What's the Purpose of the International Space Station?

Chang'an is about the size of the smallest mere space station, which was de-orbited in 2001. Some think that though that China's hope is that the space station will provide critical insight into crude missions to the moon and maybe eventually Mars. They just completed assembly, so it's brand spanking new. There's many benefits compared to the aging ISS. I saw a comparison of the inside of an ISS module, and it looked like a chaotic data center with quartz and wires and consoles everywhere. Oh, wow. It's good Feng Shui.