Talk:International Space Station/Archive 1

message: 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)
thread_title:  Marcos Pontes 

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

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Criticism of the Project or Non-sequitir? 

message: 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)
replies: text: See usage note 3/4 the way down the page in a grey box at  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)
thread_title:  Excessive political correctness? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Europe and Japan

message: How fast does it travel? How long does it take to orbit the earth? -- Tarquin 14:22, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for statistics and other numbers 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  [[laser broom]]s 

message: While NASA says "the first ever two-man spacewalk without a crewmember inside" , 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)
thread_title: First ever spacewalk with whole crew