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ISS News

Forgetting the Future

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
August 25, 2006

Space station science gets squeezed, MSNBC

“But as NASA resumes space station construction with the scheduled Sunday launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, the station often comes off sounding more like an obligation rather than an opportunity – a $100 billion white elephant to be finished, then quickly forgotten as NASA turns its attention to the moon, Mars and beyond. “It’s almost as if the space station is an albatross,” said Keith Cowing, who worked on the initial designs for the space station in the 1990s while at NASA and now monitors the agency through his Web site, NASA Watch. “It’s almost like NASA has corporate attention-deficit disorder.”

What’s being studied on the station?, MSNBC

“Despite the criticism, even Cowing agrees with Uhran’s statement that the station will be an “extraordinarily capable spacecraft” once it’s finished. He worries that the station could fall victim to “a bad habit NASA has often times, of pooh-poohing the previous space program.” But if the push to the moon, Mars and beyond is held up for some reason over the next decade, the international space station just might become the jewel in NASA’s crown, he predicted. “Suddenly the station will become the hip place to be,” Cowing said.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.