Shuttle
poised, space station's future is weighed
Late
and over budget, its scientific value is questioned
By
JOHN SCHWARTZ
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Once
again, the shuttle Discovery is about to blast into space. And once again, it
will dock with the International Space Station as astronauts continue building
the half-completed orbiting laboratory in a mission full of daunting challenges.
But
the majesty of the first nighttime liftoff in more than four years, now scheduled
for Thursday, will not dispel a question that has long been the subject of sharp
debate among experts: What is the space station for?
In
1998, when its first components were launched as a replacement for the Mir, a
worn-out Soviet-era relic, the station was billed as a manned science lab of nearly
unlimited potential, with promises of advances in areas such as pharmaceuticals
thanks to the ultrapure crystals that could be grown in a microgravity environment.
It
was to be finished by 2004, and it was to cost about $40 billion, shared by 16
nations, including the United States, Canada, Russia and the European Union.
Those
goals are barely recognizable now. As the Columbia catastrophe forced a 2 1/2-half-year
delay in construction missions by the shuttle fleet, and as cost overruns and
changing presidential administrations forced NASA to rethink its entire science
mission, the station's price tag has ballooned to $100 billion and the completion
date has moved to 2010.
And
questions about the station's scientific value have grown sharper than ever. David
Goldston, the departing chief of staff for the House Science Committee, said in
an interview that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration now seemed
more motivated by the need to satisfy its commitments to international partners
than by any compelling scientific objectives.
"I've
never heard anyone say, 'We have to do this because it's important for the future
of the U.S. space program or science,' " Goldston said.
NASA
officials, while focusing heavily on the next generation of space vehicles, insist
that today's space system is a crucial element of building tomorrow's.
In
particular, they say, the station is essential for researching the potential effects
of prolonged weightlessness on astronauts: A round trip to Mars, as envisioned
by President Bush in his long-term goals for human spaceflight, would take at
least two years.
But
the agency has sharply cut back plans for scientific experiments. Plans have been
canceled to take equipment such as a 10-ton centrifuge module, which was developed
by the Japanese space agency and which could spin to produce artificial gravity
for experiments on small animals.
The
budget crunch for the program is so pronounced that this year, the station program
manager, Michael Suffredini, looked into having all NASA science experiments aboard
the station shut down during the 2007 fiscal year. (He has since backed away from
that idea.)
Along
with tight budgets, NASA faces an even tighter deadline: completing the station
by 2010, when the agency is planning to retire the shuttle fleet. The next generation
of vehicles will not be ready before 2014, leaving the world dependent on the
Russian and European space programs, and potentially on entrepreneurs partly financed
by NASA, for access to the station.
