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Panel Advises Longer Life For Space Station

Posted by samzenpus on from the if-it-isn't-broke dept.

suraj.sun writes "A presidential panel reviewing the US space program has found that the United States needs to boost NASA's budget by $1.5 billion to fly the last seven shuttle missions and should extend International Space Station operations through 2020. The panel also proposed adding an extra, eighth shuttle flight to help keep the station supplied and narrow an expected 5-7 year gap between the time the shuttle fleet is retired and a new US spaceship is ready to fly."

4 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. No they didn't. by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Shuttle/ISS subcommittee headed by Dr Sally Ride has presented three options:

    1. Do nothing, let the shuttle stop flying at the end of 2010 and let the station be de-orbited at the end of 2016.
    2. Fly 1 more mission, and still de-orbit the station at the end of 2016.
    3. Extend station operations through to the end of 2020 and fly more shuttle missions to support it.

    The options explain how to do it, what funding will be required, and the consequences on other programs.

    The President and the new NASA Administrator will take these options and decide which to implement, depending on what funding they can get from Congress.

    The committee is not chartered with making any recommendations, and the options are not final until the report is released, around Aug 31.

    You can give your opinions to the committee via the website: http://hsf.nasa.gov/

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    How we know is more important than what we know.
  2. Re:Decommission Shuttle at the station by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Informative

    It'd stop working about about a month or two and that'd just be more facility for the Russians to spend time repairing.

    The Shuttle simply isn't speced for long term exposure to space. The fact that it doesn't fall apart for the 14 days that it is typically on-orbit is a result of constant care and attention on the ground.

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    How we know is more important than what we know.
  3. VASIMR by Gary+W.+Longsine · · Score: 5, Informative

    Near the end of 2008, Ad Astra and NASA signed an agreement to build a 200kw flight article and test it at ISS.

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    If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
  4. Re:Ion engine? by theheadlessrabbit · · Score: 5, Funny

    There's no ion engine that can lift 303t.

    then use two.

    I'm temped to suggest a beowulf cluster of ion engines, but I don't want to take the karma hit.

    Honestly, the answer is so simple! And I'm just a normal person who can't even do long division. How is it that I know all the answers to solving the ISS problems when these NASA engineers can't seem to figure it out? for serious...

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    -I only code in BASIC.-