"Ridiculously expensive and without real purpose." ---Russian government reason for cancelling their BURAN shuttle program.

Evidently the Ruskies had more wisdom and better judgement than NASA.

So now we are witnessing still another huge waste of money to, among other things, pick up waste (garbage) from an orbiting financial black hole with no end in sight.   

Incredibly, the Shuttles were to service a Space Station which itself is not likely to fulfill any of the reasons given for building it in the first place. 

The ISS design lacks centrifuge capability and therefore cannot even simulate gravity conditions on the Moon or Mars to study long term effects in those environments.   Remember the grand orbiting pinwheel design once envisioned for the future?    Nope, the ISS is only  zero-G.   So the "science" of space travel to, and survival on, other worlds cannot really be assessed up there.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002419621_spacestation04.html

http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/Station/Slides/sld098b.htm  (cost of ISS)

Launching billion dollar Space Shuttles whose only purpose is to service something which doesn't have a purpose is getting very hard to justify.

The major derived value now appears to be "jobs on Earth," politicized in various congressional venues, where the vested interest in maintaining the program is aimed primarily at ripping off the taxpayer.

That our billion dollar Shuttle is hauling garbage back to Earth is an ironic symbol for a project that no longer has any real purpose. 

Reading the link you supplied i find that the only criticism of the ISS which supports your conclusion comes from some history professor. The actuality of the purpose and utility of this station is given by someone who can be assumed to know more of what he is actually talking about, the "Apollo program professor of Aeronautics" at MIT, Laurence Young, who refutes your point much better than I could:

(Young) said in an interview before the Discovery launch that finishing the job is important for other reasons. Medical scientists need to know what impact space radiation has on humans, and what constant weightlessness does to the body during years of travel in space. Otherwise, there's not much point in planning a trip to Mars. 

"It's the only place now to do research on extended duration, with multiple human subjects, exploring microgravity. I believe that if we shut down the space station, in a few years we'll have the science and technology community asking to build a new one," Young said.

We already know how humans are affected by living in an environment with gravity---what we have much less knowledge about is humans living in a environment *without* gravity---intermediate points between earth-gravity and no gravity can be intellegently calculated *if* we have sufficiernt information concerning the ends of the spectrum, as it were.  This is why zero/micro grav research is so important--and why study of intermittant gravities between those two points is less so.

You make good points, but I take issue with the value of the ISS for studying the effects on the human body of prolonged exposure to zero G.  Hasn't this already been studied to death?  The short story is that the muscles and bones deteriorate in pretty much the way you would expect the human body to adjust to its environment.  What's not used atrophies.

I see nothing on the horizon (not even remotely) in the way of a "magic bullet" that would slow or halt this process.

The fact that the body is capable of "recovering" from this condition after returning to a gravity field is of small solice.  The recovery period is long, and "full" recovery is a crap shoot.  I would never subject by body to such severe changes under those circumstances.

I think it's pretty clear by now that long term manned space flight will require simulated gravity.  And until a 'theory of everything' is discovered and we, perhaps, learn to synthesize gravity, it will have to be simulated by rotation.

As such, we would do better to direct our research towards how to build large rotating habitats in space than to dump billions into the current ISS.

Just my opinion of course.

Both points are valid, I do think we need some sort of space station, although I do think the ISS leaves a lot to be desired.  I'm not sure it's really feasable though to have one that rotates.  That would entail other problems that might be cost prohibitive.  The ISS is a cracker box.  It certainly couldn't stand much rotation, it would fall apart.  You would need a much stronger design. 

As for the shuttle, it is certainly too costly and close to complete obsolesence.  I have wished for some time that NASA would take a lesson from people like Burt Rutan.  I realize that Space Ship One could never make it to the ISS or any other station, or even into orbit.  And it couldn't carry much cargo.  What I envision would be a much scaled-up version.  But the concept is the same.  A much cheaper way into space, in a much less complicated vehicle. 

I must admit I have mixed emotions about the shuttle.  I loved seeing it take off and land and the videos of the astronauts working on the Hubble and other things.  But it is certainly way too costly and dangerous.

You're right that the ISS couldn't stand rotation.  That just means that, like so many government projects, it has become obsolete before it was even completed.

What do they care?  They are spending other people's money.

Our R&D should be directed towards building large rotating structures in space to support long term missions, both in orbit and beyond.  That, and establishing a base on the Moon, whose relatively shallow gravity well makes it an ideal fueling station and jump off point for deep space missions.