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Shuttle/Station Delays Still Define NASA
Washington - December 1, 1999 - A decade ago next month a conference was held in Washington that touted the coming age of commercial space. The space station-then called "Freedom"-was pegged as the centerpiece of commercial space work, with a host of global users riding the space shuttle virtually every two weeks to ferry up their experimental wares. But when a questioner at the conference asked when the station's foreign partners would get to use their own space assets, such as the Japanese H-II or European Ariane 5 -to service their experiments and crews, one spokesperson for a Boston-based space policy think tank trashed such a claim. "I reject the premise of that question," the speaker snapped. "NASA will never allow anything but their shuttles to dock with the station." "And they will have to clear anything they bring up with us anyway," he added. Oh really? What a difference a decade makes. As 1999 limps toward end, NASA, the space shuttle program, and the assembly sequence of what is now called the International Space Station are farther behind than they were when the year began. And with both new instability in the U.S.-Russian relationship as well as growing independence of Europe from the original station usage plan, the year ahead bodes ill for the project. The year ending has seen but two flights of the space shuttles-the same number as were conducted in 1981, the year the shuttles began operation and nearly two decades ago. This unplanned backlog of operations was triggered by undiscovered wiring problems, problems which can hardly be blamed upon NASA or contractors. But the discovery and the resulting stand down serves as yet a fresh reminder that, Russian partners aside, the shuttle's health remains the weakest link to the station's operational future. And with more than a 100 missions conducted, the winged craft remain as fragile as when they first launched upon what was touted by NASA as the booming commercial space era. Commercial space may be booming, but it has little to do with NASA plans. Instead, the 2000 manifest is again in shambles as NASA engineers struggle to ready Discovery for a much-needed Hubble Space Telescope repair mission. Consider the projected manifest for next year and one quickly sees how crucial the operating health of the shuttle is to keeping some fragment of the station's assembly plan:
This means that NASA must fly eight shuttles in 12 months to keep the station on track. It also means that the Russian Service Module must launch in February to keep this assembly intact, too. Ironically for the space agency, the module was going to be launched this month as originally planned. It was NASA itself that asked for the delay, since the shuttle could not be launched to outfit the module due to the wiring stand down. If the Dec. 9th Hubble repair flight is delayed into January, then this whole sequence may be altered yet again. Further pushing the station's final, assembly complete date closer to 2006-2007. That's 22 years after Ronald Reagan made the station a U.S. national goal. The shuttles aren't the only cloud hanging over the station's assembly next year. The budget for the project remains broken wide open, eating NASA from within. With relations with the Russian Federation at its lowest point since the end of the Cold War, should additional strains between the U.S. and Russia be induced next year, caused by U.S. desires for a National Missile Defense, or by other nationalistic issues, NASA and the U.S. taxpayer might again be needed to make up the difference. Already fresh Congressional concerns about ultimate station stability are re-emerging in Washington. Arizona Senator John McCain has announced Senate hearings next winter into alternative space station ideas, such as small man-tended private facilities to either supplement or supplant the ISS. This was an idea first discussed a decade ago and then buried by a NASA worried that such a mini-station could threaten the bigger project. Look for those concerns to arise anew next spring if the Senate-sponsored review takes hold. And lastly, NASA's own European partners are waxing indifferent to the station's future-and use, even before the facility is built. The political factions now in power in France and Germany are cool to human spaceflight in general. Both nation's science ministers were in fact once anti-station. Look for Europe to accelerate so-called station "commercialization" as their way of gradually bailing out of the long term commitment to the project. And look for whatever administration succeeds President Bill Clinton to at least try to do the same. So as 2000 gets underway, both the space station and the shuttle project remain elements of a political process and a development calendar that does not favor long term space policies or projects. Projects that were once popular in a vastly different political environment but that, today, are increasingly seen as symbols not of the future but of the past. What a difference a decade makes.
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