NASA and its international partners may be hard-pressed to keep the space station alive after the planned retirement of the space shuttle in 2010, a US congressional committee was told today.
The US House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology鈥檚 Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics held a hearing on the status of the space shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday in Washington, DC, US.
After the shuttles retire in 2010, current plans call for other vehicles, such as the European Space Agency鈥檚 Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), to pick up some of the slack.
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NASA is relying on commercial space vehicles currently under development in its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) programme to make up the rest.
But Tommy Holloway, who retired in 2002 from his position as manager of NASA鈥檚 space station programme, said he doubts that the commercial vehicles will be ready by the time the shuttles retire, as planned.
鈥淚 hope I鈥檓 wrong, but I expect it will be several years after that before routine commercial [launch] activities are viable,鈥� he said, noting how critical it is to be able to replace broken hardware and deliver enough consumables, such as water and fuel, to the station.
鈥淲ithout that, you eventually will have to abandon the station,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 think depending totally on COTS would be a significant risk to the long-term viability of the station.鈥�
Space collisions
Holloway said NASA needed an extra $1 billion per year to purchase flights of established vehicles that could supply the space station in the interim. A report issued in February by a task force that Holloway chaired mentions Russian Progress cargo vehicles, European ATVs or Japanese cargo vehicles called HTVs as possible options.
Since it takes two to three years to manufacture and prepare such vehicles for flight, NASA needs to start making the necessary arrangements now if it is to have the extra capacity available by 2010, the report says.
Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA鈥檚 head of space operations, did not deny the challenge of getting all the necessary cargo up to the space station. 鈥淭his is clearly something we need to go work on,鈥� he told the committee.
He said NASA would be in a better position to judge when the commercial vehicles will be ready after they do their first test flights, which are planned for 2008. 鈥淣ext year we鈥檒l be in a much better posture to see where we are,鈥� he said.
Other issues highlighted for concern at the hearing include:
聲 a lack of funding for science experiments aboard the space station;
聲 the need for more shielding on the station to protect against collisions with micrometeoroids and space junk; and
聲 concerns that ATV operations will be hampered by US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which limit the amount of information sharing between NASA and contractors based in other countries
