Unfortunately, much of the station’s potential has yet to be unlocked. The one thing it has given us for sure is a better understanding of how to (and how not to) build a spacecraft in orbit. The word is that NASA may reinstate the alpha magnetic spectrometer flight to the station by using the funding allocated for a contingency shuttle flight, assuming of course that we never have to launch a contingency flight. That would at least give us some direct benefit from operating the station. Beyond that, ISS has at least given us insight into the difficulties we’ll face in keeping a spacecraft running during any long-term manned missions that go beyond earth.
Thanks for his reply. I know little about the alpha magnetic spectrometer, and will research it.