NASA
• International Space Station
– Why Explore Space?
• Michael Griffin
Administrator
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
– As NASA resumes flights of the space shuttle to finish
building the International Space Station, many are
questioning whether the project – the most complex
construction feat ever undertaken – is worth the risk and
expense.
– I have been asked, and asked myself, this question many times during my career,
particularly when the United States lacked a plan to go beyond the space station
to other destinations in the solar system.
The issue was addressed eloquently in the report of the Columbia Accident
Investigation Board, which examined the 2003 loss of the shuttle and its crew.
That report pointed out that for the foreseeable future, space travel is going to be
expensive, difficult and dangerous. But, for the United States, it is strategic. It is
part of what makes us a great nation. And the report declared that if we are going
to send humans into space, the goals ought to be worthy of the cost, the risk and
the difficulty. A human spaceflight program with no plan to send people anywhere
beyond the orbiting space station certainly did not meet that standard.
President Bush responded to the Columbia report. The administration looked at
where we had been in space and concluded that we needed to do more, to go
further. The result was the Vision for Space Exploration, announced nearly three
years ago, which commits the United States to using the shuttle to complete the
space station, then retiring the shuttle and building a new generation of spacecraft
to venture out into the solar system. Congress has ratified that position with an
overwhelming bipartisan majority, making the Vision for Space Exploration the law
of the land.
• I have been asked, and asked myself, this question many times during my career,
particularly when the United States lacked a plan to go beyond the space station to
other destinations in the solar system.
The issue was addressed eloquently in the report of the Columbia Accident
Investigation Board, which examined the 2003 loss of the shuttle and its crew. That
report pointed out that for the foreseeable future, space travel is going to be
expensive, difficult and dangerous. But, for the United States, it is strategic. It is part
of what makes us a great nation. And the report declared that if we are going to send
humans into space, the goals ought to be worthy of the cost, the risk and the
difficulty. A human spaceflight program with no plan to send people anywhere beyond
the orbiting space station certainly did not meet that standard.
President Bush responded to the Columbia report. The administration looked at
where we had been in space and concluded that we needed to do more, to go
further. The result was the Vision for Space Exploration, announced nearly three
years ago, which commits the United States to using the shuttle to complete the
space station, then retiring the shuttle and building a new generation of spacecraft to
venture out into the solar system. Congress has ratified that position with an
overwhelming bipartisan majority, making the Vision for Space Exploration the law of
the land.
– Today, NASA is moving forward with a new focus for the
manned space program: to go out beyond Earth orbit for
purposes of human exploration and scientific discovery. And
the International Space Station is now a stepping stone on the
way, rather than being the end of the line.
On the space station, we will learn how to live and work in
space. We will learn how to build hardware that can survive and
function for the years required to make the round-trip voyage
from Earth to Mars.
If humans are indeed going to go to Mars, if we're going to go
beyond, we have to learn how to live on other planetary
surfaces, to use what we find there and bend it to our will, just
as the Pilgrims did when they came to what is now New
England – where half of them died during that first frigid winter
in 1620. There was a reason their celebration was called
"Thanksgiving."
– The Pilgrims had to learn to survive in a strange new place across a vast ocean. If
we are to become a spacefaring nation, the next generation of explorers is going
to have to learn how to survive in other forbidding, faraway places across the
vastness of space. The moon is a crucially important stepping stone along that
path – an alien world, yet one that is only a three-day journey from Earth.
Using the space station and building an outpost on the moon to prepare for the
trip to Mars are critical milestones in America's quest to become a truly
spacefaring nation. I think that we should want that. I want that. I want it for the
American people, for my grandchildren, for my great-grandchildren.
Throughout history, the great nations have been the ones at the forefront of the
frontiers of their time. Britain became great in the 17th century through its
exploration and mastery of the seas. America's greatness in the 20th century
stemmed largely from its mastery of the air. For the next generations, the frontier
will be space.
Other countries will explore the cosmos, whether the United States does or not.
And those will be Earth's great nations in the years and centuries to come. I
believe America should look to its future – and consider what that future will look
like if we choose not to be a spacefaring nation.
Latest News
• Station Recovers From Power Loss
– Mission control teams are working to assess systems affected by a
power loss aboard the International Space Station early Sunday
morning. The station's three crew members were not in any danger, but
it did turn an off-duty day into a full work shift.
About 1 a.m. EST, one of the power channels of the P4 solar array
electrical system went down because of a glitch with a device known as
a direct current switching unit. It controls power distribution from the
solar array to the battery systems and other hardware. The glitch
resulted in a temporary loss of communications, and shut down some
equipment, including a few science facilities and heating units and
control moment gyroscope #2. The station never lost orientation
control, but it operated most of the day with two of four gyros. Control
moment gyroscope #3 previously had been powered down.
Flight controllers restored power to nearly all affected systems and
equipment by Monday morning. They are still investigating what caused
the glitch, but they believe it was an isolated event.
Record Setting Spacewalks
– Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Suni
Williams finished a 6-hour, 40-minute spacewalk Thursday.
Their completed tasks will allow for the attachment of a cargo
platform during the STS-118 mission this summer and
relocation of the P6 truss during STS-120 later this year.
The crew now begins to review Russian procedures for the next
spacewalk on Feb. 22. Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer
Mikhail Tyurin will work on an antenna on the Progress 23
cargo ship docked at the aft port of the Zvezda service module.
The three spacewalks from the Quest airlock in U.S. spacesuits
and a Russian spacewalk on Feb. 22 will be the most ever
done by station crew members during such a short period and
will mark five spacewalks in all for Expedition 14, a record for
any expedition.
Station Crew Conducts Three
Back-to-Back Spacewalks
– The third spacewalk in nine days by International Space
Station Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Flight
Engineer Sunita Williams wrapped up on Thursday, Feb.
8.
The three spacewalks, from the Quest airlock in U.S.
spacesuits, and a Russian spacewalk scheduled for Feb.
22 will be the most ever done by station crew members
during an increment, said Mike Suffredini, station
program manager.
The three spacewalks are termed EVAs 6, 7, and 8
because there were five previous station spacewalks
from the U.S. airlock Quest during increments, times
when no shuttle was present.
Season's Greetings to All
Onboard the Space Station, and
to All a Good Mission
– While stockings were hung by chimneys with care and children
were snug in their beds across the globe, Commander Michael
Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineers Sunita Williams and Mikhail
Tyurin voyaged around the world in space.
– Like millions around the world, for the crew of Expedition 14,
this holiday season was met with bundles of joy, cheer and a
special delivery. The winter festivities brought to the station
crew more than 7,000 electronic postcards with warm wishes
from those celebrating on Earth below.
From Mesa, Ariz. to London, England, here are some of the
greetings that reached the trio who celebrated this holiday
season orbiting 230 miles above their home on Earth.
Progress Docks with Space
Station
– A new Progress docked to the International Space Station at 9:59 p.m. EST Friday with more than 2.5 tons of fuel, oxygen,
other supplies and equipment aboard.
The station's 24th Progress unpiloted cargo carrier brings to the orbiting laboratory more than 1,720 pounds of propellant, a bout
110 pounds of oxygen, and 3,285 pounds of dry cargo – a total of 5,115 pounds.
– P24 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Wednesday at 9:12 p.m. It reached the station after a flight of just
over two days.
The spacecraft used the automated Kurs system to dock at the Pirs Docking Compartment. Expedition 14 flight engineer
Mikhail Tyurin stood by at the manual Toru docking system controls, should his intervention have become necessary.
Expedition 14 crew members, Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria, Tyurin and Flight Engineer Sunita Williams, finished filling
P24's sister cargo carrier ISS Progress 22, with trash and other discards for its Jan. 16 undocking from Pirs and subsequent
destruction on re-entry.
– After its unloading P22 was used as a storage area for a while. Many items brought to the station aboard the Space Shuttle
Discovery on STS-121 in July eventually found a temporary home there until crew members could put them in more permanent
places.
ISS Progress 23 remains at the aft compartment of the Zvezda Service Module. It is scheduled to undock in April.
The Progress is similar in appearance and some design elements to the Soyuz spacecraft, which brings crew members to the
station, serves as a lifeboat while they are there and returns them to Earth. The aft module, the instrumentation and propuls ion
module, is nearly identical.
But the second of the three Progress sections is a refueling module, and the third, uppermost as the Progress sits on the
launch pad, is a cargo module. On the Soyuz, the descent module, where the crew is seated on launch and which returns them
to Earth, is the middle module and the third is called the orbital module.
Spacewalkers Tee Off on
Science, Mechanics
– Two International Space Station crew members wrapped up a 5-hour, 38-minute spacewalk from the Pirs docking compartment airlock at
12:55 a.m. EST Thursday.
The spacewalk included a golf shot that merited a high-flying birdie rating.
– Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin was the lead spacewalker, EV1, and Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria was EV2. They wore Russian Orlan
spacesuits.
Golf was the first major spacewalk activity. Lopez-Alegria put the tee on the ladder outside Pirs. Tyurin set up a camera and then stepped up
and addressed the ball for his one-handed shot. Lopez-Alegria helped secure Tyurin's feet.
The golf was a commercial activity sponsored by a Canadian golf company through a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency. The
ball left the station toward the right side instead of to the rear, a substantial slice.
The ball weighs just 3 grams, a tenth of an ounce or about three times the weight of a dollar bill, compared to 1.62 ounces for a standard golf
ball. At that weight it was unlikely to damage any station components if the shot had gone awry. The ball will have a short s tay in orbit,
perhaps three days.
Inspection of a Kurs antenna on the Progress 23 unpiloted cargo carrier that docked at the aft end of the station's Zvezda Service Module Oct.
26 was the next task. Final latching of the spacecraft to the station was delayed by more than three hours because Mission Control Moscow
was not sure the antenna was completely retracted.
Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria moved to the rear of Zvezda and photographed the antenna. It was still fully extended, so Tyurin used a screwdriver
to release a latch and tried to retract the antenna. Russian flight controllers also tried to retract it by activating a driv e. Neither succeeded, and
the task was abandoned.
Next they relocated a WAL antenna, which will guide the unpiloted European cargo carrier to docking with the station. That vehicle, the
Automated Transfer Vehicle, is scheduled to make its first flight next year. In its previous position the antenna interfered with a cover for a
Zvezda booster engine.
– Then the two installed a BTN neutron experiment, which characterizes charged and neutral particles in low Earth orbit. Atop Z vezda, its
readings during solar bursts should be of special interest to scientists.
Two thermal covers from the BTN were jettisoned before the spacewalkers returned to the Pirs airlock.
A final scheduled task, an inspection of bolts on one of two Strela hand-operated cranes on the docking compartment, was postponed.
The scheduled 6 p.m. EST start of the spacewalk was delayed because of a cooling issue in Tyurin's suit. Tyurin got out of the suit and
straightened a suspect hose which apparently had become kinked. A balky hatch further delayed start of the spacewalk.
This was the first spacewalk during Expedition 14, the sixth for Lopez-Alegria and the fourth for Tyurin.
– If you've ever burned your dinner, you know how startling a smoke alarm can be. Now, imagine you're 220 miles away from Earth in an orbiting
lab when the alarm sounds.
Hockey Star Ovechkin Receives
Tyurin Autographed Photo
– Before he was sent to live and work on the International Space Station
for six months, Expedition 14 Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin
autographed his crew photo for another famous Russian. Now, the
photo has reached its intended recipient: National Hockey League star
Alexander Ovechkin.
– While Tyurin orbited aboard the station some 220 miles above Earth,
Ovechkin was presented with the framed photo following practice with
his Washington Capitals teammates. Ovechkin was thrilled to receive
the photo from a cosmonaut.
"Very important people for any country," said Ovechkin, "Russia or
U.S."
Ovechkin was pleased to learn that before Tyurin took up engineering
as a career, he had wanted to grow up to be a hockey player.