Yeh ... and the US announced something er other about wanting to shut the Space Station down in 2015...
Ain't going to happen. The Russkies have the operations stuff down pat, they've got a LOT of on orbit expertise, and the ESA and JAXA have a lot of money invested in those labs.
Now that the heavy lifting is tapering off and the construction phases are close to done, meaning a sizeable crew can be on station for extended periods, why not use it. It cost enough, it's there, and it's an excellent platform for on orbit construction. OK, the orbit is too low, but it's an asset to be leveraged. We may not have the technology or the will for a manned Mars landing, but just having a 24x7x365.25 platform is good. There are a lot of worthwhile exploration opportunities. With private ventures such as SpaceX starting to come on line we could make some money out of this. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/10/japan_htv_launch/ What have you done for me lately? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/ISS_STS-128_Zenith.jpg ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
