With the weekend landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-124) after successful delivery of Japan’s Kibo lab to the International Space Station, it appears that the scale-up from the current Expedition 17 three-man crew to the Expedition 19 six-man crew will take place as planned in 2009. The ISS has been continuously manned since Nov. 2, 2000, with more than 50 astronauts/cosmonauts in two- and three-man teams taking an average six-month tour. These crews were ferried to and from the ISS by Russian Soyuz rockets and NASA Space Shuttles.
A considerable amount of discussion is currently underway as to how U.S. manned space science will be supported between the final Shuttle missions in 2010 or 2011 and its replacement availability. The earliest that NASA’s Constellation system (Ares launch vehicles, Orion crew module, Altair lunar lander) will be available to provide manned transport is about 2016, assuming there are no technical or funding glitches along the way. Five years without a manned space transport capability, following more than 25 years of Shuttle capabilities has troubled some people in Washington, D.C., to see what can be done to speed up the program. Alternative space transport capabilities include making use of the Soyuz and supporting development of a private vehicle capability, like R&D Magazine’s Innovator of the Year Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon.
The majority of the ISS Expedition crews have already been transported via the Soyuz, it’s reliability is among the best in the business, its cost is reasonable, and making use of it financially supports this needed resource. And while the U.S. and the Russian space programs have had a very successful collaboration for the past eight years, there are still those within Washington who are skeptical about relying too much on a potential adversary for these services. This skepticism, of course, violates the true concept of the ISS and supports a continued adversarial relationship between the two countries. We should support continued development of the Constellation system at a very reasonable rate and subsequent cost—this system truly supports our own internal space development capabilities. But in the interim, let’s make the best use of what’s already available, safe, and reliable and not worry about the politics.
