[Frank_Discussion]

Over a TWENTY-PLUS Year Life Span!!! Not only is the 100 Billion figure inflated, it's misleading! An average of $5 billion a year to maintain a foothold in space is pretty frickin' cheap, considering it is a government program.

Folks, don't get wrong here: Private enterprise will and MUST bust down the gates to the settlement and use of space. However, the ISS-bashing is about as inane as it gets.

NASA has been forced to run on vapors for a decade - it still built a space station. The program has had to suffer the deadweight of international cooperation and the batterings from Dan Goldin who regarded it his own person political football.

[NonZeroSum]

An average of $5 billion a year to maintain a foothold in space is pretty frickin' cheap, considering it is a government program.

Not when you consider how trivial a level of activity it supports. It's outrageously expensive. For that kind of money we should, could have hundreds, even thousands of people in orbit.