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To: lurqer who wrote (36390)	1/26/2004 11:39:57 PM
From: lurqer	Respond to of 89467

First the Hubble, now the Space Station. Report says cuts hinder potential of space station The International Space Station will never be a first-class research laboratory if recent decisions to reduce its crew size and scientific equipment remain in effect, according to a report by a panel of experts. NASA officials, however, said that the agency was considering further expansion of the orbiting outpost and that it was determined to make it productive scientifically. Allard Beutel, a space agency spokesman, said Thursday that Sean O'Keefe, the NASA administrator, had seen the space station report, which was issued Wednesday by a panel of the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences. O'Keefe will take it into consideration as the agency reviews how to conduct the best science on the station, Beutel said. Cost overruns on the international project, for which the United States is the managing partner and major sponsor, led NASA to decided last year to scale back the station until it found ways to curtail spending on it. The agency said it would stop construction on the station when it reached a "core complete" configuration, now set for 2004, that would allow the station to function with a three-person crew. To cut costs, NASA deleted from the station a rescue spacecraft that could accommodate a crew of seven, a living module that would have allowed a crew of six or seven and several research facilities, along with crucial equipment for experiments. The new report, drafted by an 11-member task force, said the station would never reach its scientific potential with the reduced crew and diminished research facilities. The report said that although NASA's stated goal for the space station "is to create a world-class laboratory, it is the opinion of the task group that the actions taken in regard to crew time, equipment, facilities and logistics make this unlikely." The cost cutting, including canceling or delaying equipment for experiments, was done without assessing scientific priorities or determining which disciplines would be affected most, the panel said. This caused the physical sciences to be hurt disproportionately, and caused delays in adding high-priority equipment. The task force included engineers, scientists and medical specialists and was overseen by Dr. James Bagian of the Veterans Health Administration, a former astronaut. It said reducing the station's crew to three was the biggest blow, resulting in an 85 percent loss in crew time for scientific activities. chron.com lurqer