“Is there anything you can do on the space station that you can’t do by locking yourself in your car for a few days?” That was Tom Bodett’s quip this morning on “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” (the NPR news quiz) following a story on the recent space tourist’s reports from her trip to the station. This is actually a pretty potent question – the scientific merits of the space station have long been questionable. As an act of full disclosure, I once wrote a letter to my Connecticut Congresswoman when I was first a grad student asking that she support the station (it was up for a defunding vote in Congress). In hindsight, I was an ignorant student blinded by “Star Trek”. With more experience behind me, I understand the difference between spending $10 billion on a project that continuously delivers fundamental science to our planet and spending $10 billion on a floating summer home.
Way to go, Tom.
