Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

NASA’s international space station has been put on a crash diet to shed
billions of dollars in costs. The cuts were demanded by critics in Congress
who balked at the station’s huge budget. They will mean abandoning several
scientific instruments planned for the station.

William Lenoir, the agency’s director of space flight, said last week
that NASA will build a smaller station which will focus on the effects of
weightlessness on humans and materials. Proposed experiments to study the
Earth’s atmosphere and surface will be jetisoned. So will a number of astronomical
projects, as well as any role in sending people to the Moon and Mars. If
these sacrifices are not enough, Lenoir threatened, NASA may drop the whole
project.

Congress cut this year’s budget for the station by 22 per cent. NASA
must create a new design for the station within 90 days that will cut $6
billion from the cost of the original plan. ‘The space station promised
a lot of things to a lot of people,’ Lenoir said. ‘We can’t deliver on all
of them.

NASA is holding onto the idea of keeping the station permanently crewed.
For the first few years, however, astronauts may simply visit the station
for a few weeks at a time. Other savings include building the station’s
laboratory in two smaller sections that will fit inside the space shuttle.

Lenoir said NASA’s international partners, the European Space Agency,
Japan and Canada, are ‘disappointed’. ESA officials are at least relieved
that they are being included in the redesign from the beginning. According
to Ian Pryk, of ESA, the agency’s main concern is with potential delays
in construction and launches. These could play havoc with ESA’s own plans.
ESA is also concerned that European astronauts may have less access to the
station.