Value of ISS

Countdown to launch of space shuttle carrying European science lab, The Guardian

“Though drastically scaled down by a string of budget cuts, the space station is a crucial nursery slope for future space missions, such as the Bush administration’s much-publicised hopes for a moonbase and a crewed voyage to Mars, said Cowing. “You’ve got to practise things first. To say the purpose of the space station is to be fixed is to some extent true. There’s a difference between sitting down here and thinking ‘will this work in space’ versus being there and testing it out in real conditions.”