spacetoday.net: Panel recommends changes in space station science

Posted: Fri, Jul 12, 2002, 10:26 AM ET (1426 GMT)
ISS illustration (NASA)

An independent panel of scientists released a report on science priorities for the International Space Station this week, but said that assembling the station beyond "core complete" was necessary to truly make the station a research facility. The Research Maximization and Prioritization Task Force (ReMaP) issued its report to the NASA Advisory Committee on Wednesday, providing it with a list of prioritized research programs for the station. The panel noted that moving beyond the core complete phase of the station — by adding a habitation module that would increase the crew capacity above three — is critical; without it, "NASA should cease to characterize the ISS as a science driven program." A centrifuge module for the station, currently in jeopardy, was also considered essential by the panel. The report recommended that one member of the station's crew be designed as "science officer" with the primary responsibility of carrying out the station’s experiments. The results were criticized by one member of the NASA Advisory Committee, former astronaut and senator John Glenn, who said that the negative findings in the report could be "used as material to kill the whole program," according to Space News. Some members of the ReMaP committee dissented with the overall findings, noting that the science priorities in the report appeared to be biased towards the biological sciences versus the physical sciences.