President Bush is expected to announce today a new space policy that includes revamping U.S.-funded scientific research conducted aboard the International Space Station.
Senior administration sources said Mr. Bush wants to shift research focus to human space-exploration efforts. Missions will be directed outward from Earth to the moon and, eventually, Mars and asteroids. The sources said assets on the space station will be focused on meeting that goal.
Just as the U.S. space shuttle fleet is retired to make way for a new vehicle to carry humans into space, the space station will find itself reoriented to a more focused set of tasks, sources said.
Some existing or planned research will be either scaled back or canceled, sources said. The new focus will be to ensure humans can spend long periods of time safely and productively in space as they travel to and from distant destinations, such as Mars.
The current emphasis of U.S. space research is a mix of material, physical and life sciences.
When President Reagan first proposed the space station, the project was designed to address political, industrial and geopolitical interests. Mr. Reagan’s plan was part Cold War diplomacy, part national pride and part science.
In the years that followed, the space station’s design, cost, mission and even name changed many times. Each change inevitably added to the cost and delayed construction. Original station plans called for completion in 1992, on the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the New World, at a cost of $8 billion. Now, some 20 years since Mr. Reagan proposed the project on Jan. 25, 1984, the station remains under construction and will not be completed until later this decade. Current projections peg its eventual cost at more than $100 billion.
The delays and cost overruns — although they have produced some scientific achievements — have served to make backing the station a constant challenge to its supporters in Congress and the Bush administration.
Supporters have called the station a crowning achievement of human space technology, noting that it has melded many space-faring powers into the largest, most complex vehicle ever to be placed in Earth’s orbit. Yet, the station’s shortcomings loom large and its completion date remains undetermined.
Completion traditionally has been defined as the point at which all of the modules developed by the United States, Europe, Canada and Japan are in place — and when most of the core equipment, to be provided by Russia, is delivered. This includes the U.S. centrifuge module being developed by Japan. All of these modules and systems probably still will be accommodated, but expansion beyond this configuration is unlikely, sources said.
Though the European Space Agency, Japan, Canada and Russia all have their own respective station assets — and plans for them — it is all but certain that their research will undergo substantial changes as they adapt to the aftereffects of the Bush plan.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration will reverse several long-standing research priorities for the project. During the summer of 2001, officials reviewed extensively what was being done on the space station and why. The activity, called Remap, or Research Maximization and Prioritization, struggled to develop a prioritized ranking. The final report on the effort, completed last year, managed only to take all of the existing projects and list them all as essentially high priority. Only one item was considered for termination.
Soon, NASA will begin another such effort. This time, however, any U.S. station research that does not directly support the life science questions needed to certify humans for long-duration interplanetary trips will be marked for reduced emphasis or termination.
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