Go Somewhere!

2. complete the international space station at a reasonable price


NASA observers joke that the space station has become a black hole, sucking money out of all the agency's other programs. Conceived in the 1980s, then redesigned and delayed countless times before the first module was launched in 1998, the 150-ton station is the largest spacecraft ever built, and has been occupied by a crew of three astronauts for more than a year. It's an impressive technical achievement, much more sophisticated than the Russian Mir station, but it's only half finished.


Meanwhile, the station is threatening to suck in ever-larger amounts of cash. "NASA's situation right now is like you've got a favorite son living in your house who is an addict, and who has a huge amount of potential, but you can't get him off his habit," Rick Tumlinson, president of the Space Frontier Foundation, says of the space station. "You don't fix an addict by giving him more heroin."


Because of all the financial difficulties, NASA has postponed its plans for adding a habitation module and emergency crew-return vehicle to the international space station. Without them, the station can accommodate only a crew of three, which severely limits the amount of scientific work that can be done onboard. Most experts we spoke with are convinced that the station will never be very useful as a research facility-and won't provide the data we need to venture farther into space-until it can accommodate a crew of six or more. Meanwhile, NASA's European counterparts are threatening to back out of the 16-nation partnership.


NASA's flagship must be slowed down, brought under control, and pointed in the right direction-with future station activities focused on preparation for manned missions beyond Earth's orbit. The biggest challenge is to cut costs for the station without compromising safety.


"The best way to get to Mars is to do the space station right," says Cowing. "Like it or not, the station is NASA's central goal right now, and NASA will never get to do anything big again until the station is reined in and accomplishes what it was intended to do."