Jun 1 2007
From The Space Library
NASA submitted to the U.S. Congress a report that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2005 (Pub. L. No. 109-155) had mandated, “NASA Report to Congress Regarding a Plan for the International Space Station National Laboratory.” The Act required NASA to designate the U.S. portion of the ISS as a “national laboratory” and to make it available to public and private entities for basic and applied research not applicable to NASA’s mission. In the report, NASA affirmed its support of the concept and summarized steps taken during 2006 to make the ISS national laboratory a reality. NASA reported that a number of organizations had expressed interest in using the ISS for research in the fields of education, human health, and defense sciences. The report highlighted the project’s scheduled milestones, identified its constraints, explained NASA’s strategy and tactical initiatives for achieving the goal, and offered NASA’s preliminary findings on the project’s feasibility. After outlining progress to date, NASA described the preliminary operations plan. According to this plan, NASA would first address workforce needs and the requisite ground-based assets and management structures. NASA’s report concluded that, based on the demonstrated interest of parties outside of NASA, the odds of successfully realizing the goal set forth by Congress appeared promising. However, the report also noted that, because of the challenge of completing the ISS by 2010 and the need to demonstrate the capabilities of next-generation, commercial space-transportation services by the end of 2010, the financial risk to non-NASA entities remained high.
NASA, “NASA Report to Congress Regarding a Plan for the International Space Station National Laboratory” (NASA technical report no. PB2008-1005533, Washington, DC, May 2007), http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090010198_2008045339.pdf (accessed 24 May 2010); Jeff M. Bingham, “The Significance of NASA’s ISS National Laboratory Report,” NASASpaceflight.com, 4 June 2007, http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2007/06/the-significance-of-nasas-iss-national-laboratory-report/ (accessed 20 June 2010).
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