NASA Revises Space Station Design, Cost

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration showed Congress a new version of a space station Thursday and said it can be put in orbit with 17 flights by the space shuttle and assembled with half the space-walking time previously estimated for astronaut construction teams.

Design and management changes, taking into account the demands on the space shuttle fleet in the wake of last January’s Challenger disaster, were made during a 90-day technical review and could save time and as much as $300 million, NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher told a House Science and Technology subcommittee on space.

The space agency plans to take its first step in mid-November toward awarding contracts for the 503-by-361-foot orbiting complex, but Fletcher said it is still too early to promise to build the station for the $8-billion price estimated when the project received the endorsement of the Reagan Administration.

Could Start in 1993

Under the plans outlined to the subcommittee, space shuttles would begin launching components of the station in 1993. After eight missions in 1993 and 1994, according to the plans, enough of the station would be assembled so that astronauts could temporarily occupy a crew module.

But 17 flights would be required before the station was complete, and Associate Administrator Andrew J. Stofan said NASA envisions 31 construction, logistics and maintenance flights to the station by 1996.

Plans call for the station to be continuously inhabited by a crew of eight after 1994 and for the space shuttle to ferry replacement crews of four scientist-astronauts at a time between Earth and the orbiting outpost.

“We believe the space station to be essential to regaining a position of leadership in space for the United States,” Fletcher told the panel. “The station is the centerpiece of our future space program and the building block of our activities at the beginning of the 21st Century . . . a key element in our recovery of national momentum after the loss of Challenger.”

Space Walks Cut

The major changes resulting from the intense review of the space station program included the use of pressurized “resource nodes,” or chambers, to house equipment that previously was to be outside of the structure or within crew living space.

In earlier designs, the nodes were empty and used merely as passageways. But, by pressurizing them and using them to house equipment, planners will be able to make a major reduction in the demanding and risky extravehicular excursions by astronauts assembling station components.

Earlier plans had required nearly 700 hours of space-walking activity, an assignment that created concern in the astronaut corps.

In addition, in an effort to simplify coordination with contractors, the space agency shifted management of the station from Houston’s Johnson Space Center to its Washington headquarters and announced plans to shift additional responsibilities from Houston to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.