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GAO Report: International Space Station: Significant Challenges May Limit Onboard Research
"The ISS has been continuously staffed since 2000 and now has a six-member crew. The primary objective for the ISS through 2010 is construction, so research utilization has not been the priority. Some research has been and is being conducted as time and resources permit while the crew on board performs assembly tasks, but research will is expected to begin in earnest in 2010. NASA projects that it will utilize approximately 50 percent of the U.S. ISS research facilities for its own research, including the Human Research Program, opening the remaining facilities to U.S. ISS National Laboratory researchers."
GAO Warns NASA May Never Fully Utilize ISS, Aviation Week
"High transportation costs to space and inadequate funding on the ground may prevent NASA from using its expensive orbiting microgravity laboratory -- the International Space Station -- to the full extent, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)."
Perhaps the great uncertainty facing the ISS - other than its life expectancy - is the question of access. If a robust commercial sector-provided series of vehicles were operational, giving researchers a choice of payload accomodations, perhaps more firms would be interested in using the station. As it stands now, the only spacecraft capable of downmass when the Shuttle retires lands in the ocean, requiring a fleet of naval vessels to haul the spacecraft-and everything on board-out of the sea and then to dry land for unloading. What cutting edge researcher can wait weeks to get their samples back on terra firma?