Space station science gets squeezed

Alan Boyle Science editor • Profile • E-mail

More than a decade ago, the international space station was sold as the premier platform for space science, with exotic applications back on Earth.

But the budget for space station research has been cut dramatically over the past year, and is due to be slashed even more deeply next year. Starting with Sunday's scheduled launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, NASA is turning its attention to flying up hardware rather than doing science.

Some observers say that NASA now sees the orbital outpost as a $100 billion white elephant to be finished, then quickly left behind in America's new push to the moon, Mars and beyond.

Those observers, who include scientists as well as policy experts, say NASA is acting as if the station was an obligation rather than an opportunity.

"It's almost as if the space station is an albatross," said Keith Cowing, who worked on the initial designs for the space station in the 1990s while at NASA and now monitors the agency through his Web site, NASA Watch. "It's almost like NASA has corporate attention-deficit disorder."

"The numbers show continuing decline for the research part of NASA," said Kei Koizumi, director of the R&D Budget and Policy Program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "There's not much on the plus side for science."

Is the space station really worth all that money, and all that risk to astronauts' lives?

Even NASA admits that the station isn’t fully living up to the promise right now, due to cost overruns, construction delays and the repercussions of the 2003 Columbia tragedy. The agency has had to shift hundreds of millions of dollars from space station research to its new moon effort, initiated in 2004. And there are plenty of blank spaces in its plan to use the space station after 2010, when NASA is due to finish construction and retire the space shuttle fleet.

However, NASA still insists that the station figures prominently in its exploration plans, even if its primary role is not to be a direct jumping-off point for interplanetary trips or an incubator for spin-off technologies back on Earth.

"I go out and talk to people, and I say basically that we're in a difficult budget environment, and we're trying to maintain as much capability as possible," said Carl Walz, a former space station resident who now helps manage the station's science program. "We hope that when the budget pressure is reduced, we'll be able to bring on more science."

Assembly, not science, takes priority
Walz and other space station managers say science will have to take a lower priority than finishing the space station — a challenging four-year task that resumes in earnest with the shuttle Atlantis' mission, scheduled for launch on Sunday.

Some scientific wares are still being sent into orbit — such as the lab freezer that went up on Discovery last month, or the microbial experiment due to be sent up on Atlantis — but most of the research has to be fitted in around the edges.

"Because we're entering this very, very involved phase of assembly, the amount of crew time that we're going to have is not as much as we would like for payload activity," Walz said. "And in some cases they've shown where we're actually in the hole. ... There are tremendous challenges right now for what we're doing."

Emphasis on human health in space
Back in the 1990s, NASA touted the station as the perfect place to study industrial alloys that could be put to exotic uses back on Earth ... protein crystals that could show the way to new and improved drugs ... even new tools for diagnosing and treating disease, developed in cooperation with the National Cancer Institute.

NASA'S AGENDA NASA NASA's research focuses on how to keep astronauts healthy in space, but some experiments could have earthly applications. Click for details

Many of those plans have gone by the wayside now: The science that's due to be done in the years ahead will focus on how humans can handle the health effects of microgravity, radiation exposure and other aspects of the space environment.

For decades, researchers have known that astronauts tend to lose bone mass and muscle tone in space, that they don't sleep as well and that their immune systems may be compromised. Until scientists learn how to counter those effects, humans won't be able to take on the longer-duration missions envisioned in NASA's exploration blueprint. So NASA is shifting its research agenda to figure out what it will take for astronauts to travel safely to the moon and Mars.

"What we are doing is using an occupational health model, where we have standards that we have to maintain," Walz explained. "We have to maintain the health of the astronauts to these standards."

Drastic cuts in research
Unfortunately, that change in approach has left millions of dollars' worth of equipment on the ground, and scores of researchers — particularly in animal biology and the physical sciences — out in the cold. Just last week, the research squeeze sparked a round of resignations from the NASA Advisory Council's science committee.

The NASA officials who actually manage the station's science program try to stay out the political fray, but they admit that the shrinking budgets aren't making the job any easier. "When programs get cut, people's feelings get hurt. They get angry sometimes," Don Thomas, NASA's space station program scientist, told MSNBC.com.

Just how much is being cut? NASA's figures show that the total budget for research and technology on the station went from $390 million in fiscal 2005 to $219 million this year — and is projected to shrink to $82 million in 2007.

There's even been talk of shutting down station research entirely for a year to make up for a looming shortfall in NASA's $16.8 billion budget. After an outcry was raised, space station manager Mike Suffredini seemed to back away from that idea. "We study a whole lot of things that aren't implemented," he told journalists this month.

MORE FROM HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT

Human Spaceflight Section Front

Spacewalkers spruce up the station Phew! Spacewalkers remove explosive bolt NASA to fix damaged launch pad Space shuttle makes ‘beautiful landing’ NASA eases concerns over shuttle objects Why NASA watches out for true UFOs FirstPerson: Your blasts from the past Space Coast worries about shuttle shutdown Get a look at NASA’s next spacesuit Astronauts talk sports during time off Human Spaceflight Section Front   Add Human Spaceflight headlines to your news reader: