Detractors put the screws to the ISS

Concerns over Russian reliability,
soaring costs fuel chorus of dissent

By John Christensen
CNN Interactive Writer

(CNN) -- In late October, before the shuttle Discovery took John Glenn on his celebrated return to space, a group of astronauts training in Houston erupted in open rebellion against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The London Times reported that the astronauts, who were training to go into space with the second piece of the new International Space Station, became so dissatisfied with a key computer program that they walked out of a training session.

"They are getting back a lot of errors and unexpected results, and are also finding the software difficult to use," a source told the Times. He said the astronauts had "zero confidence" in the software.

The software in question was to allow the astronauts, who will perform the first space station assembly mission in December, to plug a laptop computer into sockets aboard the modules and use graphic displays to adjust the station's control systems.

NASA spokesman James Hartsfield says the incident has been overblown and is "no big deal." He said that while the astronauts were concerned, the system is only a back-up. The system will still be tested on the station, but the astronauts will rely primarly on "hard switches," he said.

The problem was only the latest in a series of contretemps that have plagued the space station since it was proposed 16 years ago.

The station is one of the most difficult, ambitious and expensive engineering projects ever undertaken. At $40 billion -- its current estimated cost -- the International Space Station will cost 2 1/2 times as much as building the 31-mile channel tunnel between England and France.

But that $40 billion may be just the tip of the iceberg. A U.S. Government Accounting Office report has speculated that over the 15-year life of the station it could cost $98 billion to operate.

Artist's conception of the International    Space Station

And although 15 countries are participating in the project, the bulk of those costs would probably fall into NASA's lap which, more than any other country, seems determined to see the project through no matter what.

As NASA administrator Dan Goldin told CNN, "We're going to do it. We're going to figure a way to make it happen."

NASA officials say the space station, in addition to furthering human exploration of space, will accelerate breakthroughs in technology and engineering that will have immediate, practical applications and create jobs and economic opportunities for decades to come.

Furthermore, NASA calls the project an international experiment for the betterment of mankind -- a "city in space" where people from diverse countries will learn how to live and work together.

But questions abound not only about the station's staggering costs, but also about whether the international nature of the station will be a boon or a nightmare and, indeed, whether the station serves any useful purpose.

One of the most outspoken critics is James Oberg, a former shuttle engineer and now a space industry consultant, who told Congress in early October that sending even the first piece of the station into orbit constituted "the longest Hail Mary pass in history."

"The space station ducks aren't in a row, and they don't stay in a row," Oberg said. "Chasing ducks is something we should not be doing two months before launch."

At issue was the third element of the station, the service module, the most critical component in the early stages of the station.

It was being built in Russia, but the financial crisis in that country had left the Russian Space Agency unable to pay the contractor.

The module contains systems critical for the early stages of construction and is designed to house the first three crewmembers to live aboard the station.

Delays in completing the module have thrown everything off schedule, because it must be installed soon after the first two pieces are in place.

Thus, the first unit, the functional cargo block, was sent into orbit in November 1998 instead of November 1997 as scheduled. The launch of the second component, the Unity module, was pushed back to early December 1998, and the service module was finally scheduled for a July 1999 flight. That, in turn, meant that the astronauts who were originally supposed to have begun living on the station in July 1999 are now scheduled to set up housekeeping in early 2000.

Russia's financial crisis has taken most of the blame for the problems, but an expert on Russian affairs named Judyth Twigg told a congressional hearing in October that the delays were not the only problem. She said Russia's industrial capacity has shrunk and that it has stopped doing the kind of research and development necessary to keep its technology vital and reliable.

Boeing officials who supervised the construction of the cargo block defended the Russians, saying they did exactly what they were supposed to do, and did it on time.

Although NASA paid for the cargo block, it was built by Khrunichev, the Russian contractor that also builds the Proton rockets that will carry all the Russian-built modules into space.

"If the Russians are given adequate resources to do the job, they will do the job on time," Boeing official Doug Stone told the Vancouver Sun in July 1998. "And not only that, but what they produce will be exactly what they told you they were going to build."

Russia's Mir space station    was damaged by a collision    with cargo ship in June 1997

But Oberg is wary of the Russians' presumed expertise. He says there have been fires aboard the Mir space station and breakdowns in the kind of modules they are building that the Russians have never divulged.

There are also those who question not only the reliability, but also the trustworthiness of the Russians as partners.

Just two and half weeks before the functional cargo block was to be launched, the Russians announced suddenly that they wanted to delay the launch and lower the space station's orbit. After negotiations with its partners, the Russians withdrew the proposal, agreeing that it was impractical.

But some say the proposal was typical Russian gamesmanship.

"That's standard hardball negotiations for the Russians," says a space industry source who asked not to be identified. "Whenever something like that happens with the Russians, you better pat your pocket to be sure your wallet's still there. They make a proposal, create a fuss and then withdraw the proposal. And while you're relieved that it's over, they've gotten what they wanted somewhere else."

In his book, "Dragonfly," author Bryan Burrough says that Michael Foale, the American astronaut who spent four months aboard Mir, learned to despise the Russian culture for treating people as if they were serfs.

"This goes back thousands of years, " Foale told Burrough. "It's the same culture of a Russian male oligarchy ... It's a handful of men controlling everything."

Burrough writes that Foale thought NASA's idea of operating the ISS with the Russians was "hopelessly naive."

But Russian Space Agency spokesman Konstantin Kreydenko denies that the Russians have engaged in gamesmanship or power plays. He said the change in the station's orbit was requested in hopes that some of the equipment on Mir could be transferred to the ISS.

But he said that after discussions with NASA, Russian officials realized that Mir equipment might not be compatible with ISS hardware, and that it would be better to return the equipment to Earth and refurbish it before trying to re-use it.

"Thanks to the ISS program," Kreydenko said, "Russians are acquiring new know-how, and they are learning to perform their obligations without money. We will do our best to fulfill our duty, despite the financial crisis in our country."

A space industry source points out that in deference to the Russians, NASA agreed to change the trajectory of the shuttles that will supply the space station to a more northerly -- and more expensive -- route.

The Russians were invited to participate in the ISS after the Cold War ended. By that time, NASA had already spent billions on the idea and gone through a number of designs.

One of the motivations in involving the Russians was to keep their scientists out of the labs of rogue countries trying to develop nuclear weapons. But it was also thought that the Russians' experience at operating Mir since 1986 would be valuable and that their participation would also help defray the costs of the station.

But the financial crisis has forced the Russian Space Agency to renege on many of its promises. After agreeing to send 33 supply ships to the space station, for example, the agency now says it can manage only 15 or 17.

The difference will have to be made up by American shuttles, at a cost of between $500 million and $1 billion a flight -- depending on whether you believe NASA or those who claim NASA undervalues the flights.

It is the staggering, ever-mounting costs of the program that troubles many. Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican and longtime ISS gadfly, has said "We cannot allow the station to become a mismanaged black hole."

A year ago, a task force led by consultant Jay Chabrow concluded that NASA had underestimated the costs of the project and that the station was likely to be delayed from one to three years beyond its scheduled 2003 completion date. It also concluded that NASA would have to spend an additional $130 million to $250 million a year for its share of the overruns.

NASA's contribution has skyrocketed from a figure once thought "capped" at $17.3 billion to $21.9 billion. And there are estimates that it may reach $24.7 billion as NASA tries to keep Russian contractors afloat and building more than half of the 40 modules for the station.

The aft docking port of the Russian    functional cargo block, or Zarya, just    before shipment to the Kazakhstan    launch site

At a news conference on November 13, NASA official Doug Drewry was asked how much the Zarya functional cargo block cost to build. NASA paid an initial $190 million, Drewry said, but then "additional funds for modifications" brought the final figure to $240 million.

Drewry said this without flinching, and none of the media found a 26 percent overrun worth so much as a follow-up question. Indeed, when it comes to the space program in general, and the space station in particular, everyone seems to accept the idea that costs will be, well, astronomical.

And then there are those who question whether the space station has any usefulness at all.

"It's inappropriate to have highly paid astronauts driving trucks," says Rick Tumlinson of the Space Frontier Foundation. Tumlinson, whose group advocates private investment in space exploration, was referring to astronauts piloting shuttles.

Tumlinson thinks NASA should develop an inexpensive "launch vehicle" to replace the shuttle and should then step aside and let private enterprise develop space.

Alex Roland, a former NASA historian and now chairman of the Duke University history department, is of a similar mind.

"NASA's living in the past," he says. "They're trying to recreate the Apollo program over an over, and they're wasting all that money rather than taking us into the future. NASA talks about the future, but in practice it's going back to the 1960s."

Boeing technicians in Huntsville, Alabama,   work on the U.S. laboratory module that   will added to the station in 1999

Roland says that the space station was initially conceived of as a science, industry and technology lab, but that "one by one those uses disappeared."

The problem, he says, is that at $20,000 a pound -- what he claims it costs to ship things on the shuttle -- it is too expensive to send much of anything into space. It would be far cheaper, and just as effective, he says, to do most scientific experiments on automated, unmanned flights.

Says Roland, "The space station could be turned into a platform for experiments, and you could send people up periodically to check on them. But don't leave the people up there, because doing that is outrageously expensive."

The only valid use for a space station, says Roland, is as a human physiology lab. "But they've been doing that for 35 years," Roland says. "They're drowning in data."

What NASA really wants, he says, is to use the station as a platform from which to launch a Mars expedition. But Roland says Congress won't fund the station for that purpose, at least not until the debilitating effects of long space flights can be overcome, so Mars is out of range for the forseeable future.

An inexpensive launch vehicle, however, would allow the transportation of people and raw materials into space at reasonable prices, Roland says. "Then you could talk about manufacturing in space, and maybe even building a factory and making your own vehicle up there. But you can't sell anything I know of that costs $20,000 a pound to manufacture."

Roland says NASA has put itself in "a trap. It wanted to propose sending a man to Mars after the Apollo program," but the shuttle and the space station have both proven to be extravagantly costly and wasteful. Nevertheless, he says, NASA is "going to bull right ahead" with the ISS, no matter what anyone says.