GOVERNMENT & POLICY SPACE LAB Astronauts aboard ISS were hard at work in the Destiny lab in 2001.
NEWS
ANALYSIS
NASA RESEARCH REEVALUATED Agency's science programs on shuttle and space station are on hold in wake of Columbia tragedy SUSAN R. MORRISSEY, C&EN WASHINGTON
F
OR MANY YEARS, THE NATIONAL
Aeronautics & Space Administration's research program has been under fire over its value and its relevance. Critics of the research efforts, administered by NASA's Office of Biological & Physical Research (OBPR), question whether the science being conducted on the space shuttle missions and the International Space Station (ISS) is important enough to justify the enormous cost. But recent events have brought into question an even more basic issue: Are human missions into space necessary? The loss of the space shuttle Columbia and its seven-member crew in the skies over the Southwest U.S. on Feb. 1 has prompted NASA to ground its remaining shuttle fleet— threatening the future of the space station—and Congress to initiate a thorough investigation of the accident and the overall space program. NASA, however, believes that, following a brief hiatus during the investigations, it will be able to get back on track with its long-range plans. "I was asked by some whether the Columbia accident would force us to toss aside HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
our budget and long-term plans," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said before the House Science Committee at a Feb. 27 hearing on the agency's fiscal 2004 budget request. The "test of any long-term plan," he continued, "is whether it can accept the inevitable setbacks and still achieve its goal. That is my hope for our plan." NASA is seeking a budget of $15.5 billion for fiscal 2004, a less than 1% increase from the fiscal 2003 appropriation. The
RESEARCH Physical science articles out of NASA's OBPR peaked in 1999 Number of peer-reviewed articles 1,0001
600 500 1997
98
99
2000
01
02
NOTE: Articles include both ground- and spacebased research funded by the Office of Biological & Physical Research. SOURCE: NASA Task Book
budget for OBPR is also up only slightly to $973 million, with $359 million requested for biological sciences research and $353 million for physical sciences research (both include ground- and space-based research programs). NASA's science programs have "flown under the radar for a long time," notes a House Subcommittee on Space & Aeronautics staffer. But the Columbia tragedy is forcing Congress to reevaluate the science program with respect to its goals, cost, and the risk involved with human space missions. In the end, it is unlikely that human missions will be abandoned, but they may look different, the staffer cautions. "Given the current shuttle fleet and its age—even though the shuttles have been refurbished and modernized with new electronics, cabling, and the like over the years—NASA clearly sees shortcomings in the 25-year-old technology," says Stein Sture, professor of civil, environmental, and architectural engineering at the College of Engineering & Applied Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Sture conducted experiments dealing with granular materials aboard Columbia's final mission. NASA IS TRYING to develop next-generation spacecraft. In late February, it released requirements for the orbital space plane, which would hold up to four astronauts and serve as a crew rescue and transport vehicle for ISS. The orbiter was on the drawing board at NASA prior to the Columbia accident and is targeted to be ready for rescue missions by 2010 and for transport missions in 2012. Other plans are underway as part of the Space Launch Initiative, a program designed to develop a successor to the shuttle. As Congress looks to future spacecraft, NASA's exclusive reliance on the shuttles to carry crews and materials into space may be coming to an end. However, it is important for ISS—and therefore, science— that the shuttles remain in service at least until the space station is "core complete," which is a truncated version of the original design. The large payload capacities of the shuttles are needed to transport the remaining necessary station pieces to ISS. The truncated version of ISS, which is the smallest base structure that can support a crew, is a result of cost-saving measures taken last year to counter huge budgetary overruns. In the core-complete design, the living and working areas of ISS would allow for only three crew members, as opposed C & E N / MARCH 2 4 , 2003
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GOVERNMENT & POLICY to seven that would have been accommodated in the fully completed station. Because NASAhas indicated that a minimum of 2.5 people are required to maintain ISS, this would translate into only half of one crew member's time to do science. With such a small amount of time available for scientific endeavors, many scientists involved with the program are voicing concerns that ISS will not be the worldclass laboratory envisioned by NASA since its inception. "Either the station is completed as expeditiously as possible to the point where meaningful research can be done, or it's allowed to fall into the ocean," says Mary Jane Osborn, professor of microbiology at the University of Connecticut Health Center and chairwoman of a National Research Council committee that assessed NASA's biomedical research. Osborn was also a member of NASA's REVERSAL
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Research Maximization & Prioritization (ReMAP) Task Force, which was charged with evaluating NASAs science program. In the self-tided report presented to the NASA Advisory Council in August 2002, the task force reported that "ifenhancements to ISS beyond TJ.S. core complete' are not anticipated, NASA should cease to characterize ISS as a science-driven program." But the U.S. has invested too much in ISS to pull out now, note some space policy experts. Since the current design was adopted in 1993, the U.S. has contributed $17.7 billion through fiscal 2 0 0 2 to the construction and maintenance of ISS. NASA expects to spend an additional $6.7 billion through fiscal 2007 for further construction and development. The other international partners, which include Canada, Japan, Europe, and Russia, also have a financial stake in what happens to the space station. According to
F O R T U N E
A Science Mission Lost
T
he loss of the Columbia on Feb. 1 was a setback for NASA's science program as well as its space program. The mission, which began on Jan. 16, was devoted to scientific endeavors. The seven-astronaut crew filled its 16-day flight with more than 80 experiments. "There were experiments from all over," says David Liskowsky, program scientist of the ill-fated Columbia for the Office of Biological & Physical Research. About 25% of the experiments originated from 0BPR and involved basic biology, biomedical, and physical sciences experiments, he says. The rest came from both within and outside NASA as well as from the U.S. and international scientific community. "It was really a very complex mission," he tells C&EN. But not all was lost as the shuttle broke up during its reentry to Earth. Liskowsky notes that more than a third of the
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data from the entire mission was retrieved. Although NASA hasn't yet determined how many experiments that includes, many of the scientists who directed physical science experiments aboard were able to gather a significant portion of their data because their results were transmitted to Earth as the work was completed. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for the life sciences experiments, which typically require post-
mission analysis of samples. Scientists are now looking to NASA to see if any of their incomplete experiments can be rescheduled. "We're going to decide on a case-by-case basis for each of the experiments whether there's an opportunity and the hardware to try and refly the experiment," Liskowsky says. "That process is just beginning now, and obviously a big piece of that is when the shuttle will begin flying again."
AT W O R K Astronauts Rick D. Husband (right) and Kalpana Chawla tended experiments aboard Columbia.
NASA, the partners —with the exception of Russia—are expected to contribute a total of $9.5 billion to ISS. Russia will supply equipment and resources, but the exact amount is not available. The U.S. part of the core-complete construction was slated to be finished next February; the international core complete would then be finished in 2006. The interruption to the shuttle schedule, however, will delay these projected dates. AND THE LOSS of shuttle missions has also negatively affected ISS crew size. NASA has announced that the three crew members currently aboard ISS — Commander Ken Bowersox, science officer Donald R. Pettit, and cosmonaut flight engineer Nikolai M. Budarin—will be replaced by a two-member crew (one American and one Russian) in late April or early May using a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The Soyuz carries up to three crew members and can serve as an emergency return vehicle from ISS. The remaining three shuttles in NASAs fleet will be grounded until the investigation is complete, and the US. will be reliant on Russia and its spacecraft to taxi crews and materials to ISS. In the short term, Russia has stepped up and adjusted its flight schedules for both Soyuz vehicles and the unmanned Progress spacecraft used to supply provisions to ISS. Although the Russians are filling the void now, their help maybe short-lived. If more Soyuz andProgress missions are needed than had been planned before the grounding of the shuttles, Russia will want the U.S. to underwrite the costs—in essence, the U.S. will be purchasing Russian spacecraft. But paying Russia may not be so easy In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Iran Nonproliferation Act (INA), which "prohibits NASAfrom making payments to Russia for ISS unless Russia takes the necessary steps to prevent the transfer of weapons of mass destruction and missile systems to Iran and the President certifies that neither Rosaviakosmos [the Russian space agency] nor any entity reporting to it has made such transfers for at least one year prior to such determination." The law does provide a "crew safety" exception intended to be used only if there is an immediate threat to the lives of the ISS crew. This will set up an interesting debate if Congress decides there is a need to purchase more spacecraft vehicles from Russia. It may come down to whether the future of ISS is more important than concerns about Russian sales of weapons to Iran, a congressional subcommittee staffer says. HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
Some in Congress have already decided that overriding INA is a real possibility and are taking steps to free NASA from its re strictions. Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas) recently introduced a bill to do just that. "It is clear that we are now very de pendent on the Russian space program as the sole means of support for the space sta tion until the shuttle fleet returns to serv ice," Lampson said recently "If the Presi dent declares the need to purchase Soyuz sndProgress vehicles during the suspension of shuttleflights,my legislation would give NASA theflexibilityto purchase them."
In trying to answer these questions, NASA will be asked to provide evidence to support continued funding of its scientif ic programs. There is little question of the success of the research missions dealing with space science or earth science stud ies, but there is growing concern over the value of biological and physi cal science experiments (C&EN, Oct. 11,1999, page 53). The concern stems from the extraordinary cost of the human mis EVEN WITH Russia's help, ISS will still be sions on which the bulk limited to two or three crew members. The of biological and phy cargo that can be transported to ISS by sical experiments are Russian spacecraft will also be limited: The flown, notes George M. Progress can carry only 2.5 tons, whereas a Whitesides, chemistry professor at Harvard shuttle can haul 100 tons. Currently Congress is concerned about University and a member of NASAs the reduction to just two crew members, ReMAP Task Force. because NASA has always adhered to the One of the biggest problems in trying to 2.5-crew-member minimum to keep ISS justify the cost of the science that is being operational. The lack of hesitation on done in space is the lack of data. Re NASAs part in stating that two crew mem searchers involved in the programs admit bers are enough seems disingenuous, a sub that there simply haven't been enough op committee staffer points out, asking, "Was portunities to do meaningful research on ei this plan on NASA's shelf, or did they just ther the space station or the space shuttle. pull it out of their ear?" But some experiments have been com If such a plan was on the shelf, NASA pleted, and their results have been pub will have to explain why it was not imple lished. According to the agency, NASAmented and the extra crew time devoted linked data are included in more than 650 to doing more science. If this was a spur- peer-reviewed journal articles published in of-the-moment plan, then NASA will be 2002. This refers only to results from faced with a flood of questions concern ground- and space-based research out of ing crew safety Either way NASA will have OBPR's Physical Sciences Division. to answer some tough questions about ISS. "There are no massive headlines," Sture
explains, noting that people often miss re ports on microgravity research done in space. The fact that the work was done in space is often included only as a note at the end of the paper. "I think that's what peo ple haven't gotten used to," he says. However, it's not the number of papers that the science program yields; it's the impact of the work on various dis ciplines that justifies a continued presence of science in space. And that's where the contro versy lies. "There is nofieldofsci ence that has been significandy affected by any research that's been done on the shuttle or the sta tion," says Robert L. Park, director of pub lic information at the American Physical Society and professor of physics at the Uni versity of Maryland. He, like others, believes that funding should be shiftedfromhuman missions to robotic space missions such as satellites and deep-space probes.
The Columbia tragedy is forcing Congress to reevaluate the science program with respect to its goals, cost, and the risk involved.
BUT NOT EVERYONE is so convinced. One advocate for research by humans in space is Peter Voorhees, Frank C. Engelhart Pro fessor ofMaterials Science & Engineering at Northwestern University and chairman of a National Research Council commit tee that evaluated the direction ofNASA's microgravity and physical sciences research released last year. In that report, Voorhees says, "we uncovered many examples where
Bis
