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US Congress seeks to extend shuttle flights |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
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 Against the advice of NASA and independent safety experts, several US congressmen are working to add three more shuttle flights to the manifest after the planned 2010 retirement. Of particular interest in the proposed NASA Authorization Act of 2008 is $150 million for a shuttle mission to deliver the currently-grounded Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station.
Even though NASA and its suppliers are already beginning the process of drawing down the shuttle program’s support structures, that didn’t stop Representative Mark Udall (D-Colorado) from introducing the bill. In addition to the AMS delivery, there would be two more supply missions to the ISS that NASA has planned and budgeted for as contingencies, pending White House approval; the 2008 NASA Authorization would approve the flights.
Udall is on the House Committee on Science and Technology, serving as chairman of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee. He submitted the bill along with Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Florida), the ranking minority member of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas), and Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tennessee). Though Udall was not able to make it to the vote on the bill, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-Louisiana) chaired the subcommittee session on which the bill was finally voted. Less than six minutes after introduction the NASA Authorization Act of 2008 was cleared with no amendments and sent to the full Science and Technology Committee for consideration. The Senate Commerce Committee has yet to introduce its version of the bill, which would be required to appropriate the funds for these missions.
Now titled House Resolution 6063, if the NASA Authorization Act of 2008 were to be made law (after passing committee, being voted by the House of Representatives, surviving Senate/House integration hearings, and not being approved by the President), it would bring a 2009 budget of $19.2 billion to NASA, $1.6 billion more than was requested by the White House, and $1.9 billion more than was approved for 2008. The bill would also require NASA to send a shuttle mission to the ISS to deliver the AMS, authorize an additional $1 billion for accelerating the development of the Orion CEV and Ares I launch systems, which are currently projected to enter service in March 2015.
HR 6063 also authorizes NASA to continue working towards a 2020 return to the moon, as well as encouraging the agency to explore more options for international cooperation towards reaching those and further goals. NASA would also be required to name the first US lunar outpost after Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, as well as designing the outpost the be capable of operating for extended periods without human inhabitants. The bill would authorize NASA to proceed with the development of the climate-monitoring Glory satellite and require the agency to produce a plan to ensure continued collection of Landsat-like thermal surface imagery (the planned 2011 Landsat launch does not include thermal imaging).
All of that is assuming, again, that it makes it into being law without extraneous amendments. And that never happens. Ever.
 The AMS is of great interest, however. The massive experiment would be mounted on the exterior of the ISS to search for dark matter and antimatter and measure cosmic ray exposure, all in an effort to study the formation of our universe. The $1.5 billion device has been in development since 1995, under the lead of the US Department of Energy, with 16 international partners. It has been called by the New York Times “one of the most expensive scientific experiments ever built.”
NASA agreed in 1995 to launch the AMS aboard a space shuttle, but the loss of Columbia in 2003, followed by a two and a half year suspension of shuttle flights and the 2010 retirement date, have pushed the AMS off the flight manifest. Because of the large monetary commitment, the experiment as support from many members of Congress who have repeatedly requested NASA to find a way to fly the AMS to the ISS, and bill that funded NASA for this year directed the agency to study the matter.
NASA studying the request and concluded that there was not room on the remaining shuttle manifest for the AMS, the last two contingency flights are to be loaded with ISS space parts that are too large to fit in any of the autonomous cargo ship systems like Russia’s Progress or the ESA’s ATV. Additionally, NASA concluded that no current rocket system could be feasibly altered to launch the AMS, as it was designed to fit inside the confines of the space shuttle cargo bay. Adding a space shuttle flight to 2010 would cost $300-$400 million, and flying the entire fleet into 2011 would require $2.7 billion to $4 billion.
Lastly, HR 6063 directs NASA to “take no steps” that would prevent the United States from making use of the International Space Station after 2016. The current US commitment to the $100 billion station ends in 2015.
View: HR 6063 – NASA Authorization Act for 2008
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