Space Station

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to launch, assemble, and operate an earth-orbiting microgravity and life sciences research laboratory--International Space Station Alpha--starting in 1997. A robust research community is needed to help carry out the proposed space station's scientific mission of studying the effects of weightlessness on various materials and life forms. However, burgeoning costs associated with building the space station could stymie efforts to develop a research program to support the space station's scientific agenda because NASA may not have the money to pay researchers to conduct needed experiments. This report reviews (1) what NASA is doing to assess the required size of the research community needed for the space station and to ensure that such a community will be available, (2) how NASA will ensure that the research selected for the space station will be the best possible, and (3) whether a recently canceled shuttle research flight harmed NASA's ability to assemble a research community for the space station.

GAO found that: (1) NASA is focusing on developing a comprehensive research program that emphasizes more ground-based research and uses space flight only for research efforts that require a microgravity environment in space; (2) NASA wants to greatly increase the number of ground-based investigators to accomplish this program; (3) the science-oriented approach is reasonable, but funding levels could jeopardize it unless NASA adjusts its funding priorities so, to achieve its goal, NASA will need to increase funding for life and microgravity sciences research and analysis from fiscal years 1995 through 1999; (4) if NASA funding remains at expected levels, a smaller than desired number of ground investigators in the ground-based research program will be selected; (4) although peer review panels and NASA sometimes disagree on the scientific merit and relevance of NASA funding proposals, NASA funding decisions were generally consistent with the recommendations of the peer review panels; and (5) NASA efforts to increase the size of its life and microgravity sciences research community are not likely to be adversely affected by the cancellation of the third Spacelab Life Sciences flight, since most of the principal investigators have been accommodated on other space flights and generally will be able to meet their experiment objectives.