NASA's 'Permanent human presence in space'

Monday February 03, 2003 02:29

by Dust in the Wind

Phrase joins 'Challenger' and Titanic's 'God Himself couldn't sink this ship' in annals of arrogance

Before the Titanic began its fatal journey, its owner boasted, "God Himself couldn't sink this ship!". At the sudden conclusion of its maiden journey, Titanic found itself on the surface of the ocean floor.

NASA's 'Permanent human presence in space' joins 'Challenger' and Titanic's 'God Himself couldn't sink this ship' in the annals of human arrogance

Before the Titanic began its fatal journey, its owner boasted, "God Himself couldn't sink this ship!". At the sudden conclusion of its maiden journey, Titanic found itself on the surface of the ocean floor.

Then along came NASA with the space shuttle "Challenger". No one in NASA ever quite had the courage to explain just Who it was that Challenger was supposed to be challenging, but together with its Teacher in Space, Challeger also found its way to the surface of the ocean floor.

Not having learned its Challenger lession, NASA has brought on the International Space Station.

Only 3 months ago, NASA proudly boasted before God and man:

"The world's first international orbital outpost celebrates the second anniversary of continuous residency and permanent human presence in space Saturday, Nov. 2."

Continuous residency and permanent human presence in space?

Ah, pitiful humanity.

After the vaporization of the Zionist in Space and the Columbia space shuttle, it now appears that the International Space Station will have to be vacated, for what period no one yet knows, but the current talk is in terms of years. Someday the Space Station will return to Earth, just as it predecessors Mir and Skylab. When it does, its grave will be - the surface of the ocean floor!

Would it have hurt NASA to say, "Insha'Allah"?

Please note that 3 articles follow:

*FIRST INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION TURNS TWO
*Space station and shuttle missions may be mothballed for years
*Space station schedule in doubt

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(1)

FIRST INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION TURNS TWO
Allard Beutel/Dwayne Brown, Headquarters, Washington;
James Hartsfield, Johnson Space Center
October 31, 2002
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/spacenews/releases/2002/H02-212.html

October 31, 2002

Allard Beutel/Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726

James Hartsfield
Johnson Space Center
281-483-5111

Release: #H02-212

The "terrible twos" aren't so terrible for the International Space Station.

The world's first international orbital outpost celebrates the second anniversary of continuous residency and permanent human presence in space Saturday, Nov. 2. The anniversary marks an ambitious and virtually flawless year of expansion and research in space.

Already the largest, most sophisticated and powerful spacecraft ever built, when its second year of occupancy began in 2001, the station has grown by more than 56,000 pounds in components added during the past 12 months. Over the last two years, the station has grown by more than 200,000 pounds, and its internal volume has increased from that of an efficiency apartment to a three-bedroom house. This year, construction began on the station's backbone, a truss structure that eventually will support almost an acre of solar panels to provide more power for orbital research than ever before.

"The International Space Station was truly spectacular a year ago, but with each new assembly mission -- almost one every month -- it's further enhanced," said Bill Gerstenmaier, International Space Station Program Manager, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston. "Our success in the past two years has been phenomenal. We are blazing a trail in space and on Earth, through research and international cooperation, which can improve lives and expand exploration. We have many challenges ahead, but this team's continued hard work and dedication will build a final facility that eclipses even today's station," he said.

By the end of 2002, the station's truss will stretch almost 133 feet. When completed in 2004, the truss will stretch 356 feet; longer than a football field. This year has seen assembly of the first "space railroad," including a mobile base on the truss for the station's Canadian robotic arm and a "hand car" for spacewalkers.

As the station expands, so does its research capability. Experiments aboard the complex have attained more than 90,000 hours of operating time. Sixty-five U.S. investigations have been launched as well as numerous international studies.

An example of Station-based research recently involved the first-ever soybean crop grown in space. After spending nearly 100 days aboard the Station and returning on a visiting Space Shuttle, the seeds are undergoing several months of chemical and biological tests on Earth to reveal whether their growth in a low-gravity environment changed their chemical composition.

Soybeans are a leading source of protein in the human diet and are used in many products, from oil to crayons. Space Station research, in conjunction with commercial companies, in this area could lead to producing crops that support long-term human presence in space and possibly pave the way for improving crops grown on Earth.

In the past 12 months, 33 people have visited or lived aboard the orbiting complex. A total of 112 visitors have been aboard the station since it was launched, including men and women from six nations. The first crewmembers docked with the Station to begin its permanent occupancy on November 2, 2000. Five three-person crews have lived aboard for durations ranging from four to more than six months. In its second year of occupancy, astronauts and cosmonauts have conducted 16 spacewalks for maintenance and assembly of the Station.

More information about the Station is available on the Internet at: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

-end-

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http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/spacenews/releases/2002/H02-212.html

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Space station and shuttle missions may be mothballed for years
By Charles Arthur Technology Editor
Independent
February 3, 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=375103

For the Americans Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit, and the Russian Nikolai Budarin, the next 24 hours will be lonely. And they could earn the title of the last men in space – for a long time.

They are at present aloft in the orbiting International Space Station (ISS), waiting for the Russian Progress cargo ship launched yesterday to ferry supplies to them. It is scheduled to dock tomorrow to deliver food, equipment, fuel and post.

While they are safe, with enough supplies to last them until June, and a Russian Soyuz rocket is scheduled to go and pick them up in April, whether anyone will follow them up there for years is unclear.

The future of the ISS, and of manned space travel beyond the Earth's orbit, is now uncertain. The failure of the space shuttle Columbia – which disintegrated on re-entry to Earth's atmosphere on Saturday, killing all seven astronauts on board – will almost surely mothball the ISS for about two years. All of Nasa's shuttles have been grounded until the cause is found and rectified.

After Challenger blew up in 1986, 32 months – nearly three years – passed before the next one flew. There is no knowing how long it will take to fixwhatever went wrong this time.

"It is the fate of the ISS that is at stake now," Boris Chertok, a Soviet space pioneer, said. With the shuttles grounded, there are too few Russian Soyuz and Progress rockets available to keep the supply and crewing missions flying.

Sergei Gorbunov, of the Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos, said that while the shuttles were grounded, "work in orbit [on the ISS] will be carried out in a truncated regime". But, he added, "you can forget about further construction on the station until the resumption of American shuttle launches".

The ISS can be left dormant, with nobody on board, for years; it has been designed that way. But that's not what anyone involved in space travel wants.

One former top Nasa administrator said over the weekend that "the space station was intended to help us learn to live long-term in space. If we're going to go to Mars and to the outer planets, we've got to learn how to live for long periods of time in space".

The ISS is a joint project between the US, Russia, Japan and European Space Agency. But it has been suffering cutbacks already – from the expected seven full-time crew to the three now there – and only the US and Russia have had spacecraft capable of actually getting useful goods to it.

And since Saturday, and for an unknown time into the future, it's only Russia. But Russia does not have enough launchers or funds to pick up the slack. If Nasa plans to use Russian craft for crewed missions to the space station, it will have to buy Russian Soyuz TMAs, and those new craft would take two years to build. Russia builds two every year, but, unlike the shuttles, they can be used only once. The shuttles can also carry more cargo into space – 100 tons, against the Progress launchers' five tons.

The only other way for Russia to boost its funds would be to do what it already has, by taking more "space tourists" like the internet entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, who paid $20m (£12m) to travel into space last April. But, after the weekend, demand may slacken.

Grounding the remaining three shuttles will significantly delay the completion of the £65bn space station. Nasa had scheduled five flights this year to ferry components and supplies to the station, whose core structure is only two-thirds finished. Nasa and its international partners had expected the station to become "a research facility with unmatched capabilities" by early next year. Those expectations, added to the presence of the three men on board, may lead to pressure for a quicker resolution than happened after Challenger.

"Obviously the shuttle has to be grounded for a limited time," the Republican James Sensenbrenner, former chairman of the House of Representatives space sub-committee, said. "[But] this investigation ... has got to be done much more quickly than the Challenger investigation."

The possibility is that changes in Nasa's culture in response to Challenger will help. "There's a far more open attitude inside Nasa. We want to know what happened. We want evidence. If it were being run by Dick Cheney, we wouldn't be being told a damn thing," wrote one woman, whose boyfriend works at Nasa.

To add to the complexity, Nasa acquired a new administrator last April, Sean O'Keefe, a former deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, to replace Dan Goldin, the man who had given Nasa the slogan of "faster, better, cheaper".

Mr O'Keefe had made his priorities clear in Senate hearings, where he pushed for fewer crew on the ISS. In one of his first speeches he said: "Our future decisions will be science-driven, not destination-driven."

David Shayler, an American journalist who has written a book on space disasters, said: "The guys who fly these missions accept that risk. It all depends on politicians and the public, who don't fly these missions, and whether they accept the risk. That will tell you whether you have a future space programme or not."

Now, it all comes down to how big a risk it really was to send shuttles into space. And that depends on what emerges from the investigations, which will fill the waking hours of all the Nasa staff for days and weeks to come.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=375103

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Space station schedule in doubt
New Zealand Herald
February 3, 2003
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3099127&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

PARIS - The loss of the Columbia and the halt to further space shuttle flights threatens a temporary shutdown of manned missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and delays in finishing its construction, experts said yesterday.

But officials stressed the current crew of three astronauts - two Americans and one Russian - on board the ISS is not in any immediate danger, although Nasa shuttles have been the main means of transport to and from the station.

"They are not stranded, and if necessary they can be repatriated on board the Russian Soyuz rocket," said Lionel Suchet, an ISS senior official based at the French space agency CNES in the French capital.

The complex always has a three-seater Russian Soyuz vehicle docked to it in case of emergencies.

Russian Nikolai Budarin and Americans Ken Bowersox and Don Petit were due to return to Earth on board the US Space Shuttle Atlantis on March 1.

But Nasa halted shuttle flights until investigators determine what caused the Columbia to disintegrate as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere.

The astronauts have enough supplies to last until late June without a shuttle visit, said Nasa shuttle programme director Ron Dittemore in Houston.

Any long-term interruption of flights would inevitably put at risk future manned missions and consequently the station assembly work, due to be completed in 2006, said Suchet.

A Russian space expert who did not wish to be named said the Columbia catastrophe could force the suspension of manned missions and "the return of the [ISS] crew to Earth and the switching of the station to automatic pilot for an indefinite period".

While Russian Soyuz craft could be used to keep a manned presence on the ISS, there is little for astronauts to do without the shuttle to bring up scientific experiments and components for further construction of the station.

But with only two Soyuz capable of docking with the ISS, a manned presence can be maintained on the ISS for only one year.

Thirty-six astronauts were due to visit the ISS this year on five shuttle flights, and six on two Soyuz flights.

Flights of Russian Progress supply vehicles would also need to be stepped up, according to experts cited by Russia's Ria-Novosti agency, but these take two years to construct.

A Progress flight to the ISS, planned for today, is due to proceed as planned after consultation with Russian officials, Nasa officials said.

The mission is due to take fuel, equipment, food and documents to the crew of the ISS, built mainly by Russia and the US, with the participation of space agencies from Europe, Canada and Japan.

There are no other quick alternatives to replace the shuttle.

A US replacement for the Soyuz, the Orbital Spaceplane, is not due to be ready until 2010.

The Europeans abandoned a manned vehicle for the Ariane-5, and its cargo vehicle will not be ready until next year.

"Europe is dependent on the Russians and Americans to reach the station," said France's junior research minister Claudie Haignere, a former astronaut.

James Newman, Nasa's director of human space programmes in Russia, said that space co-operation between Russia and the United States was bound to intensify.

"It is vital to analyse what happened and eliminate problems in order to ensure safe flights for ISS crews," said Newman, who flew aboard Columbia last year.

Increased use of Soyuz rockets would be a potential windfall for the Russian Space Agency, which has seen its budget shrink drastically since the collapse of the Soviet Union and has sought alternative sources of funding.

Soyuz rockets are used to send Russian crews to the space station for short visits and are also used for emergency escape capsules on the ISS.

US space shuttles have been used to ferry permanent crews back and forth to the station.

After dumping its Mir space station in March 2001, the Russian space programme has concentrated its meagre resources on the 16-nation ISS, a US-led project. Russia has sought to earn money by taking "space tourists" to the ISS, who pay vast sums for a trip into orbit.

But some specialists said development of the unfinished ISS would inevitably be affected.

Boris Morukov, who flew aboard the shuttle Atlantis, said that any alteration of Shuttle timetables would throw back further construction plans.

Roald Sagdeyev, one of Russia's most celebrated space experts, said the effects could be both immediate and long-term.

"This tragedy will without any doubt affect the ISS programme, it already has.

"It is clear that no more shuttles will fly to the station for some time. What happens later is unclear.

"This is a testing time for everyone in the programme. Will they now be able to make proper collective decisions at critical moments?"

- AGENCIES

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3099127&thesection=news&thesubsection=world