Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 12, 1990 TAG: 9007120045
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
"It's going in the wrong direction, not the right direction," Rep. Bill Green, R-N.Y., said of the space station project.
Green, the ranking minority member of the appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA spending, said in a telephone interview that his staff had seen some of the same gloomy forecasts as The New York Times, which published the results in its Wednesday editions.
NASA has said it will make the document public next week, along with plans to reduce the number of spacewalks through design changes and other means. The agency declined requests to make the study public immediately.
The space station's top official, William B. Lenoir, has maintained that the estimates would be high but that the number could be cut sharply.
Green said the maintenance requirements were only one issue. The other, he said, is the limited amount of electrical power that appears to be available for microgravity experiments on the station.
NASA plans initially to have 75 kilowatts of power, of which 45 kilowatts will be needed for housekeeping.
Green said that if NASA can't bring maintenance under control or provide enough power to be useful, it might be time to change designs.
"One has to look at the possibility that if the situation continues to deteriorate in terms of safety and the capacity of the station, there comes a point where we say, `Hey, this design is not working' and maybe go back to the design this country had, Skylab," Green said.
The Skylab program in 1973 and 1974 involved sets of three astronauts working inside the orbiting laboratory for periods of 28, 56 and 84 days.
The space station, whose cost has more than tripled from the $8 billion estimate when President Reagan proposed it in 1984, is in a preliminary design phase. A review late this year will lead to the start of detailed designs.
A preliminary report in March by a 12-member team headed by Dr. William J. Fisher, an astronaut, and Charles R. Price, a robotics engineer, found the station would need more than 2,200 hours of maintenance each year, far more than the 130 hours that had been budgeted.
The New York Times said the final report expects that more than 3,800 hours of spacewalking time would be needed. To date, astronauts have logged 400 hours of space walks, each a risky exercise.
"You can't do it as currently designed," the newspaper quoted an unnamed engineer. "You have to build a different station."
Green said the space station would be useful for two major tasks: learning what happens when humans spend extended time in space, and processing materials in a near-zero gravity environment.
Congress is considering a request of $2.5 billion for the station in the next fiscal year. The first elements of the station are expected to be put into orbit early in 1995, with completion 28 flights later in 1999.
by CNB