Whether it will be Apollo-style capsules again or shuttle-style winged spacecraft, NASA is determined to accelerate the development of a space plane that can dock with the International Space Station, senior NASA officials said.
Whether it will be Apollo-style capsules again or shuttle-style winged spacecraft, NASA is determined to accelerate the development of a space plane that can dock with the International Space Station, senior NASA officials said.
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, testifying before the Congressional Subcommittee on Science that discussed the 2004 NASA budget, said that he envisions the construction of a system that would contain several space planes, each of which would be able to carry four astronauts and which would be a taxi that would transport the astronauts to the space station International space and from it.
This could enable scientific work to be carried out at the space scientific outpost and dictate the number of astronauts who can be simultaneously on the station.
Right now, with the U.S. shuttle fleet grounded since the Columbia disaster and Russia struggling to maintain the mission of launching supplies to the space station using Soyuz and Progress rockets, NASA and the station's 15 partner nations are hoping to keep its lights on.
Later this month, Russia will launch the station's new crew, which will consist of just two people and will replace the current three-person crew.
The idea is for a smaller skeleton crew to maintain the shuttle until the commission of inquiry completes its investigation and the other three shuttles can fly again. O'Keeffe said that when this happens, at the earliest in the fall of this year, the station's partner countries plan to continue building it. The station will be completed within three years from the moment the ferries start flying again.
In the meantime, O'Keeffe said that he is pushing the schedule for launching a fleet of space planes that will replace the function of the shuttle as a tool for transporting people and will be lighter, safer, cheaper and that its removal will be easier than the shuttles, while the aging shuttle fleet will be used mainly to transfer cargo.
"We are now looking at what efforts will be required to have these space planes ready as early as possible." said.
Current plans for space planes, which are already in testing processes, require a budget of 550 million for their development in 2004 or 2.4 billion dollars over several years - and we are talking about a vehicle that could be used as an escape vehicle for astronauts from the space station in 2010. Two years later it will also be possible to launch such manned spacecraft independently (until then they will be transported in the space shuttle's luggage compartment).
Last week, NASA announced that Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop-Grumman - the three largest defense subcontractors - will receive $45 million each to design such a vehicle.
The decision regarding which vehicle to build will be made next year, and O'Keefe said that he hopes that when the design is chosen, construction will be accelerated to two years.
Outside the hearing, O'Keefe said he was confused by lawmakers' determination to determine the number of astronauts on the space station.
"Instead of saying - we will have a fixed number of people who will be permanently stationed at the station, and that everyone will wear badges of a different color, why can't science lead and determine the number of people? We need to have the flexibility to bring them to the station when we need them and take them down when we don't." O'Keeffe said.
The safety team approved the reduction of the space station crew
NASA's plan to reduce the crew of the International Launch Station from three people to two has been approved by the agency's safety committee. The new team - Russian-American astronaut Ed Lowe and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Melanchenko will be launched aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on April 26.
They will overlap with the existing crew - the Americans Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit and the Russian Nikolai Budarin at the space station for a few days and will return home in the Soyuz spacecraft already docked at the station.
NASA and the 15 foreign countries participating in the station decided to reduce the size of the crew from three to two in order to save on the amount of food, water and other supplies needed to keep the station functioning until it can be returned with shuttles.
Until then, manned Soyuz spacecraft and the unmanned Progress spacecraft, which are much smaller than the shuttles and cannot carry much weight, will fill the station's shortfall.
NASA's Safety Advisory Committee said that NASA and its partners satisfied the panel member that they did everything in their power to maintain the safety of the reduced crew.
The panel members said they reviewed and approved the agency's emergency plan for handling spacewalks for emergency repairs, due to illness or injury of a crew member, equipment failure or station fire.
With special concern, they said that the overlapping of the staff at the station should be planned and not send the current staff home first, leave the station unmanned for several days and only then send in a new staff.
Team member Art Ziegelbaum and chairwoman Shirley McCarthy said that in the end, the team approved the plan and said that the risk to astronauts would not be much different between the two options, while the risk of leaving the station unmanned was much greater than the overlap.
If there were problems with the Soyuz currently docked at the station, they pack up, the crew could return in the new Soyuz, leaving the current crew without a rescue boat until a new Soyuz is built and launched to them. This process currently takes six months, McCarthy says, but it can be sped up if the station is left without a lifeboat.
Ziegelbaum said that while the panel has expressed concern in the past about differences in the level of safety between NASA and its partners, he does not fear there will be a problem during the upcoming crew changeover. "The Russians cooperate well," he said, "they have a very safe and reliable system.
