What’s it cost to send a pressurized garbage truck to the ISS? You don’t want to ask . . .

Photo above - "Danger Will Robinson!" . . . we're not actually discovering anything new on the ISS

LAST month it was the heart rending saga of the 2 astronauts who couldn’t get home because their Boeing Starliner spacecraft was broken. Yeah, we try to avoid flying on Boeing too, back here on earth. No matter, Butch and Suni came back last week on the same Starliner which was deemed broken and unreliable. After nearly a year “stranded”. (“This-is-some-bull-shit” . . . Harry Vanderspiegel)

Today’s story is about the Cygnus space garbage truck that can’t fly. See link below. Before you blame some American SNAFU or Musk or Bezos, please note that America's space dumpster comes from Italy. The Cygnus cargo module – bringing up fresh water and Tang, bringing back empty bottles and cans for recycling – was damaged on its maiden voyage from Italy to NASA. It needs extensive repairs. Amazon was apparently not involved this time.

All this would be hilarious, except it costs $11,000 per pound to send cargo into orbit. (Live astronauts could be more).

I would carp that NASA’s $30 billion annual budget (not including climate change studies and ginormous space telescopes and the Boeing X37 spy spaceplane) seems trivial. Except that the numbers don’t add up. Even if you spent EVERY penny of NASA’s budget on fuel and launches this only accounts for a few hundred tons of cargo and astronauts. If you go the NASA website, it's surprisingly devoid of numbers, for an agency that relies on math so much. It smells like swamp gas, in fact.

I was very excited about space exploration when I was in school. This was going to finally make us modern, peaceful and smart. Like Star Trek. Or maybe the TV series “Lost in Space” (Sorry, bad analogy). Wait, almost every episode of these shows featured some sort of space battle, didn't it?

The big reveal from the return of astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams was that Butch can’t even stand up on his own after 10 months in zero gravity. Well, we knew that already. But Suni appeared to age 10 years in 10 months. Her first excursion upon her return may be to ULTA or Sephora . . .

Seriously . . . when was the last time the ISS gave us any groundbreaking discoveries? Velcro? Freeze dried ice cream? That the only plants which will grow in space are kale and lettuce? Nothing helps get us to Mars. In fact a 3 year-round trip will probably kill those valiant GS 13 federal employees in spacesuits (they make $65,000-$100,000 annually). 3 years in space would probably mean you not only couldn’t walk when you got back, you might even not be able to breathe unassisted. Then there’s the massive radiation dosage they will absorb during the trip.

This is the real reason we haven’t gone back to the moon (with astronauts), or even made a half hearted attempt to reach Mars. Despite Elon Musk’s zany enthusiasm. NASA still hasn't solved the basics: artificial gravity, radiation protection, and garbage removal.

The next NASA launch – not involving cargo and garbage - will be SpaceX-11 in July. The Boeing
Starliner is safe-ish, but NASA is still pivoting to Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. The kind he’s using a couple of times a month send up more Starlink Satellites. There were 2 successful Starlink launches so far in March. About half of the 12,000 planned internet satellites are already in orbit, and the vast majority are still working. The last Falcon 9 launch failure was in July 2024. It was only carrying Starlink satellites, not people or garbage. So . . . no blood, no foul.

I’ve gone from being a futurist and optimist about NASA to being a skeptic. We aren’t learning anything important from the ISS. We seem to be rolling the dice on getting our astronauts up there and back safely. You come back weak as a kitten. And it costs $11,000 a pound just to take out the garbage. The ISS is on the verge of springing a catastrophic leak, and being a death trap. Why are we even posing with Russian Cosmonauts for photo ops up there? This would be like taking selfies with Hitler's dirigible pilots during World War 2 . . .

I’m more enthused about the Boeing X37 spy spaceplane. It’s evidently providing a treasure trove of info for the military. It’s so awesome that China and Russia are experimenting with armed killer satellites to take it out. Can you see the X37 from the ISS porthole? Monitor its transmissions? Inquiring minds want to know . . .

Wait . . . I’m not that enthused about the Boeing X37 after all. Space exploration doesn’t seem in any way related to mankind's quest for peace and knowledge. It’s about spying, military tech, and killer satellites. Who do I write to in DC to voice my disapproval? Don’t say the Department of Government Efficiency. Elon Musk has a possible conflict of interest.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

NASA cancels cargo launch to ISS due to damaged Cygnus spacecraft

What are Launch Costs? (with pictures)