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ISS News:
NASA's Budget Cuts & Soyuz Repositioning |
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| Bush Administration's NASA Budget Cuts
Cuts to NASA's budget are causing large changes to be made in the US Hab and CRV components. the US Hab construction may be stopped in favor of an Italian built Node outfitted as a crew quarters with crew compartments built into hatchways. This is but another major change in project direction for the US Habitation module, already sidelined once before due to the aborted development of the Transhab. Cancellation of the Crew Return Vehicle also is prompting investigation of using the X-38 experimental design and modifying it into an operational CRV rather than a large redesign previously planned. Just what capabilities that would be in an X-38 CRV and what would be lost are not yet public. (4/17/01 STS-100 pre launch news conference, NASA TV) Titov to be First Space Tourist NASA is preparing for the flight of the first self paying space tourist, American Dennis Tito, to the ISS on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The Soyuz flight is required to replace the current Soyuz at the station which delivered the ISS-1 crew and its normal on orbit lifetime is expiring. Russia demands that the Tito flight is actually paying a significant part of the new Soyuz delivery. NASA and America is unwilling and politically unable to pay the Russians for their committed contribution of the Soyuz flight. Yet, NASA has protested the Tito flight claiming his presence endangers the ISS while it is in a complex assembly phase, and hasn't been trained to live on the station. Tito attempted to get training from NASA but was turned away while his Russian crew was trained for their short stay on the station before returning the Earth on the old ISS-1 crews Soyuz. NASA claims training process was not followed to be ready to train Tito. Due to the flight of Dennis Tito to the ISS on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, by the end of April NASA hopes to have detailed 'guest' astronauts procedures, selection and training rules in place with the international partners. (4/17/01 STS-100 pre launch news conference, NASA TV) Soyuz Repositioned The ISS-1 crew's Soyuz, now the lifeboat for the ISS-2 crew was repositioned from the Nadir port of the FGB module on April 18th. The ISS-2 crew suited up and Commander Yuri Usachev flew the Soyuz around to the Service Module Zvezda's rear docking port. This move was required to allow the Soyuz taxi flight, due to arrive the day after STS-100 departs, to dock to the Nadir port of the FGB to provide a new lifeboat for the ISS-2 crew and allowing the taxi crew to leave in the old Soyuz clearing the Service Modules aft port for the next Progress to dock there. |
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A complete guide to the Soviet manned space program from 1960 to 1990
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| Images from NASA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| All material unless otherwise indicated is Copyright © 2001 International Space Station Guide all rights reserved. Please write for permission to use material. Additional material Copyright © as shown or supplied by NASA. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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