The Dallas Morning News February 12, 2001, Monday
Science marches on - in orbit
ALEXANDRA WITZELike painters swooping in before a house's roof is finished, scientists are muscling their way onto the world's largest construction job: the International Space Station Alpha.
Some of the first experiments on the orbiting outpost have already begun. And last week, NASA launched the $ 1.4 billion Destiny module, the cornerstone of U.S. research aboard the station. Over the next decade, scientists hope, Destiny's 24 lab "racks" will be filled and refilled with a rotating series of experiments designed to scrutinize life in space.
NASA says that space-station research could produce breakthroughs in physics, medicine, biology and technology - everything from growing ultrapure crystals for use in semiconductors, to learning how near-zero gravity affects plants and animals. And humans, who haven't left Earth orbit since 1972, might even learn enough about long-term space travel to return to the moon or go on to Mars.
In sum, NASA says, the space station could be a scientific boon.
"It is as unique as the electron microscope was," says NASA's Kathryn Clark, referring to the 1930s invention that unveiled the microscopic world in unprecedented detail.
But critics charge that the station might also be a scientific boondoggle.
"It belittles the adventure of space flight, and it belittles the difficulty of scientific research back here on Earth, to pass off the space station as a science project," says John Pike, a space-policy analyst and director of GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria, Va.
After all, he says, it's hard not to get scientific results when spending $ 60 billion to build a space station, then tens of millions more dollars to operate it.
"It's unavoidable that if you spend that much money, some interesting experimental results are going to come out the other end of the pipeline," says Mr. Pike. "But there will be no miracle cures and mystery crystals."
No such wonders came from science done on the 1970s-era U.S. Skylab station, on a series of Russian stations including Mir, or on regular space-shuttle flights.
Still, NASA is touting laboratories scheduled to be on Alpha by late 2005, including:
A human-research lab, scheduled to arrive in March, to monitor astronauts' health and see how the human body responds to the low-gravity condition known as microgravity.
A fluids and combustion lab to study how industrial processes might be improved by understanding how they work in microgravity.
A biotechnology lab to grow cell tissues and crystals of proteins for studying disease.
A materials science lab to study the atomic and molecular structures of materials in microgravity.
An area for testing and using the astronauts' powerful cameras.
So far, astronauts have done some science without Destiny, including photographing Earth, checking radiation levels and using a truss to study how machinery vibrates in space.
"We're building the framework to go on" with space-based science, says Charles Wade, a biologist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
Eventually, 13 of Destiny's 24 refrigerator-sized research racks will house experiments in microgravity and life sciences. The 11 other racks will control temperature, humidity and other environmental factors.
NASA chooses which experiments will fly based on the recommendation of scientists both inside and outside the agency, Dr. Clark says; so far, the agency has accepted between 15 and 20 percent of the experiments proposed. Commercial companies will also conduct research on the station, as will some school groups.
Destiny won't be alone for long. Over the next few years, Japan and the European Space Agency plan to each send a laboratory module to Alpha, and Russia is adding two.
All these scientists share a goal outside the physics, plant and animal research: to understand how the space environment affects people over the long term, since experiments may run through the station's expected 10-year lifetime.
"The space environment itself is a common enemy," says Dr. Clark, former chief scientist for the space station and now lead scientist for NASA's human space-exploration division.
Outside Earth's sheltering atmosphere, plants and animals act as test cases for enduring high doses of radiation as well as ultra-low gravity. Both of these will be problems if humans ever plan to colonize the moon or other planets.
Some solutions may come from Dallas researchers. Dr. Benjamin Levine, director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, has proposed checking the heart health of astronauts, an extension of work he did previously with the space shuttle. The study, if approved by NASA, would look at how the heart shrinks and stiffens during long periods in space. Dr. Levine's collaborators include Dr. Richard Page and Dr. Ronald Peshock at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
Other proposed station experiments will try to reproduce Earth's gravity in space inside spinning cylinders, says Dr. Wade. Then scientists can see how radiation alone - without the microgravity - affects various life forms.
Long-term experiments - like the five to six generations of fruit flies that can be born during a 90-day experiment - provide better science than that performed on two-week shuttle flights, he says.
But space-based research can never replace Earth laboratories, Dr. Wade warns.
"We're trying to gain enough knowledge on the ground to do high-class science, then look at how to best take advantage of going into flight," he says.
The space station, initially proposed by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, has been through so many redesigns that science has sometimes suffered, says Dr. Wade.
"There are still opportunities there, but what you'll be able to do is going to be limited," he says.
Several professional scientific societies have long criticized the value of space-station science. The American Physical Society has denounced its physics worth. The American Society for Cell Biology has recommended canceling the entire program for growing crystals in space, citing a lack of results. Last year, the National Research Council - a branch of the National Academy of Sciences - reached much the same conclusion.
But science remains a valid part of the space station, if not the primary driver, argues Dr. Clark.
"The problem isn't cost," she says. "It's perception." NASA has many reasons for building the expensive station, and science is only one of them. Without the station as a jumping-off point, she says, humanity will never expand outward into the solar system.
"If you're not going to explore," she asks, "then why build a space station?
"SCIENCEA LAB ALOFT: Swipe here for more about space station science.DallasNews.com/EXTRA
GRAPHIC: PHOTO(S): (NASA/Agence France-Presse) 1. The International Space Station (shown in December) is expected to be a research platform for a decade or more. 2. CHART(S): SPACE STATION CORNERSTONE/ILLUSTRATION(S) Illustration of a space station.
Copyright 2001 The Dallas Morning News
