Frowny Face:

I just read that you are planning to junk the ISS! Frankly, what!? Finally this 100 billion dollar marvel is reaching completion and now its time to let it crash and burn?

Money:

At larger than a football field and at 654,000 pounds, the ISS is the largest aircraft ever created, and unfortunately it costs the most as well. The $100 billion was just the down payment. The cost of launcing a space shuttle is US$1.5 billion a pop. The Obama administration decided that the recurring cost wasn’t worth the price and in their effort to refocus the NASA program cut critical funding for the space station.

Typical:

So in the unfortunately typical manner Washington is changing their mind and wasting years of work. Hopefully, our ISS partners will apply some political pressure, or even better, offer to foot a little more of the bill.

Why:

So, why isn’t the ISS program a total waste of money? Firstly, NASA has a superb record of turning investments into usable, commercially viable, technology. Further, private commercial space travel, the non tourist kind, is banking on lucrative ISS contracts to make their businesses feasible. Not to mention, the importance of the research done at the ISS, they do crazy cool shit up there!