I didn't see the Canadarm mentioned at all in the entire article. --Matt0401 18:38, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

The most important criticism of the space station is that it actually is rather scaled back. All the people will be doing is research. The whole *point* of having a permanently manned space station has always been to also be able to do in-space construction!

In the long run, if you want to see people living in space, you're going to need to expand the capabilities of the space station by quite a bit.

Request for statistics and other numbers

How fast does it travel? How long does it take to orbit the earth? -- Tarquin 14:22, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

What Time zone is it using? Kember 02:49, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

laser brooms

The cited articles mention that laser brooms will be kept low power to avoid even inadvertently infringing on treaties against deploying weapons in space. Their purpose is to clear away "space junk" which can threaten the space station due to extremely high-speed collisions. Plautus however, begins his edit with phrasing similar to "it has been proposed to install weapons on the space station". An outright distortion.

By the way, it is not a distortion to present this as a weapons system. The tests will be low-powered, but the final system will be capable of vaporizing targets in space (or on the ground via mirrors). But more about this elsewhere, I have a contribution to write. - Plautus satire 01:17, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Plautus has done this several times before. He is bluffing by presenting an external link and hoping that no one will actually click and read the linked article. - Curps 00:55, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I didn't mean to post a misleading article, I misread the article in my haste, I thought they were doing ground tests of a space-based system, since they talk about the ISS. My mistake, I'm sorry about that, I wasn't trying to deceive anyone. - Plautus satire 01:17, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There is no point in rewriting Plautus's text about laser brooms in a more NPOV fashion because it is entirely superfluous detail. One might as well write about the space station's solar panels, life-support systems, zero-gravity toilets or any of the hundreds and hundreds of other much more key subsystems on board, and make the article ten times as long. Plautus's purpose in introducing this text about laser brooms of all things is purely in support of his conspiracy theories (eg, the Hubble space telescope is really a spy telescope). It deserves removal on grounds of marginal relevance even if he had written it in an NPOV way. A separate laser broom page is the place to put this material. - Curps 01:02, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This is true, I'm sorry I was so persistent trying to get this in there, I admit I was wrong. - Plautus satire 01:17, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It gets even better. Rereading the two articles cited by Plautus his original edit... this is a ground-based system that won't even be installed on the space station. - Curps 01:10, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Ouch. I guess I have to bite the bullet and admit I was wrong here. This is another lesson about posting in haste. I'll try to learn from this. Thanks for catching this error, this "laser broom" deserves an entry all its own. - Plautus satire 01:14, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'll also apologize for not giving you the benefit of the doubt, Curps, I thought you were still watchdogging some of my topics as per the orders on the ban plautus pages (so I assumed the worst - Plautus satire 01:19, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)). - Plautus satire 01:18, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hey, MyRedDice, thanks for turning my bungled edition into something that I for one appreciate. I think this deserves a mention, but I didn't feel it was my place after my recent blunder. - Plautus satire 01:28, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Plautus. Perhaps you could help us improve the laser broom article, which is currently quite a short stub? Martin 01:31, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

First ever spacewalk with whole crew

While NASA says "the first ever two-man spacewalk without a crewmember inside" [3], that's misleading because Soyuz 26 had both of its crew outside, transferring from one vehicle to another and the NASA wording gives the impression that it was first ever rather than only first for ISS. Jamesday 02:32, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)