Forget cosmic radiation, the solar flares, meteorites, re-entry: the real danger facing space exploration today is red ink. As governments drown in it, some space projects have had more narrow escapes than Luke Skywalker. Consider International Space Station Alpha.
A space station is a permanent inhabited base in orbit. People have been talking about space stations for as long as they’ve been talking seriously about going to space: since the 1920s, when Hermann Oberth, the father of modern astronautics, explored the possibility and problems of building such a station.
In 1929 Herman Noordung of Austria postulated a doughnut-shaped station that would rotate to provide artificial gravity. The rotating, doughnut-shaped space station is still what many people think of, not least because that’s what the space station looked like in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Real space stations, however, don’t look like that–at least, not yet. The U.S.’s first space station was Skylab, which was manned in 1973 and 1974 for a total of 172 days by three three-man crews. (It later fell out of the sky and landed on Australia.)
NASA was planning a larger station even then, but first it needed a re-usable space transportation system, and so shifted priority to the space shuttle. But in 1984, President Ronald Reagan announced a project to establish a permanent manned, international space station, called Freedom, within a decade.
International partners were soon found. The European Space Agency and Japan were to contribute modules to the station, while Canada agreed to build a Mobile Servicing System, basically a larger and more complex version of the Canadarm already used on the shuttle, to move equipment and supplies, release and capture satellites, support astronauts in space, service equipment, dock the shuttle and load and unload its cargo bay. All of the countries were also to provide astronauts.
You may have noticed, however, that it is now 1995, a year after the end of the decade during which Freedom was to be built, and so far, not one piece of it has gone into orbit. There are a variety of reasons: bureaucratic inefficiency at NASA, unforeseen technical problems, and especially, the problem of funding. Which is not to say no money has been spent: NASA alone has spent about $11 billion, never mind its international partners. But the original design, a U.S. government committee recently estimated, would require an additional $23 billion before it could be operational, plus an additional $1 billion a year for 10 years to operate.
Faced with those kinds of bills, President Clinton called, shortly after his election, for a scaled-down version. Even the name Freedom disappeared from the selected design, which is expected to be about $18 billion cheaper to build and operate.
The revamped version barely escaped being voted out of existence by Congress in 1993, a move which would definitely not have won friends and influenced people in countries like Canada which have spent millions on their own portions of the project. Last year, however, the space station received strong support from both parties, and the new Republican Congress is expected to continue to back it.
One reason Congress came down more solidly in support of the station last year was the signing of a series of formal agreements that makes Russia a partner in the project, too. The prospect of strengthening ties with the former Cold War foe, and drawing on Russia’s immense store of data on the long-term effects of space flight (the Russian Mir station has been continuously manned for years) swayed politicians to change their votes.
The current design, more modular than the original, uses bits and pieces of “off-the-shelf” space technology instead of being quite so cutting-edge. Plans now call for the first shuttle flight to deliver station components into orbit in October 1997. By December 1997, after three flights, the station will become a giant power-supply: although astronauts won’t live on it, its solar-power arrays will power the shuttle/Spacelab combination for three weeks, much longer than the shuttle can stay up on its own.
One more shuttle flight will make it possible for astronauts to live on the station, although the shuttle will remain docked during their stay. By the spring of 1998 the station should include its central U.S.-built core/laboratory module, the Canadian remote manipulator arm, an Italian logistics module, and additional docking ports.
By December 1999, and additional eight shuttle flights will bring the station to its “international human-tended” phase, as NASA calls it. By that time the station will contain the Japanese Experiment Module, the European Space Agency’s module, and more solar arrays, bringing the total power output to about 65 kilowatts. Astronauts will carry out research on board the station for 20 days at a time, but again, the shuttle will remain docked, and between shuttle flights, the station will be deserted.
Finally, in September 2000, the station should acquire “permanent human capability,” after four more shuttle flights to add a habitation module, airlock, and still more solar power arrays. After that, the shuttle will deliver crew to the station, then leave. Two Russian Soyuz spacecraft will remain docked at all times to serve as lifeboats, however.
The space station will provide a laboratory for scientific research that cannot be carried out during the short duration or cramped conditions of a shuttle flight. The main focus will be on the life sciences, especially the long-term effects of space travel, knowledge that will have impact on future travel to other planets.
Material sciences will also be an important area of research. It may be possible to manufacture exotic substances in space that would not be possible in Earth gravity, ranging from revolutionary metal alloys to ultra-pure and ultra-effective pharmaceuticals. Many other kinds of previously impossible scientific research will also be undertaken.
As is obvious from its financial woes, the International Space Station is not without its critics, who feel it will absorb resources better spent on smaller, more cost-effective projects and that it will undoubtedly run over-budget and behind schedule, to boot.
Such arguments leave me cold. Humans have always longed to see beyond the horizon, to explore the next frontier. We’re in danger of turning our backs on space, preoccupied with problems on Earth…but if we do, it could be decades before we again set our sights on the stars, if we ever do. I see the space station as the first rung of a ladder leading us back to the Moon, out to Mars, and beyond.
It’s time we started climbing.
