Space station science gets squeezed

Is this trip really necessary?
Some of NASA's critics say closing down the space station's science program wouldn't be such a bad thing. "There is no meaningful research on the ISS to shut down," said University of Maryland physicist Robert Park.

Park has long contended that the billions of dollars spent on the space station should be put toward other science projects instead. In Park's view, humans shouldn't be sent to do a robot's job, and he points to the success of communication satellites and planetary rovers as evidence that space exploration and exploitation is the kind of job robots do best.

"About the only thing you can do on a space station is study the effects of microgravity on the human body, and if anybody can point out to me why we're putting human beings into that environment ... well, there's not much need to do that," he told MSNBC.com.

However, most scientists who accept the need to send humans into space say a station of some sort is needed as well. And NASA Watch's Cowing says the international space station could have "amazing capability" once it's completed.

"Consider the mere fact that you have a spacecraft up there that's roughly the size of anything you would want to fly. You'd be able to in essence mount a [practice] mission to Mars in low Earth orbit," he told MSNBC.com. "You need to flight-certify humans for long-duration spaceflight."

Research lost in space
Cowing would like to see the station used once again for fundamental genetic research ("How do genes get turned on and turned off during exposure to microgravity?") as well as materials science and crystallography ("I think it's criminal not to at least try some of these things up there.").

COST OF SCIENCE NASA How much does the space station cost? $35 billion? $100 billion? What else could that money buy? Click for details

He particularly mourned the cancellation of a station add-on known as the Centrifuge Accommodation Module. Studies of the effects of reduced gravity are widely considered a prerequisite for sending humans to live on Mars — and Cowing said the centrifuge could have been the equivalent of a Hubble Space Telescope for reduced-gravity research.

In a report to Congress (PDF file), NASA says it can do the experiments it needed to do with smaller centrifuges aboard the station, but Cowing said "it almost boggles the mind that this is the thing that you would not fly." The cancellation carries an extra sting for Japan's space agency, which spent $700 million building the now-mothballed centrifuge module for NASA.

Another international project in peril is the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a 15-nation, $33 million experiment to look for signs of cosmic antimatter. The 7-ton instrument was due to spend three years on the space station — but because of the shuttle schedule crunch, it can't get a ride into orbit.

Japan and Europe starting on science
On the bright side, NASA made room on its space shuttle manifest for the delivery of orbital laboratories for Japan and the European Space Agency — labs that NASA was obliged to bring to the station under the terms of international agreements. Thomas, the station program scientist, said he's trying to link up researchers whose experiments were cut by NASA with teams who have similar experiments slated for the European or Japanese lab.

"If we can get them on some of the other teams, that's not only good for them in their professional career as a scientist, it's also a good thing for our international partners," Thomas said.

Will some aspects of NASA's space station science program turn into an outplacement program for the Europeans and the Japanese? Or is there relief in sight?

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