Boston Globe 3/9/2001
Space flight crosses another frontier
By David L. Chandler, Globe Staff, 3/9/2001
Even in the world of space flight, with its booming fiery launches, seldom has a transition been as stark and dramatic as this month's change in humanity's presence in space.
Sometime around March 20, the abandoned 15-year-old Russian space station Mir will be sent toward a flaming, explosive reentry into the atmosphere, becoming the biggest piece of space junk in history.
And about the same day, the space shuttle Discovery - which soared into orbit yesterday after a trouble-free launch in Florida - will return to Earth after dropping off a new three-person crew on the new International Space Station.
Although the 171-foot-long station is still only half-finished, the new crew's four-month stint there marks a turning point for science in space: the inauguration of the space station as a working lab. The crew will spend at least part of its time conducting biomedical research in a facility more sophisticated than anything launched before. And that research is critical if humans ever hope to set foot on another planet, said Lawrence Young, Apollo professor of astronautics at MIT.
''This is the beginning of the beginning,'' said Young, who called the research program ''the single most important step ever taken since the launch of Yuri Gagarin in understanding the human aspects of long-duration flights in space.'' (Gagarin became the first human in space when he orbited the Earth three times on April 12, 1961.)
Young is head of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, which coordinates all US research on the effects of space travel on living beings.
''I don't think we could even seriously consider further human space exploration without the kind of science return we expect from the space station,'' he said.
The $40 billion cost of the station has drawn many vocal critics, including John Pike, a space policy analyst for the Web site globalsecurity.org. ''I hope that no one is trying to claim that the research that will be done on the station is worth the cost, which is in the ballpark of the whole National Science Foundation budget,'' he said.
But, Pike said, the space station research will be ''absolutely essential'' as a prerequisite ''before you seriously think about returning to the moon, or going to Mars. ... The moon is very far away, and I'd like to have some serious real-world testing of my life-support systems'' before making such a journey.
The space station's first crew spent four months in space doing basic testing and assembly, but without the lab equipment to carry out scientific work. Now, although only a small fraction of its eventual complement of equipment is in place, the new crew is expected to be able to devote 20 percent of its time to research.
The research will begin as soon as the shuttle departs with the previous crew and returns to Earth - on the very same day that Mir is expected to end its life with an incandescent plunge into the Pacific.
Until now, the space station Mir has been the only source of such long-term research. But its inhabitants were faced with so many emergency situations to deal with, including fire, a collision, and various kinds of contamination, that very little time was left for science. In addition, equipment was limited, and there was little opportunity to relay data from Mir back to researchers on Earth.
Former Soviet space official Roald Sagdeev, now a professor at the University of Maryland, wrote last week in Science that even in its heyday, before age began taking its toll on Mir, at best ''only 8 percent of the crew's time budget was dedicated to experiments, which had to be shared with others, including the military.''
The last crew left Mir early last year, and today it is an empty, dented, fungus-infested hulk. Its reentry over the South Pacific could be the biggest celestial impact on Earth since a meteor exploded over Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. Although reentry is planned for a remote stretch of the South Pacific, the Russians have taken out a $200 million insurance policy in case fragments land in a populated area.
In many ways, however, Mir represented a success. Launched in 1986 and intended for a five-year tour of duty, Mir has lasted 15 years and set a series of records for long-duration spaceflights.
On the new International Space Station, scientists working on biomedical research in space will take advantage of relatively powerful and sophisticated new computers, data transmission systems, and racks of lab equipment that will continue to be delivered over the coming months and years.
A new Human Research Facility rack will be arriving today aboard an Italian ''moving van'' called Leonardo in the shuttle's payload bay. Among other items, it includes an ultrasound system that will allow detailed monitoring of crewmembers' hearts and circulatory systems, and will also be useful in medical emergencies ranging from broken bones to appendicitis.
''This is a watershed point,'' said Charles Oman, director of the Man Vehicle Laboratory at MIT, who has been doing research on the effects of spaceflight on humans since the 1970s. Over the next two years or so, he said, ''the experiments will get more complex'' as more and more equipment is ferried up in a series of US space shuttle and Russian Progress unpiloted supply missions.
This story ran on page 3 of the Boston Globe on 3/9/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
