The Associated Press July 6, 2006
Space station is shuttle's purpose
By Seth Borenstein
HOUSTON - Space shuttle Discovery is rushing to catch up with the international space station for a rendezvous today. The chase mirrors what has been going on down on Earth for the past few years.
Just about every decision about the space shuttle, including the controversial call to launch now instead of waiting until the chronic foam problem is fixed, is tied to the space station's construction deadline.
The sole reason for the shuttle fleet's continued existence before the three remaining spacecraft are retired in 2010 is to finish the half-built space station, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told The Associated Press in June.
The shuttle "will be employed, if employed at all, for purposes of completing the international space station project," Griffin said. "So all of our decisions on shuttle are really being made with an eye to how does this help us achieve our larger goal, which is not one shuttle flight or two shuttle flights, but 16 flights to finish the assembly of the space station.
"We're looking at the package of flights; we're looking at the big picture," Griffin said. "Because if we don't think we can get to the end of the project, then frankly, there's no need to go halfway."
The U.S. has treaty obligations that keep it from abandoning the massive outpost 212 miles above Earth.
The 2010 deadline is there because after the Columbia accident 3 1/2 years ago, President Bush came up with a plan to send astronauts to the moon and then Mars. NASA said it will retire the shuttle and spend its money on a new ship, aiming for the moon by 2020.
The space station will give NASA an off-Earth training station to learn how to live in space for months on end, because a trip to Mars would take six months each way.
Not only is the space shuttle's limited future tied to the space station, so is its past.
"They've been joined at the hip for 36 years now," said John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.
The shuttle was designed with a space station in mind, though the space station wasn't put in orbit until 17 1/2 years after the first shuttle launch in 1981. The space station had a series of abortive fits and starts, including $11.2 billion spent on its first version, Space Station Freedom, without any of its parts being built.
Recast in 1993, the new international space station finally got hardware in orbit in November 1998 as an international cooperative for science instead of an American outpost.
Some critics, including space analyst John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, say the 2010 deadline seems arbitrary and easily moved if shuttle problems come up. Griffin calls that idea "naive" and says the deadline is based on strict budgets.
The current space mission is considered vital to getting the station built and working after the long lapse in deliveries of shuttle equipment and crew members after the Columbia disaster.
This flight will take the first piece of equipment designed to allow the housing of six people. More personnel would enable scientific experiments in orbit, something that has been at a minimum with the tiny crew.
"This launch is the one that opens the door to resuming space station assembly," Logsdon said.
© Copyright 2006, The Associated Press
