Mar 2 2006
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(New page: Heads of the national space agencies of Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia, and the United States met at NASA’s KSC in Florida to review plans for completing assembly of the ISS by th...)
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Heads of the national space agencies of Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia, and the United States met at NASA’s KSC in Florida to review plans for completing assembly of the ISS by the end of 2010. Since the grounding of the Space Shuttle fleet in 2003, in the wake of the Columbia disaster, the ISS had operated with two-member crews. However, the ISS partners planned to increase the crew to three members with the next Space Shuttle Discovery flight, scheduled for May 2006, and to increase the crew of the station to six members in 2009. Furthermore, NASA announced its plan to launch 16 Shuttle flights to allow completion of the ISS before the planned retirement of the Shuttles in 2010. To advance the assembly schedule, the Shuttles would transport ESA’s Columbus laboratory module and JAXA’s experiment module Kibo to the ISS during four missions in 2007 and 2008. The ISS partners issued a joint statement that “affirmed their plans to use a combination of transportation systems provided by Europe, Japan, Russia, and the United States in order to complete ISS assembly in a timeframe that meets the needs of the partners and ensures full utilization of the unique capabilities of the ISS throughout its lifetime.”
NASA, “Joint Statement by International Space Station Heads of Agency,” news release 06-084, 2 March 2006, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/mar/HQ_06084_HOA_statement.html (accessed 21 June 2010); Warren E. Leary, “Schedule To Complete Space Station Is Advanced,” New York Times, 3 March 2006; Irene Klotz for Reuters, “NASA Has New Plan To Complete Space Station,” 2 March 2006.
At a hearing on NASA’s FY 2007 budget request for its Science Mission Directorate, the House Committee on Science received testimony from the Directorate’s Associate Administrator Mary L. Cleave. NASA’s FY 2007 budget request for science programs was US$3.1 billion less for fiscal years 2006 through 2010 than its FY 2006 budget request had projected. The request reflected NASA’s decision to slow the rate of growth for scientific missions by 1.5 percent in 2007 and by 1 percent thereafter. Cleave defended this decision against concerns of the House committee that the policy would result in the delay or cancellation of numerous missions, and insufficient funds to initiate new missions. She stated that, to comply with NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin’s directive to provide “a robust and executable program that can be implemented in this resource-constrained environment,” the Directorate would be “selecting, developing, and launching a slate of Science missions within cost and schedule targets.” NASA would have to delay, but not abandon, new scientific missions, such as the mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa. Democrats on the committee joined the scientists testifying before the House panel in opposing the proposed cuts to NASA’s science programs, particularly in the areas of research and analysis. Opponents of the budgetary reduction argued vehemently that the cuts could potentially cause long-term damage to the health of NASA’s science program, and that the continuance of university-based research was critical to training the next generation of scientists and engineers.
U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Science, “NASA Budget Puts Key Science Priorities at Risk,” news release, 2 March 2006, http://science.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=1057 (accessed 12 July 2010); U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Science, NASA Science Mission Directorate: Impacts of the Fiscal Year 2007 Budget Proposal, 109th Cong., 2nd sess., 2 March 2006, 3, 4, 24, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?browsePath=109%2FHOUSE%2FCommittee+on+Science&granuleId=CHRG-109hhrg26204&packageId=CHRG-109hhrg26204&fromBrowse=true (accessed 30 December 2010).
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