Project Seen as Stirring Public Imagination, Promoting International Cooperation : NASA Pins Its Hopes on Manned Space Station

The centerpiece of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s manned space program through the turn of the century will be an $8-billion orbiting space station scheduled to be in place by the early 1990s.

There are many other projects on the immediate horizon, including a $1.2-billion space telescope, to be orbited in 1986, and the $660-million Galileo spacecraft, scheduled to be launched from the space shuttle in May of that year on a mission to Jupiter.

But, it is the space station that NASA hopes will keep the public imagination stoked, holding out the promise of greater scientific and commercial accomplishments and becoming the focus of international cooperation in space.

Design Contracts Awarded

Last week, NASA awarded two $27-million contracts to McDonnell Douglas Corp. and Rockwell International Corp. to draw designs of the basic framework of the space station, a misnomer in that the station will consist of several permanent orbiting facilities rather than one.

The station will be designed to serve as a stepping-off point to extraterrestrial travel, a refueling station for orbiting facilities, an assembly pad for giant space-borne structures, a manufacturing plant for valuable materials that will be returned to Earth, a launching pad to points unknown.

“This permanent facility is the midterm requirement for many long-range programs,” said John Hodge, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for the space station. NASA maintains that the station will be needed as a launching pad for a manned flight to Mars or any effort to establish a permanent station on the moon.

The main element of the station will be a manned facility that will circle the Earth in an equatorial orbit. Unmanned platforms that would carry instruments too delicate to be aboard a manned unit will orbit alongside the manned facility.

‘Space Tug’ Planned

The shuttle will fly between the Earth and the station, delivering supplies and changing crews. A “space tug” will fly from the station to other satellites, pulling them in for servicing and then returning them to their assigned places.

The station is expected to open the door to the processing of commercial materials in space, said Ike Gillam, head of the space commercialization program at NASA.

Some materials, including some pharmaceuticals, are best manufactured in a low-gravity environment, which allows more uniform separation of chemicals.

The commercial capabilities of a space station are a major reason that other nations are expected to add their own modules and facilities in the role of joint tenants. The European Space Agency, Japan and Canada are all considering joining the project.

The 1984 NASA budget included $155 million to begin preliminary planning for the station. The current design phase should be completed in two years, with “some build money” for equipment by 1987, Hodge said. Construction is expected to take six months to a year and as many as eight trips by the space shuttle.

Confident of Funding

“Until you have some hardware money, you really don’t have a commitment from Congress,” Hodge said. However, President Reagan singled out the space station in January, 1984, as the major goal of the civilian space program for the next decade, and NASA officials are confident that the program will be funded.

Recent congressional debate over NASA’s budget disclosed widespread support for the project in Congress, even though some of the most prestigious scientific groups in the country have expressed doubts over the need for the facility.

The space science board of the National Research Council, for example, told NASA last year that “the board sees no scientific need for this space station during the next 20 years,” although the station might prove useful “in the longer term.”

Many scientists are more excited about the scheduled launchings of the space telescope and Galileo. Some hail the telescope as the most significant scientific adventure in space for many years.

95-Inch Telescope

The telescope will be carried into low orbit by the shuttle, which will return to make repairs during the 25-year projected life of the telescope, which is actually five instruments, including an optical telescope with a 95-inch mirror.

Its size is small compared to some telescopes on Earth; but, because it will be above the atmosphere, it will have an unfiltered view of the heavens.

“Everything (from ground-based instruments) has been like smeared images, because of the atmosphere,” said Neta Bahcall, an astronomer who is screening proposals at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “All of a sudden, it will be like you pulled off the curtain. You will be able to see what those things look like.”

Among the favorite targets will be planets around other stars. If planetary systems are common, chances improve for the existence of life elsewhere, a popular topic among astronomers worldwide.

Data Uncatalogued

The space telescope will also offer a supreme test of NASA’s ability to handle staggering quantities of computerized information. Many scientists have complained over the years that experiments in space yield tremendously valuable data in such great quantities that it is unmanageable, leading to warehouses full of uncatalogued and unavailable information.

The Galileo launching next year will be one of the few major planetary missions in recent years. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s craft should go into orbit around Jupiter in December of 1988. It will send a probe into the planet’s atmosphere and photograph Jupiter and its moons.