Controversial since it was first proposed as a Cold War outpost nearly 15 years ago, the international space station set to start assembly in November after long delays and mammoth cost overruns will either be a monumental waste or will prove that humans are meant to live in space.
To some critics, the space station is a boondoggle, a make-work project for the space industry and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Proponents say it will begin to fulfill the dream of exploring other worlds.
People have tried to justify the space station on its potential payoffs in science, technology, commerce and education; many skeptics remain unconvinced.
“The comment here in Washington is that Rep. Tim Roemer (an Indiana Democrat long opposed to the station) may have been right. We shouldn’t be building the space station, but we’re going to do it anyhow,” said John Logsdon, director of George Washington University’s Center for Space Policy.
The U.S. and Russia are full partners, each providing about 40 percent of the station’s hardware. Fourteen other nations–Canada, Japan, Brazil and the members of the European Space Agency–are picking up the rest of the tab so they can participate.
The most basic rationale espoused for the station comes from those in the U.S. and Russia who want to find out what humans can do in space. It is a goal not necessarily shared by the other countries, which are interested in having their astronauts visit space for the prestige factor.
“The reality is that the space station is a very expensive, high-risk gamble on future payoffs, and the results of that gamble probably will not be known for more than a decade,” Logsdon said.
“Failure of the station to show that people in Earth orbit can produce valuable results certainly would have a chilling effect on all future human space activity,” he added.
Many scientific groups have voiced doubts about the use of manned space programs to conduct research, especially because those programs drain money from unmanned space exploration. “The space station is about the worst return on your research dollar that you can find,” said Robert Park, a University of Maryland physicist and director of the American Physical Society. “There is nothing that can be done on the station in terms of scientific research that can’t be done much cheaper and much better robotically.”
Ultimately politics, not science, drives support for the space station, which means that a shift in political conditions could mean its collapse. If Russia’s growing economic woes, which already have caused long delays in the space station, force that nation to drastically reduce its commitment or to cancel it, U.S. political support for the program likely will evaporate.
Originally scheduled for completion in 2002 at a cost of $17.4 billion, NASA now estimates the station will be finished in 2003 and will cost $21.3 billion.
A consultant hired by Congress to review space station projections said NASA’s estimate was too low on the cost and too optimistic on the completion. Jay W. Chabrow, a former space executive, said the station will cost $24.7 billion, with completion in 2005 or 2006.
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, estimated the cost of building, operating and resupplying the space station over its anticipated 10-year life will be close to $100 billion. “Partnering with Russia is about the only way to keep the American piloted space flight program going,” said John Pike, director of space policy for the Federation of American Scientists.
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“Without the Russians, you don’t have a space station, and without the space station, the next time a shuttle blows up, the whole house of cards blows over.”
Russia is racing the clock to finish building a NASA-financed key early element of the space station. It is a 20-ton, 43-foot-long module that contains propulsion and command and control systems.
The module is set to be launched aboard a Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan on Nov. 20, a year overdue. A Russian-built service module, which eventually will house up to seven crew members, is set for launch in April 1999.
The core of the station will be an interconnected network of six modules, each the size of a city bus. Of the 43 launches needed to bring materials and workers to space for construction of the station, NASA’s shuttles will account for 34.
Russian officials believe that the lessons learned aboard Mir, the aging space station plagued by fires, a collision, decompression, power outages and other serious problems, will prove valuable in making the international space station work.
“What is being done under the joint Mir-shuttle program has provided the groundwork, beginning with medical and biological support and ending with language and technical compatibility and the possibility of interaction of mission-control centers,” said Yury Koptev, director general of the Russian Space Agency.
Shuttles made nine flights to Mir, the last a week ago to retrieve American astronaut Andrew Thomas, who had been on the cramped space station for four months. Mir will be abandoned in the next year, burning up in the atmosphere at the end of 1999.
The U.S. paid Russia more than $400 million for the opportunity of putting its people aboard Mir, and its shuttles delivered food, water and supplies. American cash and supplies helped keep Mir aloft when Russia’s space budget plunged with its economy. NASA also brought to Moscow computers and other equipment that, though old by up-to-the-minute U.S. standards, instantly became the best that Russia had going.
Russian scientists, respected worldwide for their ingenuity and ability to do a lot with a little, marveled at the technology and also learned about the benefits of tight organization, a NASA trademark. The Americans, meanwhile, saw the need for flexibility in a long-term space mission.
Along the way, friendships were formed and barriers broken. The Americans and Russians still explore space in different ways, but each side now has a better understanding of the other’s culture. Those kinds of intangible benefits are expected on the space station as well.
Russia has much at stake. First there is the question of national prestige, something Russia is struggling with these days with its economy on the brink, its military in tatters and its neighbors flaunting their independence after so many years under Moscow’s thumb.
The Russians consider themselves unsurpassed as space pioneers, and as the international station goes forward, they deem it only right that Russia plays a primary role.
At the same time, Russia’s involvement in the station will keep its space industry in the know and in the mix, helping Russian companies land contracts for such things as launching satellites. Aerospace and rocket science promise profits in a nation struggling to rebuild its manufacturing industry.
The idea of an international space station has had a controversial history, starting as a Cold War bastion of American technology and evolving to a symbol of world peace. It was almost killed by Congress at one point, saved by a single vote.
President Ronald Reagan called for the development of a space station in 1984 to challenge Russia’s Mir space outpost. It was to be a zero-gravity research and development facility, but industry showed almost no interest in using it to develop new materials.
During the Bush administration, the station was nearly canceled.
“It has everything to do with politics,” Pike said. “The space race was about showing that the American system was better than the Soviet system. Now the space station is a highly visible demonstration of the fact that we’re partners, not adversaries.”