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Democrats Government ISS NASA United States Politics

Former Rep. Louis Stokes, the Man Who Saved the Space Station, Dies At Age 90 50

Posted by samzenpus from the rest-in-peace dept.
MarkWhittington writes: The Associated Press noted the passing of former Rep. Louis Stokes at the age of 90. Since Stokes was an African American Democrat first elected in 1968, most of the accolades touch on his effect on the civil rights struggle and his lifelong fight against racism. However, as George Abbey, former NASA Director of the Johnson Spaceflight Center and current Fellow in Space Policy at the Baker Institute of Rice University pointed out on his Facebook Page, Stokes can be rightly be said to be the man who saved the International Space Station and perhaps human space flight in America.
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Former Rep. Louis Stokes, the Man Who Saved the Space Station, Dies At Age 90 More

Former Rep. Louis Stokes, the Man Who Saved the Space Station, Dies At Age 90

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  • Why does it matter that he's black? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "I have a dream, that a man will be judged not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character"

    Or whatever the quote was.

    Why do people always feel the need to point out that so-and-so was "An African American such and such" ? Maybe he wasn't even African.

    • "I have a dream, that a man will be judged not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character"

      Or whatever the quote was.

      Why do people always feel the need to point out that so-and-so was "An African American such and such" ? Maybe he wasn't even African.

      I'm guessing TFA noted his ethnicity/color to provide more context for

      most of the accolades touch on his effect on the civil rights struggle and his lifelong fight against racism

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tnk1 ( 899206 )

        That's true, but you could have also written an piece like that which simply said:

        "The man who saved the International Space Station and manned space flight died today."

        I agree that might not have been enough for the AP and a general audience, but I'd love to have seen an article where the only way you realized he was black (or white) was his picture. Seems to me that given all of the people who worked on civil rights, he may well have been more of a standout due to his work to save manned flight than his

        • That's true, but you could have also written an piece like that which simply said:

          "The man who saved the International Space Station and manned space flight died today."

          You're missing the point. The summary attempts to contrast what he is primarily known for with his role in this one area of interest to many Slashdotters.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tnk1 ( 899206 )

            I certainly haven't missed the point. I know why they said that, of course.

            I just think it would be interesting to write a biography of a person like this that purposely ignored that focus and listed the things he worked on as a politician which were not specifically civil rights.

            Look at Bernie Sanders. He worked for civil rights as well, but that fact only seems to come up in context. Both of them were in Congress for decades.

            It may well be hard to separate a person like this from the context of civil r

    • Because when you're being politically correct, anything that has black skin is identified as African-American, even if they're an Australian Aboriginal.

    • A rat done bit my sister Nell.
      (with Whitey on the moon)
      Her face and arms began to swell.
      (and Whitey's on the moon)
      I can't pay no doctor bills.
      (but Whitey's on the moon)
      Ten years from now I'll be payin' still
      While Whitey's on the moon.
      You know, the man jus' upped my rent las' night,
      'cause Whitey's on the moon.
      No hot water, no toilets, no lights,
      but Whitey's on the moon.
      I wonder why he's uppi' me?
      'cause Whitey's on the moon?
      Well I wuz already givin' 'im fifty a week
      And now Whitey's on the moon.
      Taxes takin' my

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by p51d007 ( 656414 )
      Remember a few years back, there was a university, Minnesota I think, that was offering some sort of grant or something to "African Americans". This lady applied online, and went in for the interview and they rejected her because she was white. The kicker is she was born in South Africa, but she and her parents moved to the USA. So technically, she was an African, American...which technically was correct, but not politically correct. Not sure of the outcome, but I thought it was hysterical.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dywolf ( 2673597 )

      Because he was a prominent civil rights activist and elected in 1968 from Ohio, the first black congressman from that state, a state that while considered northern, has had its own share of racial animus over the years, including to this day.

  • Uh... "Saved it" by flip-flopping (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 19, 2015 @03:57PM (#50349837)

    From TFA: "Stokes had voted to kill the space station in 1991 and 1992. However, thanks to lobbying by President Clinton, he switched sides and voted to continue funding the NASA project. Since the measure to kill the space station died by a single vote, Stokes, by switching sides, can rightly be said to have saved the project."

    Oh, and for the 200-300 Hildabeast drones who are going to put up the usual REPUBLICANS HATE EVERYTHING copy-n-paste, please recall that in 1993 both houses of Congress were completely controlled by the Democrats who could do basically anything they wanted without having to worry about those evil evil Republicans getting in the way.

    • Deciding differently after being presented more data is not flip-flopping, it is reasonable.
      On the other hand, stubbornly holding on an opinion, no matter what the facts are, is stupid.

      Flip-flopping is changing the opinion based on polls, aka being a weathervane - which is an inherently opportunistic behavior.

  • Did he really save it, though? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Joe Gillian ( 3683399 ) on Wednesday August 19, 2015 @03:58PM (#50349849)

    From the article, Stokes actually voted twice to kill the ISS, and only switched after political prodding from the Clinton administration. The way the headline is written makes it seem like he was a champion for the ISS the entire time.

  • Is this a good thing? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Wednesday August 19, 2015 @04:16PM (#50350005) Journal
    Please do correct me if I'm factually misinformed; but my impression is that 'saving the ISS' isn't exactly a noble cause when it comes to actually doing [i]science[/i] in and about space.

    I'm personally very much in favor of NASA's role in aeronautics and space R&D(both the necessary delivery systems and the cool exploratory robots we have probing various bits of the solar system and the assorted satellites focused on earth-surface observation and astronomy work that the atmosphere would interfere with); but the ISS seems like the very worst flavor of man-in-a-can makework nonsense. It doesn't even have the cool-and-unprecedented factor of the sending-men-to-the-moon projects; but it consumes a lot of orbital lift capacity to send a rotating crew of humans; and the supplies to support them to a motly collection of hamster tubes in an orbit so low it barely counts as out of the atmosphere.

    Is there any serious defense of the ISS in terms of a results per unit spend or unit lift capacity? It's neat, and it has podcasts, and such; but it had better be a lot of neat to justify all the possible 'send robotic probe to do something' or 'assemble larger telescope in orbit' or other projects that could have been done instead.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It also gives SpaceX and others a target to aim for, and budget to fund it.

      Just think - SpaceX would have to build a low earth orbit launch system so it could go nowhere and do exactly nothing. Oh and with no outside funding.

      Make no mistake. The ISS is a stairstep to space.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by khallow ( 566160 )

        Just think - SpaceX would have to build a low earth orbit launch system so it could go nowhere and do exactly nothing. Oh and with no outside funding.

        Except launch piles of valuable satellites, likely including space stations. Yes, the ISS was convenient for SpaceX, but so would a Mir-sized space station for a hundredth the overall cost (including the cost of extending Space Shuttle missions a decade).

    • The problem is like the Shuttle, ISS was pennywise and pound foolish. Congress wasted much of a decade sending NASA back to the drawing board again and again to reduce the cost of Space Station Freedom, ultimately spending more in these redesign efforts than was saved by down scoping the station, and resulting in a station hampered in its ability to do research. Cancelling the Hab module for example means several racks on Destiny are used to provide ISS life support rather than R&D. The Centrifuge modul

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Is there any serious defense of the ISS in terms of a results per unit spend or unit lift capacity?

      You do realize that ISS has ZERO lift capacity?

      As for science, there is science done on ISS.

      http://science.nasa.gov/scienc... [nasa.gov]

      And no, that experiment would not be possible without ISS because of power demands.

      And without ISS, there would be no Americans in space.. This means ZERO US research on effects of near-space and its environment of living organisms. ZERO other research done by these individuals. No experience in on-orbit assembly of structures. Spacewalks that are routine with ISS were "exception to t

      • The AMS is regarded by many as the only experiment of any merit on the ISS. And it came as an afterthought and almost didn't happen at all.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbIII ( 701233 )

          The AMS is regarded by many as the only experiment of any merit on the ISS. And it came as an afterthought and almost didn't happen at all.

          So is that "many" a bunch that deny climate science, or nearly every other science is of any worth or is the "many" you describe a completely different bunch of luddite pricks that can't think beyond stock prices and cocaine?

      • Additionally, Wikipedia puts the power consumption at between 2 and 2.5kw, less than my home solar setup. It's just bolted to the exterior of the ISS and I don't see why it could not be made as a stand alone system.
      • The ISS has zero lift capacity; but it demands considerable lift capacity to keep it supplied with rotating crew, their consumables, and assorted bits and pieces. Plus the launch of the original modules. That's the 'per unit lift capacity' I'm referring to. We have transported a considerable amount of mass into orbit to have the ISS. Does it compare favorably to other missions that could have been performed with those resources?

    • Is there any serious defense of the ISS

      When the charge you lay against it is "it's just not cool enough"... Why should anyone provide a serious defense to such a ludicrous notion?

      • Where did you get the impression that the charge was 'insufficent coolness'? The charge is 'poor science/cost ratio; maintained at the expense of other possible projects.'

        Manned space activity is actually very, very, good at generating coolness. Possibly too good, when it comes to adjusting the allocation of resources to various projects.

        • Where did you get the impression that the charge was 'insufficent coolness'?

          Try reading what you write, and I quote - "It doesn't even have the cool-and-unprecedented factor".

          • I apologize if I was unclear: my intent with that was to note that 'unprecedented-and-cool' is one virtue that a space project can have, with scientific utility being another, economic value another, defense/intelligence applications, another, and so on. 'Unprecedented-and-cool' isn't terribly high on the hierarchy of virtues, certainly not worth sacrificing real science for; but at least it is something. My point was that, in addition to substantial deficiencies in scientific value, economic utility, etc.

    • +1. Every dollar wasted on the ISS is a dollar not spent on science.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Toshito ( 452851 )

      Oh, not another "but humans in space are a waste, send robots!"

      Robots are cool, and they are useful. But if we sent humans to Mars instead of rovers, they would have done all the exploration and experiments in a matter of days, not months and years.

      You guys are really depressing. Why bother to explore, to travel, to even get out of your house? You can visit almost any street of any big cities in the world with Google Street view, you can do a video conference for free with anyone on earth, you can work from

  • Former Rep. Louis Stokes, the Man Who Saved Space Travel, Dies At Age 90
    By a narrow vote, Stokes gave a small margin in approving funding for new reusable spacecraft. Conceived in early 1970s to make spaceflight routine as air travel, Space Shuttle later was more expensive and required lengthy refurbishment between missions. Many argued if we continued with same Shuttle, we would be stuck in low earth orbit way into the 21st century. The new shuttle design takes into account of many lessons learned of propulsion, thermal protection, and other systems that and should routinely be reused. NASA Administrator Beggs added, "Objective is to explore and expand scientific and economic sphere beyond earth orbit, not repeat what Gargarin and Glenn did 25 years ago."

  • No.. THIS is saving a space station... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03... [nytimes.com]

    I think more could have been done with ISS if it were a little more national/commonwealth.. I could be wrong but it seemed like just another way to send cash/resources TOO other countries(aid etc, and they build x module for 10x the price it would have cost)... Maybe I'm remembering wrong...

    Still 550 Billion/year spent on the military, lets send a few dozen manned "one way'" missions to mars/elsewhere for 1 year instead.

    • With the exception of some elements that were purchased from Russia (Zarya for example) and Soyuz flights, the rest of ISS is operated through barter agreements (e.g. in exchange for the Canada Arm2, Canada gets a certain number of flights to the station)

  • Superconducting Super Collider (Score:4, Interesting)

    by snsh ( 968808 ) on Wednesday August 19, 2015 @04:58PM (#50350297)

    The Space Station (or "waste station", as we used to call it) helped kill the Superconducting Super Collider by taking away research dollars in 1992-1993.

    Manned space flight is ridiculously expensive. The SSC, though greatly less glamorous, would have done a lot more for our understanding of the universe. So I don't see funding the ISS as an accomplishment.

    • But space. Fuckit. I was on a SCSC proposal team and know half a dozen physics grad students who lost their thesis, dropped out and went to work on wallstreet. At least most of them retired a few years later, so that's something.
    • Whoever decided not to fund both "helped kill the Superconducting Super Collider" instead of it having anything at all to do with the ISS.
  • You mean that a Democrat governor was turning the dogs on him, like, yesterday?!?

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