Mission: LEO

So, we've spent quite a bit of money putting the thing up there and have seen very little in the way of science conducted. I mean really, if the blame for its uselessness rests soley with the grounding of the shuttle fleet, then the entire ISS plan was flawed from the beginning for not having a secondary system. That's the Golden Rule, isn't it? Have a back-up plan in case the first plan doesn't work?
I ran a Wendy's restaurant for a time. THEY had a contingency plan for every eventuality when it came to serving $1 hamburgers, why wouldn't the same rule apply when we're dealing with billions of dollars in hardware, not to mention human lives?
Anyway, a moot point. It is what it is and I support it wholeheartedly. At least it is a permanent human presence in Space. A grand accomplishment for all the participants.
With that said, check this out:
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/exp10_mission_page.html
The link will remain good beyond tonight, but if you have just logged on to check this out, at midnight tonight (03/27/05, eastern standard time), you can watch live feed of the latest spacewalk being conducted by the ISS Expedition 10 crew.
According to www.Space.com :


"The crewmembers of the tenth expedition to the International Space Station are counting down to what is slated to be the final spacewalk of their six-month mission.
ISS Expedition 10 commander Leroy Chiao and flight engineer Salizhan Sharipov are expected to leave the confines of the space station at about 1:25 a.m. EST (0625 GMT) on March 28."

I realize the ISS has failed to live up to the wild imaginations of myself and millions of people just like me, but that doesn't make what they are doing up there any less stunning. And seeing it live is awe-inspiring to say the least.
I remember watching Story Musgrave perform maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope years ago. For me it was no less inspiring on a small, 13 inch television than it would have been in person. The feat was made all the more incredible when, years later, I discovered he had spent 16 years in the Astronaut Corp before making his first flight!
Today, Musgrave is a legend at NASA, and beyond.

Who knows what further grand accomplishments will be made by Chiao and Sharipov? But if you tune in tonight, you just might get to watch it happen, instead of hearing about it later.

p.s.--The link remains a good source of information about ISS; all past stories prepared by reporters for Space.com, and links to others. Check it out.