Two
habitation modules emblazoned with the United Kingdom's Union Jack could launch to the International Space
Station (ISS) by 2011 under a new plan devised by British scientists and
engineers.
The
proposal — not yet official with the ISS partnership — would not only improve
living conditions on board the space station, but would also allow the United Kingdom to join other nations that have a
foothold in space.
"I don't
think there's an excuse for us not to be engaged in manned launches," said Mark
Hempsell, aeronautical engineer at the University of Bristol and lead author on the proposal
published in Spaceflight magazine.
The
proposed Habitat
Extension Module (HEM) would consist of two modules attached to the ISS
Node 3 segment, a hub-like connecting module slated for a 2010 launch. The
British addition would provide additional room and equipment for a permanent
space station crew of six, as opposed to the current crew of three. The station
is scheduled to shift to six-person crews in 2009, NASA officials have said.
Because
NASA plans to retire the space shuttle by 2010, the HEM modules would launch on
a Russian-built Soyuz-Fregat rocket in 2011 at the earliest. Once in orbit, the
modules would use their own propulsion system to reach ISS.
Although
ISS has plenty of experimental space for conducting scientific research,
earlier plans for expanded
living space were scrapped. The HEM modules would resurrect those
facilities and provide enhanced protection for astronauts against space
radiation.
Each module
is a cylinder 12.5 feet (3.8 meters) in diameter and 18.7 feet (5.7 meters)
long. The two modules would add 3,531.5 cubic feet (100 cubic meters) of living
space, doubling the room provided by Node 3. They would include a communal area
and six crew rooms with a radiation protection equivalent to 20.5 pounds of
lead per square foot (100 kilograms of lead per square meter).
The modules
would also deliver about three tons of supplies and experiments when they
arrive to help keep the space station running.
"It's doing
two things," Hempsell told SPACE.com. "Britain would make a contribution while also delivering a load of
logistics equipment, and paying for the running costs and supplies."
That would
cost the United Kingdom approximately $1 billion (530
million British pounds) to build, launch, and run the HEM modules until 2015,
when the current
operating life for ISS ends. The British Interplanetary Society supports
the proposal, but the government has yet to seriously latch on.
"The
British government keeps saying it's aware, but it's not actually saying it's
going to do anything about it," Hempsell said.
An
alternative proposal would simply use the Russian "astronaut
tourist route" to launch British astronauts and some experiments into
space, at the cost of just $31 million (16 million British pounds). However,
Hempsell noted he was much more "enamored" of the bolder approach.
The United Kingdom currently makes no contribution to
ISS and is not involved in the European Space Agency's activities
on space station. For instance, the British opted out of contributing to
the European
Columbus module that is scheduled to launch with space shuttle Atlantis in
February.
The British
flag is currently displayed on the ISS Destiny module only because the nation
signed the Space Station Agreement. Hempsell wants to see the United Kingdom take a more active role that would
allow its scientists to participate in space-based research.
Current ISS
participants such as the United
States seem
cautiously open to a serious British effort.
"If the British National Space Center decided it was something they wanted to do, NASA would look
at the feasibility in terms of power, crew size, and propulsion," said John Yembrick,
a NASA spokesperson at the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters.
"In
general, we support all our national partners," Yembrick added.
For now,
Hempsell and his peers hope the idea will spur British space efforts as a new
space race heats up across the globe. On the question of whether to take
action, "the answer 'nothing' is the wrong answer," Hempsell said.
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