International Space Station

As mentioned in the Benson article in the textbook, the International Space Station is iconic in the history of man kind’s exploration of space.  It is the culmination of hard work from countries all over the world, including the U.S., Canada, Russia, European nations, and Japan.  However, as also mentioned in the article, the ISS has yet to prove very much worth to space exploration, other than draining billions of dollars in funding.  It is the single most expensive thing ever built and it is completely underused.  It has sat at low-earth orbit for years without contributing much at all.  In order to utilize its assets, NASA and the rest of the world’s space programs, must choose to send the space station elsewhere in order to collect more data on things yet to be discovered in space.  There is talk of moving the station to the moon’s orbit, however, the moon has already be explored several times in the past; once again, proving this idea to be useless.  I propose that NASA moves the station into Mars’ orbit.  Colonizing Mars has always been a hot topic in the space exploration forum, and if humanity continues to treat the earth the way it has for the past decades, a new planet may need to be colonized.  NASA must take steps into further exploration of Mars if there is ever to be a back-up plan.