A study released Tuesday by the General Accounting Office concluded that the space station program will cost $95 billion dollars over its lifetime, far more than estimated by NASA.
The GAO study, requested by three longtime station opponents, made several assumptions that differed from NASA estimates. The largest discrepancy is the inclusion of $50 billion in shuttle transportation costs for construction and maintenance of the station. The study also assumed a 15-year station lifetime, as opposed to the 10-year lifetime quoted by NASA.
NASA was quick to argue that the conclusions of the GAO study were flawed. NASA officials pointed out that including shuttle costs is not valid, as shuttle missions would occur regardless of the station.
Senator Dale Bumpers (D-AR), one of the three members of Congress to request the GAO report, argued that the station program should be terminated now, regardless of the amount of money spent on the program to date. He estimated that up to $15 billion over 7 years would be saved by terminating the station. His conclusions were supported by the other Congressmen who requested the study, Representatives Gerald Solomon (R-NY) and Dick Zimmer (R-NJ).
Last week, the space subcommittee of the House Science Committee approved a bill that would provide multiyear authorization for station funding. The bill would authorize $2.1 billion a year through 2002 for the space station, so long as NASA reported to Congress that the station program was not behind schedule or over budget. The subcommittee also voted down, by a margin of 18-3, a resolution calling for the cancellation of the shuttle program.
After a pair of woodpeckers drilled over 100 holes in the insulation of Discovery's external fuel tank, postponing the mission by over a month, NASA officials have decided to give the problem the BIRD.
The BIRD, or Bird Investigation Review and Deterrent team, was established after the incident to study ways to prevent the incident from reoccurring. The committee, which includes an Audubon Society member, will study humane ways to keep the birds from damaging the external tank.
NASA has already been deluged with ideas, including a number of unusual ones, for dealing with the woodpecker problem. People have suggested using balloons to suspend nets over the shuttle, paint the tank blue (a color which woodpeckers apparently do not like), and even bring in a shaman to invoke spirits to keep the birds away. Proposals which could injure or kill the birds will not be considered, NASA officials say, because the space center is located in the middle of a wildlife refuge.
NASA originally attempted to patch the holes in the insulation on the pad. However, the number of holes, as well as their size (some were up to 10 cm (4 in) in diameter and up to 5 cm (2 in) deep), meant that not all of the holes could be patched on the pad, forcing a delay as the shuttle is rolled back to the assembly building to finish patching. The mission, which will deploy a TDRS communications satellite for use by future shuttle missions and other spacecraft, has been rescheduled for July 13.
The seventh test flight of the DC-X SSTO testbed was a success Monday, as the vehicle demonstrated a part of the critical end-over-end "flip" maneuver required for reentry.
The flight took place shortly before 9 am MDT Monday at the White Sands Test Range in New Mexico. After takeoff, the vehicle pitched over 60 degrees and flew sideways. It then swung back through the vertical to 60 degrees in the opposite direction, using its engines to bring it to a stop in mid-air before landing.
The successful flight sets the stage for next test flight, which will be a test of the full 180-degree "flip" maneuver. This maneuver is required for full-scale Delta Clipper-type vehicles to transition from nose-first reentry to tail-first landing. The test flight is scheduled for early July. A ninth test flight may be held on the same day as the eighth flight, to provide a demonstration of the fast turn-around times that SSTO technology promises.
A stuck solar panel on the new Spektr module and other minor problems may force cosmonauts aboard Mir to perform a sixth spacewalk in less than a month to prepare the station for the upcoming docking with the shuttle Atlantis.
One of the four solar panels on the Spektr module failed to unfurl correctly when the module was attached to the space station at the beginning of June. The panels increase the electrical generating capacity of the station and make it possible to provide more power to experiments and other projects on the station. The other three panels extended without any problems.
Cosmonauts may also investigate a malfunctioning solar array on another module. The array, located on the Kvant-2 module, has been acting erratically lately. Also, cosmonauts will look for anything that might have caused an air leak when the Kristall module was moved to a different docking port last month.
The spacewalk is not expected to delay the docking between Mir and the shuttle Atlantis, scheduled for later this month. Atlantis is due to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center no earlier than Thursday, June 22.
A docking module and set of solar arrays, both built in Russia, have arrived at the Kennedy Space Center for launch on the second Shuttle-Mir docking flight later this year.
A Russian An-124 cargo plane, the Russian equivalent of the American C-5, delivered the equipment to the space center last week. The equipment, which also includes ground support equipment and a docking module mockup for use in training, will be carried aboard the shuttle Atlantis on the STS-74 Mir docking mission scheduled for late October.
During the mission, the shuttle will use its manipulator arm to place the docking module on the shuttle's orbiter docking system, and then dock the shuttle with Mir. At the end of the mission, the two vehicles will undock, leaving the docking module attached to Mir for use in future missions. The solar arrays, which will be attached to the side of the docking module for storage during the mission, will be attached to the station after the mission.
The president of McDonnell Douglas has sent a letter to Vice President Al Gore, requesting that no change be made to the current quotas on launches of Western satellites by Russian boosters, one month after the chairman of Lockheed Martin wrote Gore requesting a loosening in the quotas, Space News reports.
Harry Stonecipher, president and chief executive officer of McDonnell Douglas, explained in his letter to Gore that permitting more launches by Russian and Chinese boosters could disrupt his companay's plans to develop the Delta 3. McDonnell Douglas announced last month that it was creating a heavy-lift version of its workhorse Delta 2 booster and had signed an agreement with Hughes for the first set of launches.
Lockheed Martin, which is a partner in the Lockheed-Krunichev-Energia Inetrnational company that markets the Proton booster to Western companies, wrote its letter to clarify its position on the quotas. Before Lockheed and Martin Marietta merged earlier this year, Lockheed has supported expanded launch quotas, while Martin Marietta, which markets the Atlas booster, has opposed them. The merged company has now bundled the Atlas and Proton into a single package to provide additional flexibility to launch customers.
The 1993 bilateral trade pact between the U.S. and Russia limited Russia to eight launches to geostationary orbit through 2000. Russian officials have said for some time they wish for expanded quotas, which will permit them to better compete with China and with Western companies. The topic may come up for discussion later this month when Gore meets with his Russian counterpart, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, in Washington.
French officials have opened the door for participation in the Ariane 5 booster project by Russian and Ukrainian companies, even at the risk of displacing German and Italian companies currently working on the project, Space News reports.
The French space agency CNES has signed contracts with Khrunichev to study a replacement upper stage for the Ariane 5. The upper stage is currently being designed by a German company. Khrunichev is best known for its Proton heavy-lift booster, which will provide strong competition with the Ariane 5.
CNES also signed contracts with NPO Yushnoye, a Ukrainian company that has worked on the Zenit booster. NPO Yushnoye will study using one stage of the liquid-fueled Zenit to replace a solid-fueled booster being built by a consortium of German and Italian companies.
Scientists analyzing data from the Astro-2 shuttle mission earlier this year have discovered traces of primordial helium in the Universe, evidence which helps confirm the Big Bang hypothesis for the origin of the Universe.
Astronomers at Johns Hopkins University used data from the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT), to search the primordial intergalactic medium for traces of helium. They accomplished this by looking at a quasar 10 billion light years from the Earth. At this distance, the light from the quasar comes from a time early in the universe, when all the hydrogen and helium created in the Big Bang had not yet coalesced into galaxies. The astronomers looked for spectral lines in the far ultraviolet caused by the absorption of light by electrons in helium atoms.
The results also shed light on the dark matter problem which has plagued astronomers in recent years. Since observable matter only accounts for 1-10% of the observed gravitational force in the Universe, various types of "dark" matter have been proposed to account for the unseen mass. Some of this mass is believed to be normal matter, and the Astro-2 results appear to indicate that the amount of primordial hydrogen and helium observed should equal the amount of normal dark matter predicted by current theories.
A four-month search for signals from extraterrestrial intelligences, using the Parkes radiotelescope in Australia, wound down last week, having turned up plenty of signals from terrestrial sources but no signals from beyond the Earth.
The privately-funded Project Phoenix used the large radiotelescope and sophisticated electronic equipment to scan the heavens for extraterrestrial signals while filtering out man-made radio sources. Among the man-made signals detected were satellites, microwave ovens, cellular phones, and even garage door openers. Their equipment permitted them to listen to 28 million frequencies simultaneously.
The SETI team, while disappointed that no signals were detected, plan to continue their work. They and their equipment are returning to California for the next stage of the search effort. They estimate they have enough funding at the current time to continue their search for another 12 months.
Project Phoenix was established after Congress cut funding for the NASA-supported High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS), which would have conducted a similar search for extraterrestrial signals. Project Phoenix's donors include Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Hewlett-Packard founders William Hewlett and David Packard.
In an article published in the journal Science, a team of astronomers and chemists announced that they had discovered traces of water in one of the unlikeliest places in the solar system: on the surface of the Sun.
Using a spectrograph on the solar telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory, the team found evidence of hydrogen and oxygen on the surface of the Sun, and water vapor in cooler sunspots. It is believed that the hydrogen and oxygen atoms combine to form water in the sunspots, which are only about 2800 C (5000 F), compared to the 5550 C (10,000 F) temperatures of the normal solar photosphere.
The discovery of water has led astronomers to search for other chemicals which may exist on the Sun. Scientists believe that by searching for these compounds, we will better understand the composition of the Sun and, by extension, the composition of other stars in the galaxy.
Atlas 1, Ariane 1: A Lockheed Martin Atlas 2 placed a Navy communications satellite into orbit May 31. The Ultra-High Frequency Follow-On (UHF) satellite will join three other satellites in providing communications with military forces around the world. An Ariane 42P placed a Hughes direct broadcasting satellite into orbit on June 10. The DBS-3 satellite, along with two other satellites already launched, will provide 150 channels of television programming to owners of small satellite dishes.
Crimson Tide, The Sequel?: A project to launch a suborbital science package from a Russian nuclear submarine was delayed by arms control inspectors last week. Russia planned to launch a German payload from a Delta-4 nuclear submarine, but the launch was delayed when American arms control inspectors showed up at the sub's home port of Murmansk for an inspection, requiring the sub to stay in port. The scientific payload, which will land on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East, will study convection currents in the Earth's mantle.
Rocket Launch Aborted: The high-flying Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association, poised to win their second consecutive championship, may be able to beat Shaq and the Orlando Magic, but they can't beat NASA. Their request to fly a new team logo and uniform on the upcoming STS-71 shuttle mission was denied by NASA officials, who note that federal employees cannot participate in commercial promotions. The Rockets will unveil the new logo in more down-to-earth surroundings, at the NBA draft in Toronto June 28.
Congratulations: ...to Norm Thagard, who broke the recond for longest stay in orbit by an American astronaut June 6. He broke the record of 84 days set by the third Skylab crew in 1974. He'll continue to add to his record until early July, when he returns to Earth on the shuttle Atlantis at the end of the historic Mir-Shuttle docking mission. While Thagard's stay is an American record, it's nothing to the Russians: Valery Polyakov returned to Earth in March after spending 439 days in orbit, the current Russian (and world) record.