THE US might privatise mission planning for the space shuttle and mothball
the Apollo Moon rocks. These are just two of the options NASA is considering to
slash its budget, according to a leaked memo.
President Bush鈥檚 blueprint budget for 2002 allocated a 1.4 per cent increase
in funding for NASA. But that increase is dwarfed by the spiralling costs of the
International Space Station (ISS). Now an internal memo circulated to NASA
managers reveals the projects that are in the frame for possible budget cuts or
closure.
The space agency would not comment on the details of the confidential
document. 鈥淭his was a leak,鈥� says Bob Jacobs, a spokesman at NASA headquarters.
鈥淭here鈥檚 no guarantee it鈥檚 accurate.鈥�
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However, the most prominent item on the agenda is an overhaul of space
shuttle financing. At the moment a private conglomerate, United Space Alliance
based in Houston, has a contract to operate shuttle launches, worth $1.2
billion per year. Mission planning and ground control systems as well as crew
healthcare could soon be up for grabs.
Some critics are alarmed at the idea of NASA privatising the shuttle even
further. 鈥淣ASA may already have gone too far in reducing oversight of the
shuttle and their ability to look after it,鈥� says John Pike, director of Global
Security, a think-tank based in Alexandria, Virginia.
The agency may also axe or privatise NASA television. Another possible
casualty is the Lunar Curatorial Facility at the Johnson Space Center in
Houston, Texas. Samples of Moon rocks from the Apollo era are stored there and
prepared for allocation to research scientists. But the project could be shelved
indefinitely鈥攗nless NASA can find an efficient operator for the
centre.
Michael Lipschutz, a chemist at Purdue University in West Lafayette who
worked at the facility in the early 1970s, says that techniques for protecting
Moon rocks and meteorites developed there are now practised elsewhere. So you
could simply relocate the lunar samples if need be, although many would be sad
to see the facility mothballed. 鈥淚t was intended to be the place established to
treat lunar samples as national treasures,鈥� says Lipschutz.
The memo also suggests phasing out the Super Guppy, the giant cargo plane
with a nose cone that unhinges through 110 degrees. NASA has used it to
transport huge pieces of space hardware that couldn鈥檛 fit into an ordinary
jumbo. The agency may phase out the Super Guppy after the final solar arrays get
to the ISS, scheduled for March 2006. Its demise would fit with the trend
towards building as much as possible in space, rather than struggling to
transport and launch hefty pieces of gear.
Jacobs says the overall aim of the review is to cut costs by focusing on what
the space agency does best, and farming out the rest. 鈥淎 lot of these things are
ways to get the agency out of operational mode and back towards its original
concept of research,鈥� he says.