WASHINGTON -- The International Space Station program (ISS) is in need of radical surgery. Out-of-control costs call for a slowdown in building the orbital outpost. There needs to be a reduction in expensive shuttle hops to the facility to four a year. Keeping the number of ISS occupants to three, in a "core complete" status -- rather than a permanent 7-person crew -- is necessary for the next few years.

Those are a few findings of the Independent Management and Cost Evaluation (IMCE) Task Force, a blue-ribbon panel of Nobel Prize winners and military and civilian experts from scientific, high-tech, financial, and managerial circles.

The task force took on budget and management challenges that now plague the multi-country, multi-billion dollar ISS project.

The study group was pulled together last July, and chaired by Thomas Young, a former president of Martin-Marietta Corporation. In the past, he was director of NASA's Viking Mars missions, and once headed the space agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

NASA Administrator, Daniel Goldin -- who steps down from his post later this month -- created the task force, charging it with addressing the quality of the ISS cost estimates, as well as reviewing program assumptions and requirements. Over the last few months, members of the group have been wrestling with high-risk budget areas in the ISS program, hoping to find possible ways to counter trouble spots.

Young reported today on the group's key findings. Among them:

• NASA has not accomplished a rigorous ISS cost estimate. The program lacks the necessary skills and tools to perform the level of financial management needed for successful completion within budget;
• The cost to achieve comparable expectations at assembly complete has grown from an estimate of $17.4 billion to over $30 billion. Much of this cost growth is a consequence of underestimating cost and a schedule erosion of over four years;
• A projected need of $8.3 billion in fiscal years 2002-2006 for the ISS is not credible without radical reform;
• ISS management focus in on technical excellence and crew safety with emphasis on near-term schedules, rather than total program costs;
• A centrifuge is mandatory for the ISS to accomplish meaningful biological research. That device, now being built in Japan, is delayed until 2008, which is unacceptable.

In a press conference at NASA Headquarters here, Young said that one option is just relying on a three-person ISS crew over the life of the program. However, that would have a significant and adverse impact on science, as well as on the international partners, he said.

Going for a full-up station as planned, while realizing the full science agenda, would mean billions of dollars extra poured into the orbiting outpost. Throwing more money into the ISS is "not consistent with the fact that there is concern about NASA's credibility in implementing the station program," Young said.

The Young group took an intermediate position.

For today, proceed on with the U.S. "core complete" program. Three-person crews would reside on the ISS for longer, six-month stints, not four to five-month stays.

NASA has been advised to pull together a "credible program" over the next 6-7 months, one that takes a hard look at science priorities. Also, a modest amount of money would keep enhancement options available to grow beyond the core complete program.

Over the next couple of years, If NASA succeeds in getting the ISS program back on track, then "funding considerations" would be given for how best to go beyond core complete, and establish a far more capable laboratory in space, Young said.

Alternatively, if NASA cannot overcome managerial and financial issues in two years, Young said, then the three-person, core complete station becomes the default position.

"What we're saying is put the spotlight on NASA. I believe NASA would welcome it. And it satisfies the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), congressional interests, and other concerns," Young said. "It's an opportunity to get to the full research potential out of the space station, not only for the U.S. but our international partners," he said.

In making the recommendations known today, Young pointed out that "there will be impacts" on NASA employees and ISS contractors.

The way the program is managed today, Young said, there is a major focus on technical and safety aspects, and that's good news. Integrating the technologies from a multitude of countries is a tribute to those involved. But the management focus in terms of cost and schedule is on a year-to-year basis. Little regard is being paid to the final ISS cost estimate at completion, he remarked.

As for the true value of projected cost overruns of the ISS, Young said there's not enough information to make a credible assessment. The total cost for ISS core complete is $23.3 billion. Going out into the 2006 the ISS cost now tallies to $26.1 billion, he said.

Better cost-estimating capabilities for the station are urgently needed, Young added.

"What we're really trying to do is world-class research in space. That should be more driving space station than the engineering driving space station," Young told SPACE.com. Science leadership must be elevated within the ISS Program Office, he said.

One idea that Young's group suggested is overlapping planned Soyuz exchange periods so that the visiting crew is aboard ISS for a period of 30 days every 5 months. Doing so could help maximize scientific research on the core station.

Young told SPACE.com that his own view is that the ISS represents part of the future vision of NASA. Learning more from long duration human spaceflight is critical to bolder objectives, he stressed.

"I have no crystal ball that tells me when we're going to do something beyond space station. But I don't have any question whatsoever in my mind that we will do something beyond space station, as a country or as an international endeavor," Young said. Research carried out on the ISS can help us get ready to stretch out beyond low Earth orbit, he said.

Young's IMCE findings are to be presented to the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) early next week. That group plans to hash over the task force recommendations, doing so at a time to influence NASA's 2003 fiscal year budget request.

Other studies that delve into ISS problems are underway too.

Both the General Accounting Office, as well as a U.S. House of Representatives special study team are wrapping up their independent looks at the station program.

John Logsdon, Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, said that the Young task force is not an assessment of the station. The Young group was tasked to take as a given the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defined station of last January. In doing that, he said, they were to focus on a central question: Can NASA finish that defined station for $8.3 billion dollars.

It's not an assessment of the ISS program, Logsdon said. Rather, can NASA manage the project to cost?

What the group found is that NASA's Johnson Space Center -- the space agency's focus for human spaceflight -- and the contractors are very good at managing to technical successand not good to managing at cost or schedule, Logsdon said.

Logsdon said the Young report is "an indictment of the management approach taken." Sorting out and stabilizing the station program "is going to be painful," he said.

Just dumping more money into the ISS program, without fixing current woes, is ill advised, Logsdon said. "If you put extra money in, you don't know where it's going. It disappears down a hole," he said.

"That's what this [the Young report] is all about. It is trying to get some management responsibility and credibility into the project. It's not a judgement on the station program, or the wisdom of going ahead or options for proceeding," Logsdon said.

"The experience of the station, to date, is that we've really made it very difficult for America's ISS partners to hold firm," Logsdon said. "The station program will send very mixed messages about future large-scale international partnerships," he said.

Logsdon said that if the program gets straightened out, and that a functioning ISS partnership between nations holds firm, that's great.

"But we've certainly caused a few gray hairs in Europe and Japan, along the way. They will, and should, think twice about entering into long-term, open-ended partnerships with us, where they are dependent upon our performance," Logsdon said.