CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. NASAs International Space Station (ISS) will do for the general sciences what the Hubble Space Telescope has done for astronomy and astrophysics, providing a full-time orbital platform for new discoveries.
That was the bold prediction Tuesday from an expert panel of researchers just hours before Russias Zvezda service module was to dock with the infant outpost, clearing the way for the January launch of the scientific hub of the station.
"The Hubble Telescope is to the astrophysicists what the ISS will be to physical [scientists], life scientists, engineers and technologists," said Julie Swain, a highly regarded cardiac surgeon and NASAs acting chief for Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications.
"It will be our first opportunity to have an active, working, long-term laboratory in space."
Still embryonic in nature, the station now consists of a Russian space tug and an American docking module that ultimately will serve as a gateway to still-to-be-built wings of the outpost.
The Zvezda service module will serve as an initial command post and living quarters at the station. Scientific research at the station, however, will not begin in earnest until a U.S. laboratory dubbed Destiny arrives at the outpost after a mid-January launch aboard shuttle Atlantis.
"That really is the starting point for doing research," said NASA senior space station project scientist Kathryn Clark.
The largest and most complex international scientific project in history, the station ultimately will sport six research labs, including facilities from Europe, Japan and Russia.
Swain and Clark said those labs are expected to enable scientists to carry out unprecedented research in a variety of scientific disciplines, including fundamental physics, gravitational biology, ecology, Earth science and space science.
And ultimately, the experts said research at the station could lead to advances in areas that range from the development of new medicines to new methods for increasing the yield of agricultural crops around the world.
"We are just really at the beginning. We do not yet know what the possibilities are, and we may be surprised by spinoffs we cant even anticipate yet," said Milburn Jessup, a cancer researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.
But one thing is clear: Zvezda is the crucial lynchpin that promises at long last to lead to the start-up of 10 to 15 years of uninterrupted scientific experimentation at what is expected to be a world-class orbital research park.
"This is an exciting time for the researchers," said former shuttle astronaut Ron Sega, who now is dean of the college of engineering and applied science at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Added Swain: "We can finally see the carrot at the end of that stick."
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