Realizing the Research Potential of the ISS Once and for All

This is great news.. Although it would also make a great plot to a movie.. Picture a world were aids is cured but to only the people that can afford to purchase drugs made in space .. Riots and chaos Ensue The next James Cameron movie? On a serious note wow actual an scientific discovery from the ISS FINALLY! Until now most viewed at it as little more than a 6 month stay at the space hotel where all the rooms have the best view.better late than never I guess?

I don't think it takes a huge centralized microgravity space station in order to grow crystals.

If you want to reduce the cost then take the $2 billion a year away from the ISS program and use it to fund multiple customized HLV launched Skylab-like microgravity space stations that could be individually customized and launched for private companies (for research, commercial products, or tourism), NASA, the military, and friendly governments.

Seriously, I'd give the ISS to Russia, Europe, and Japan for free, if they really want to keep it going! And I'd use that money to fund a real space station program!

Marcel F. Williams

Editor's note: so ... let me get this right: the ISS exists and is virtually completed, the research hardware and personnel are onboard - and you want to take $2 billion away from ISS and go build more (new) space stations with taxpayer dollars and re-create an existing capability? Makes no sense.

take the $2 billion a year away from the ISS program and use it to fund multiple customized HLV launched Skylab-like microgravity space stations

Big Pharma could bypass the tens of billions of NASA funds and a decade of development time needed for an HLV and instead fly a DragonLab in 2012 for a couple hundred mil, or an Almaz service module, or if they needed more lab space, lease a Bigelow BA-330 in 2014.

Or I guess NASA could use a payload rack-sized crystal growth experiment as an excuse to develop a heavy lift launch vehicle. That way Senator Shelby would support it.

Editor's note: or they could do both. Some processes lend themselves to human tending while others do just fine in an automated fashion.

So they grew this crystal in orbit. I wonder how delicate these kinds of crystals are? Was the shuttle necessary to get it back to earth for analysis? Could the crystal have survived a non-shuttle (aka a capsule) landing?

OK - just to clear up confusion in at least two of the posts, this research didn't involve ISS or space at all. Keith was simply pointing out an area that ISS *may* have helped with, and why aren't we using it more (since it's there and we payed for it).

P.S. Check out the comments on the Reuters page - makes me despair at the backwardness and small-mindedness.

As far as utilisation of microgravity is concerned we are only just beginning to scratch the surface. But with respect to Bio-Sciences (my speciality) Space and Lunar Habitats will be a life saver. Literally. I am surprised that our GM experiments have not gone horribly awry... well more horribly awry than they have already:

"In 2002, GM pharmaceutical maize produced by ProdiGene, Inc. contaminated maize and soybean fields in Iowa and Nebraska. As a result, 155 acres of maize and $3 million worth of soybeans had to be destroyed. "
http://www.grain.org/research_files/contamination.pdf

But a Terrestrial Mars sample receiving laboratory? Really how stupid can you get. Even if Mars is dead Dead DEAD! would you risk the entire biosphere? Another area is minimal Ecosystems in a really closed environment. That may be handy the way things are going...

You can put the dunce cape on me now. :-( I totally missed the part where Keith said the crystals were grown on earth.