International Space Station I 20th Anniversary
Astronaut Jerry L. Ross, anchored to the foot restraint on the remote manipulator system (RMS), holds onto the tower-like Assembly Concept for Construction of Erectable Space Structures (ACCESS) device, as the Atlantis flies over white clouds and blue ocean waters.
In his State of the Union Address delivered in January 1984, Reagan announced the nation’s commitment to building a space station in collaboration with international partners. “Tonight,” he said, “I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade. … We want our friends to help us meet these challenges and share in their benefits. NASA will invite other countries to participate so we can strengthen peace, build prosperity, and expand freedom for all who share our goals.” Conspicuously absent among the partners whom Reagan believed to share American goals was the Soviet Union, which was already building on the successes of its Salyut program and developing a “third generation” space station: Mir, the world’s first multi-module station, which would be assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996. The Americans and Soviets had collaborated on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program in the 1970s, but tensions between the two Cold War adversaries had ratcheted up since the inauguration of Reagan, who branded the Soviet Union an “evil empire” in a 1983 speech. Shortly after Reagan’s State of the Union Address, NASA administrator James Beggs described the agency’s vision for the station. It would consist of three orbiting facilities: an occupied base, an autonomous co-orbiting platform, and another automated platform in a polar orbit. It would also provide eight capabilities in one package: • a laboratory in space; • a permanent observatory for Earth and the universe; • a transportation node and operations base for vehicles and payloads; • an assembly facility; • a servicing facility; • a factory for space hardware and systems; • a storage depot; and • a staging base for lunar or deep-space missions. It was an ambitious concept, and Beggs immediately set out to find partners to share the work. In 1984, NASA signed agreements
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with the European Space Agency (ESA) and with Japan’s National Space Development Agency (NASDA) to provide their own laboratory modules for the station. With the support of the president and Congress, NASA established a Space Station Program Office at Johnson Space Center, Houston, and in April 1985, the office awarded several contracts to conduct definition studies and preliminary design. That same year, the agency launched a pair of experiments, ACCESS and EASE, aboard the shuttle Atlantis. The experiments demonstrated the feasibility of astronauts assembling large structures in space, but also suggested that the favored “Dual Keel” design, featuring a long central truss with earthward and spaceward booms, would be challenging, and expensive, to build. NASA’s projected cost for its modules – a laboratory, centrifuge, and living quarters – was also proving to have been optimistically low. Over the next several years, as designs were hashed out and details emerged, tradeoffs were made between development costs and operating costs. The wisdom of designing a station for assembling and servicing hardware that didn’t exist yet, for programs yet to be funded – spacecraft for deep-space explorations, for example – was questioned, and station designers were forced to make hard choices. For the station to be financially feasible, its purpose would focus, at least
initially, on its role as a research laboratory and observatory. The United States, NASA, and its space station program suffered a tragic blow on Jan. 28, 1986. The Space Shuttle Challenger, departing for its 10th flight, exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven crewmembers aboard. The accident resulted in a two-anda-half-year grounding of the shuttle fleet, and discussions in the wake of the disaster led to reduced flight schedules, as well as reductions in the amount of cargo allowed aboard each orbiter. The renewed emphasis on safety led to an insistence that an escape craft or “lifeboat” be docked at the station at all times. Growing costs were one factor in the decision to pare down the Dual Keel design into what was known as the “Revised Baseline Configuration,” featuring a single horizontal truss with modules clustered near the center and solar arrays at the ends. In 1988, as this design moved into full development with main contractors Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, GE-Aerospace, and Rockwell, Reagan gave it a name: Space Station Freedom. 1988 also marked a milestone in the international collaboration of space agencies, as a multilateral agreement was signed by the United States, Japan, Canada, and nine member nations of the ESA. The four space agencies signed memoranda of understanding outlining the contributions each would provide to the space station: Europe and Japan agreed
Nasa Photo
TO THE DRAWING BOARD: SPACE STATION FREEDOM
