Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Auditors: Space station in trouble without shuttle

NASA and its international partners will have a tough time operating and doing research aboard the International Space Station without the space shuttles regularly visiting, according to a government audit out today.

Our reporter in Washington, Bart Jansen, reports that the investigative arm of Congress has found that the space station won't be able to reach its full research potential while relying upon much smaller and less capable international and private spacecraft after the shuttles are retired sometime in 2010 or 2011.

"NASA faces several significant challenges that may impede efforts to maximize research utilization of the ISS," according to the 39-page Government Accountability Office report.

The world's space agencies will spend about $100 billion building and operating the space station, though U.S. funding and operational support for the outpost is uncertain beyond 2015 or 2016. The U.S. and its international partners have said they are working on a deal to extend operations through 2020.

The auditors report, requested by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., notes that without the delivery of spare parts, supplies and other large items by the space shuttles, the station could end up in a crisis mode similar to the way it was operated during the hiatus in shuttle flights after the Columbia disaster.

Some Florida members of Congress are using the report to argue for extending shuttle flights.

You can read full the report online and also revisit my previous column on this subject from September. It prompted quite a debate among readers at the time. Check it out.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, I can see there'd be a problem-sort of like living 15,000 miles away from anybody else and no bus service...duh. Then WHY do we have the space station? I mean, what's the return on the investment? Put some computerized robots up there and forgetaboutit!

Anonymous said...

And you are telling us something new? The Shuttle is 100 times better than Soyuz, or HTV's, or what-ever.

Anonymous said...

Cry me a river of tears. This day has been 5 years in the making. ISS managers have had plenty of time to plan.

Reasearch!? The ISS isn't doing any research of value; its occupants spend most of their time just maintaining their habitat.

The ISS should be dumped into the Pacific now, and then this boondoggle can end. Then we won't have to hear about how the shuttle is needed to maintain it.

Anonymous said...

I'm getting pretty darn sick of this subject. Bring the darn shuttle down and do something interesting. Something with more immediate impact and that will sustain the interest of the average person. Update your resume, look for a job, start a company, retire, take a break or vacation. Something. Just get off your soap box already!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Here comes the whining.....
People who despite 5 years plus of warning were not capable of planning their for their lives after shuttle...

hmmm...maybe......the thousands of CONTRACTORS(as many have neither the education, intelligence, foresight or in most cases COMMON SENSE to be ROCKET SCIENTISTS) might be whats wrong with manned spaceflight after all......
I highly doubt the GERMANS (About 2 dozen real geniuses led by guy named Von Braun, for those educated by Brevard County and their mostly the sub-par recent history departments) who sent US Astronauts to the moon would have tolerated the BS (I.E. UNIONS(IAMAW) and PROFITEERS(LMCO/USA)that has overtaken life at the cape over the last 20 years....
Von Braun would be ashamed (as should all so called 'aerospace workers')to know what man has not been further from the surface of this planet than the drive from Jacksonville to Miami(347 miles, the altitude of Hubble's Orbit) in 30 plus years.

Anonymous said...

It is easy to say cut funding and close the program....
What impact will that have on the United States budget? None congress will spend the money elsewhere on barely used airports, bridges to nowhere, and other short term pork barrel projects. What impacts will that have to the companies across the nation that NASA relies upon to supply parts, resources, fuel, gases, labor, office supplies, computers, software, and the list is extensive? What impact will that have to other local jobs supported by the workers at Kennedy, Johnson, and Marshall Space Centers? The impact is tenfold across the nation in addition to the above when you think about the restaurants, stores, shipping companies, lawn care workers, maid services… the list is extensive. The numbers seem insignificant and easily dismissed until it impacts YOUR job and YOUR family.

Anonymous said...

http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/ISSspin.html

Here's one spinoff. Read slowly as it may be a bit over your head ;-)

The AiroCide TiO2 is an air-purifier that kills 93.3 percent of airborne pathogens that pass through it, including Bacillus anthraci, more commonly known as anthrax. It is essentially a spinoff of KES Science & Technology, Inc.’s Bio-KES system, a highly effective device used by the produce industry for ethylene gas removal to aid in preserving the freshness of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. The TiO2-based ethylene removal technology that is incorporated into the company’s AiroCide TiO2 and Bio-KES products was first integrated into a pair of International Space Station plant-growth chambers known as ASTROCULTURE™ and ADVANCED ASTROCULTURE.™ Both chambers have housed commercial plant growth experiments in space.

Anonymous said...

Here's an Idea. We have a working moon rocket design. It's called a Saturn 5. There's one in storage at KSC already. Rebuild it with lighter, stronger modern materials like composites, put today's more efficient and more powerful rocket motors on it and go back to the Moon.

Anonymous said...

The shuttle should get extended along with a shuttle-derived heavy lifter. Private firms can have a replacement up by that time, along with private stations via the inflatables. No need for NASA in Earth orbit for anything.
PlanetSpace.com

vulture4 said...

If we are to use taxes to support human spaceflight, it must produce practical benefits for America. The taxpayers are simply not going to cough up $150 billion just because a few space enthusiasts feel "trapped in LEO".

The Space Station has really just been completed, and it has at least the potential to produce useful science in both earth observation and zero-gravity research, as well as important astronomical observations and geopolitical benefits in building trust and cooperation between the major powers. Just a few years ago the plan was to support it with Shuttle throughout the Station program.

Constellation was a major change in direction and was implemented without debate. Griffin announced that we would go to the moon without any increase in the budget, by completely abandoning both Shuttle and Station as soon as all the modules were launched. Then they decided to keep ISS up without Shuttle and continue Constellation, even though there was never money in the budget to actually do both.

Now Station is suffering not just because it will get limited supplies and no return cargo without Shuttle, but also because science funding is being slashed to pay for the overruns in Constellation.

Anonymous said...

Well the working moon rocket design is 40 years old and the safety standards have changed from the 60's to now. That is why it's not a 2 second process to build another moon rocket. If safety is your top concern, then you'll have to wait years for another moon rocket. If just getting to the moon is your concern, then you can dust off the Saturn 5 and launch it. I doubt that Congress would bless the latter effort though.

Anonymous said...

This is indeed sad. While the new direction for NASA was a wonderful idea proposed by George Bush, but was EXTREMELY poorly planned. Only giving NASA less than 6 years to finish building the ISS and to retire the Shuttle program, i don't know how Mr. Bush thought it was a good idea on paper, yet alone saying it aloud that it was a good way to get away from using the Shuttles so prematurely. Remember this new vision was given during the hiatus of Shuttle flights caused by the Columbia accident.

Now saying this... Mr. Obama has drug his heels on this issue, now we're at the point where there will be a gap of a few years because of no intervention from this administration, so we're screwed as far as maintaining shuttle flights beyond the next five or six flights.

What SHOULD have happened was that NASA would have been given to at least 2015 to keep Shuttle's flying to maintain the ISS (so us taxpayers wont be out of billions of our tax dollars due to a fledgling ISS after shuttle's retirement). It's outrageous that NASA had to cancell over 20 flights to get shuttles retired next year. It's a different time since Kennedy gave us the direction to go to the moon, we have a multi-billion-dollar space station now.

While we do need to do something more exciting, only a fraction of 1 cent of our tax dollars goes to NASA funding, so why don't people in Congress quit voting to give themselves bigger raises, and quit wasting our money with idiotic other programs ie the rail system from vagas to someplace insane. Put a fraction of that money towards keeping Shuttles flying AND transition to a new space system.

I am no expert, but i guess people who don't know how NASA works (ie the almost comical timeline for Shuttle's retirement), do not need to make decisions on the timetable NASA needs to get things done.

Anonymous said...

What practical benefits will Constellation provide for America? The only thing our political leaders have mentioned is that maybe it will inspire a few students to study math. This sounds pretty weak. We're talking about $150 billion here, and it will either have to be raised by new taxes or borrowed from China. And it means thousands of job losses in Brevard.

Anonymous said...

Recertify the Space Shuttle Orbiters and extend the Space Shuttle Program!!!

There seems to be no common sense in the Congressional or Presidential branches of government. It is a great ashame -- our government cannot not provide the funds correctly for NASA. Without the Space Shuttle, the U.S. will become a third rate nation in manned space exploration. NASA would be a great agency to stimulate U.S. technical jobs and careers !!! Why provide U.S. tax dollars to Russia for transporting astronauts in the Soyuz. Support U.S. jobs!!! Support the Space Shuttle Program extension!!

vulture4 said...

Why is "getting to the moon" our top concern? For a generation our concern has been to show that humans can do useful work in space. That's why we built Shuttle and Space Station. Now, when the station is almost complete, we are about to abandon the Shuttle it depends on, apparently because we are bored with trying to do something useful in space and feel nostalgic about the moon race, when everything was exciting and no one cared about the cost.

We need to ask some tough but rather obvious questions.

What practical benefits will Constellation bring to America?

During Apollo the public got bored after the first moon landing. Does anyone seriously believe the taxpayers will give us $150 billion just to send a few astronauts to the moon, again?

Once the Shuttles are shut down, we can never get them back. There is no second chance. We are throwing away over 30 years of work. The Shuttles weren't built to entertain he public; they were built to show humans could do useful work in space. We should learn from them, and replace them when we have something that does the job better. Constellation carries barely half the crew, flies less than half as often, has no return payload capability and almost no launch payload capacity, yet will cost just as much.

We had better stop and think. It is technically not particularly difficult to fly to the moon. We did it 40 years ago. But to do it with expendable rockets is very expensive and not feasible for science or tourism.

It is very difficult to make human spaceflight practical and productive. The Shuttle fell short on this. But it can be done. If we give up because we are bored, and go back to flying to the moon, Mars and beyond, just for the excitement, with no thought to cost or practical benefits, we will end up just like Apollo, with the program canceled and nothing to show for it but a few pictures and a hundred billion dollars in debt.

Graham said...

Forgive me vulture4, but you made a comment there which is just wrong.The Ares V will be the largest heavy lift rocket ever built,it will be capable of putting in orbit articles in excess of 80 tonnes.!

So constellation will have a massive launch capacity,don't forget when complete there will be two vehicles Ares 1 and Ares V.

vulture4 said...

Point taken, but there is currently no plan to use the Ares V for launching LEO payloads, nor is there currently the money in the budget to build the Ares V and go to the moon.

However it is hardly a step forward. The Saturn V was fully capable of placing 118 metric tons in low earth orbit, and it was all liquid fueled, with no solid fuel boosters at all. Hey, and it was even man-rated! Say, if we needed a heavy life launcher, how come NASA was directed to use ATK SRBs? Shouldn't the interested contractors have been allowed to propose their best designs? Where's the competition there?

Graham said...

The new Ares V will better than that by a very large margin,it will be lifting anything we can build right up to and including (188) metric tons! to LEO.And for moon missions,working in tandem with Ares 1(crew launch vehicle), will be ferrying vehicles habitats supplies up to a max of 71 metric tons.A massive change up from Apollo capability.

These figures are researched by the way.

I don't know if they were directed to use them,but i would have thought their designers have gone through many concepts before settling with the one in build now. As i understand it they ask contractors to come up with concepts,and then appoint the best out of them. Please feel free to correct me if wrong.


By the way i wish all on here a very happy 2010.

Anonymous said...

I can't wait till that piece of junk shuttle is grounded for good so these threads will end! Find a new job, the American taxpayer is done paying your ridiculous wages for the miniscule amount of return we recieve. The best thing that could happen at the Space Center is to get rid of all unions and put men and women who can produce to work, people who don't have to hide behind a collective bargaining agreement! People who will do an honest days work for a FAIR wage. When that happens you will see this country soar above all nations in space exploration!

Goddbye shuttle, it hasn't been fun, it hasn't been inspiring, just really expensive and boring!