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[b]Augustine:[/b] Is ISS of any value to the astronauts if indeed it is not of value to the science community? I overstated that for the point of the question. [b]Lindsey[/b]: Space station right now is a fantastic vehicle that is primarily operated by the ground. Any vehicle that we build to go interplanetary has to be autonomous in nature. Those are the lessons we need to learn. So, for example with ISS, one of the things we could do with ISS that we ought to learn how to operate that spacecraft autonomously. And I have heard this suggested before, so its certainly not my idea, but build a 20 minute delay into the communications of the ISS and go practice working autonomously. There are a number of things we can learn [from] ISS. Right now we are learning extensive lessons on ISS for any type of future exploration. We are fixing systems that we never thought we could fix, we are learning right now with six person crew how we do provisioning, how a crew handles obviously long duration missions together and all the issues that go with that. From an international perspective, we're learning an incredible amount. So we are already learning so much today for interplanetary [missions] that it is really hard for me to measure but I could talk to you all day the lessons we are already learning. I think there are many things we can look at in the future for ISS. There [is] potential, again, this radiation thing*, we can answer that on ISS and I think that's important. So I think ISS can be utilized for long duration preparations and for long duration missions.
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