U.S. weighing future of international space station

Originally published September 15, 2013 at 6:06 PM | Page modified September 15, 2013 at 6:15 PM

Long ago, in a dreamier era, space stations were imagined as portals to the heavens. In the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, the huge structure twirled in orbit, aesthetically sublime, a relaxing way station for astronauts heading to the moon. It featured a Hilton and a Howard Johnsons.

The international space station of the 21st century isnt quite as beautiful as that movie version, and its not a gateway to anywhere else. Its a laboratory focused on scientific experiments. Usually there are six people aboard. When they leave, they go back home, down to Earth. Three came home Wednesday, landing in Kazakhstan.

The space station circles the planet at an altitude of about 250 miles. Faint traces of atmosphere exert a drag on it, so the station must be boosted regularly to stay in orbit. In the grand scheme of things, the space station simply isnt very far away. The station has a phone number with a Houston area code.

Advocates for human-space exploration insist that NASA must think bigger, developing missions beyond Low Earth Orbit, into deeper space perhaps back to the moon, or to an asteroid, and certainly to Mars eventually.

But NASA has been struggling for years to square ambitions with budgets. The space station is widely praised as an engineering marvel, but it didnt come cheap.

The United States has poured close to $100 billion into the program and is contributing about t $3 billion a year to the stations operation. Space-policy experts warn that, without a significant boost in budget, NASA will not be able to keep running the station and simultaneously carry out new, costly deep-space missions.

The United States and its partners need to make a tough call: Keep the station flying? Or bring it down?

Boeing, the prime contractor, is trying to prove that the stations components can hold up through at least 2028. Three years ago, Congress extended funding for the station through 2020, and NASAs international partners Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency have made a similar commitment.

But behind the scenes, NASA officials are working to persuade the White House to make a decision, pronto, to keep the orbital laboratory flying after 2020.

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U.S. weighing future of international space station