[RusIvan]

It is not worth it. We'll build our own. +++

DO you know how much it will cost? Today ISS costs like $100 bln and includes many russian vital modules.

If US goes alone she needs to develop those modules from scratch. I think it will up overall costs to 200-300 blns.
It is huge indeed.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Yes, the cost would be high. But the economic key to space exploration is economic space exploitation. There are many economic opportunities in space, far beyond what already has been exploited by satelites. There are unlimited mineral resources out there in the asteroid belt, just waiting to be mined. Massive quantities of solar power could be developed in space, and space is probably going to be the ideal place to construct fusion reactors as well. He3 might be a good feedstock, and there is lots of that on the moon. The key is to develop space resources so that there is a positive cash flow to offset the costs of the infrastructure development. This is the type of thing that the USA does extremely well -- all by ourselves.