Politics of shuttle science

ALTHOUGH STS-107 was packed with scientific experiments, it was more a politically driven mission - one that was specifically mandated by Congress in 2000 - than one which was part of NASA's original scheme of things. Given its commitment to the International Space Station (ISS), and faced with budgetary limitations to undertake autonomous research launch missions, NASA had expected to conduct these experiments aboard the ISS once it was ready. This would have taken a few years, given the ongoing construction work and the ISS' limited potential at present. However, some Congress members pushed for shuttle research missions in order to maintain the U.S.' leadership in microgravity research, with commercial potential in particular, following the end of the Spacelab in 1997.

Consequently, STS-107, originally intended to place the Triana satellite - advocated by Vice-President Al Gore to provide images of the daylight side of the Earth on a continual basis via the Internet for global warming studies - in orbit, was reconfigured as a microgravity research mission. Mission STS-107 was originally to have been launched in 2001. However, since Hubble had a greater priority, it was rescheduled for July 2002. It was further delayed by seven months owing to the grounding of the shuttle fleet following the discovery of cracks in the main engine fuel lines in Atlantis.

Congress has asked NASA to fly one shuttle research mission every year, "in order to maintain the continuity and quality of microgravity research" until the ISS is ready to operate as a full-fledged laboratory facility. During a March 2000 hearing on NASA's life and microgravity research programmes, the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Dana Rohrabacher, observed: "We have to make sure that when research is sent into space... we are getting the biggest bang for our buck. We cannot expect the scientific community to be engaged if researchers do not see hope that there will be research flight opportunities on a regular basis."

The lobby in Congress appears to have drawn strength from the views expressed by a section of the U.S. scientific community. For instance, Mary Osborne, chair of the Committee on Space Biology and Medicine of the Space Studies Board (SSB) of the National Research Council (NRC), testified at the same hearing that flying experiments in mid-deck shuttle lockers is no substitute for dedicated flight opportunities via the space shuttle or on-board the space station. Following the congressional directive, STS-107 is slated to be followed up by another shuttle microgravity mission, STS-123, scheduled for 2004.

The NRC, reacting to the proposed changes by NASA in the ISS schedule and design, which include reducing the number of crew members to three from seven and an uncertain delay in the establishment of on-board research facilities, observed as follows in a report released in September 2002: "Proposed reductions in available experiment accommodations, crew and power raise concerns about the ultimate functionality of ISS... If ISS capabilities were to be reduced, and there were no annual microgravity research-dedicated shuttle flights, then the viability of the overall programme in microgravity research would be seriously jeopardised, as would be the ability of NASA to achieve its stated scientific goals for the ISS."

The report called for restoring the ISS capabilities to original design levels or the scheduling of annual shuttle flights devoted to science if it was apparent that ISS would not be available for microgravity research even by 2006.