CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Shuttle Atlantis and five astronauts are poised to blast off this week on a mission to deliver an airlock to the International Space Station, capping the first full phase of a $60 billion orbital construction project.
Yet even in the wake of 18 successful station missions during the past year, cash-strapped NASA and its international partners are not sure whether they can come up with the money to complete the outpost as originally envisioned.
The reason: An anticipated $4 billion NASA cost overrun has scrambled plans for a U.S. dormitory and an American crew rescue ship.
And without the capabilities of those key components, the 16-nation station might never be equipped to house crews of six or seven -- a key to adequately staffing station labs, conducting a robust research program and fulfilling U.S. project obligations.
"I don't have a crystal ball, and I'm not a prophet. But I would tell you very positively that we believe the International Space Station's fundamental backbone requires six or seven people," NASA station project manager Tommy Holloway told reporters in a recent preflight briefing.
"To build this magnificent facility and have full participation by all the members of the partnership requires more than three people. And the program at this point is committed to doing all they can to make that happen."Still unclear, however, is whether an ongoing effort to forge new international barter agreements will enable NASA and its partners to build a dorm and a rescue ship within existing cost caps.
Said Holloway: "That remains to be seen."
Amid that cloud of uncertainty, Atlantis and its astronaut crew are scheduled to blast off from Kennedy Space Center around 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT) Thursday, setting sail on a mission to haul a $164 million airlock to the station.
Shaped like a giant Genie bottle, the airlock will give station tenants an unprecedented level of self-sufficiency, enabling them to carry out spacewalking work in either U.S. or Russian spacesuits at times when a visiting shuttle isn't docked to the outpost.
Twenty of 21 spacewalks performed at the station to date have been staged from shuttle airlocks. The other was carried out within a small spherical section of the station's Russian-built crew quarters, which can be converted into a makeshift airlock but is only equipped to service Russian spacesuits.
Consequently, the installation of the new airlock is seen by project officials as a clear demarcation point between the first and second of three intricately orchestrated station construction phases.
And its planned launch, coincidentally, is scheduled exactly one year after the station's long-delayed Russian crew module headed to the station, kicking off a flurry of construction missions considered as complicated as any staged as part of NASA's Apollo moon landing project.
"A year ago, I said we would fly the most complex series of missions NASA has undertaken since landing on the moon," said NASA shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore. "Now we're nearly the completion of the first phase."
Added Holloway: "Looking back it's been an incredible and really outstanding year for us in terms of what we've gotten done."
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