Even before NASA finishes its study into the possibility of flying the space shuttle beyond its scheduled retirement in 2010, top agency officials have concluded that extending the life of the orbiter fleet won't solve the problem of keeping the International Space Station operable for U.S. astronauts.
Instead, NASA officials have decided that they must convince Congress to allow the agency to buy Russian Soyuz spacecraft to serve as transport vehicles and lifeboats for U.S. space farers and their international partners.
Without the Soyuz, NASA says in a congressional briefing paper obtained by the Orlando Sentinel, it will have to abandon the station when the current contract with Russia ends in October 2011 and cede control of the $100-billion facility to Moscow.
"Continuing to fly the space shuttle past 2010 is not the answer to this situation," the paper says. "The Soyuz option is simply the only sure solution ... or else the U.S. has no choice but to de-crew all U.S. astronauts (and de-facto the Canadian, European and Japanese astronauts) from the International Space Station in 2011."
The paper is part of a last-ditch effort by the agency to overcome congressional resistance to waiving a law banning high-tech purchases from Russia because of Moscow's nuclear dealings with Iran.
Administrator Mike Griffin has personally visited senior members of Congress this week, pleading for the waiver. NASA says it needs the waiver this year to give Russia the three-year lead time needed to build more Soyuz after the current U.S. supply runs out.
Despite the dramatic appeal, the waiver is far from certain. Moscow's recent invasion of Georgia has chilled U.S.-Russia relations.
Congressional aides in both parties said the key concern is time. Congress plans to quite in three weeks to hit the campaign trail, which means NASA must compete with other priorities, such as energy. And anti-Moscow sentiments run high.
"If any one senator objects, it's going to be hard to get it done in the next three weeks," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who said he's planning several legislative maneuvers to get the waiver passed.
"We don't like the position that we're in, but we don't have any choice if we want to access our own space station," he said.
The NASA lobbying effort also appears to undermine a newly initiated study of what it would take to keep the shuttle flying past 2010. Last week, Griffin confirmed he expected such a request from the next presidential administration.
Griffin privately had begun to question the wisdom of the 2010 deadline. In a confidential e-mail to his top advisers on Aug. 18, he slammed the White House for what he called a "jihad" to shut down the shuttle and a desire to see the space station languish.
In that e-mail, Griffin also rejected the idea, advanced by some in the administration, that the Russians would be unable to run the space station without the United States. "We need them," he wrote. "They don't need us."
Griffin later said that the e-mail was taken out of context and that he supported the administration policy of retiring the shuttle in 2010 and relying on the Russians to keep U.S. astronauts on the space station. According to administration officials, Griffin was called to the White House this week to discuss how to press ahead with White House policy and pursue the congressional waiver.
The decision follows weeks of high-level internal NASA deliberations about the shuttle, and whether it could be flown twice a year to the space station until its successor Ares rocket is ready to fly in 2015.
According to documents and internal e-mails obtained by the Sentinel, senior officials argued that even if NASA could safely and affordably fly the shuttle for five more years, it would be a pointless exercise.
Because of the energy required to power its systems, the shuttle can't stay in space for more than two weeks at a time and can't be used as a lifeboat for the space station. Without the Soyuz, crew members couldn't remain on the station, meaning they would be little more than orbital janitors on short maintenance missions costing billions of dollars.
"At best ... out of 365 days per year, Americans and (international partners) stay for 50 or so days," wrote NASA Associate Administrator Shana Dale in an Aug. 27 e-mail. The Soyuz, on the other hand, can stay in space for six months.
Dale's e-mail was written after Republican presidential nominee John McCain asked President Bush to order NASA to stop closing shuttle contracts in case the shuttle is needed to supply the space station. McCain opposes relying on Russia for U.S. space travel.
But flying the shuttle, which has already had two fatal accidents, is widely seen as risky and is not popular even among some astronauts, especially because it eats up funds needed to develop NASA's next rocket, which is supposed to return humans to the moon.
In interviews this week, members of the upcoming shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space telescope said it's possible to fly a few more shuttle missions safely but not without slowing down development of the next space vehicle.
If America wants a new vehicle, said Commander Scott Altman, "you're going to have to spend the money to make that happen, which I think is going to take you out of the shuttle business sooner, or else you just never get to the other side."
___
(Robyn Shelton of the Orlando Sentinel staff contributed to this report.)
© 2008, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).
Visit the Sentinel on the World Wide Web at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Related stories:
Astronauts face hardest spacewalk to finish repair
(AP) -- Astronauts up on the international space station faced the longest and hardest spacewalk of their mission Saturday, a seven-hour-plus excursion to wrap up repair work on a gummed-up joint.
NASA's space water recycling system has hiccups
(AP) -- NASA's revolutionary new space water recycling system is having serious hiccups. The $154 million device for turning astronauts' urine and sweat into drinking water aboard the international space station shut down again Friday, and engineers on the ground were scrambling to figure out what was wrong.
Shuttle gives space station a mile-high boost
(AP) -- Space shuttle Endeavour provided an orbital lift to the attached international space station on Friday as the astronauts encountered more problems with a new water recycling system.
Shuttle, astronauts prep for mid-mission reboost
(AP) -- Astronauts at the international space station prepared to work on a urine-recycling contraption and re-fire the space shuttle's thrusters Friday, before enjoying a half-day off to reboost their own energy.
Happy Birthday: Space station celebrates 10 years
(AP) -- NASA couldn't have staged it any better: 10 people in orbit for Thursday's 10th anniversary of the world's most elaborate and expensive housing project, the international space station.
Astronauts venture out for spacewalk No. 2
(AP) -- Astronauts ventured back outside the international space station to perform more repair work on a jammed joint Thursday and promised to keep a tight grip on all their tools so nothing would get away this time.
Funding concerns jeopardize space station as it's poised to do cutting-edge research
Right now, as you are reading this, 10 Russian and American men and women orbiting 200 miles above your head are busy installing toilets, refrigerators and new bedrooms aboard the most complicated construction project ever undertaken: the international space station.
NASA Plans Test of 'Electronic Nose' on International Space Station
NASA astronauts on space shuttle Endeavour's STS-126 mission will install an instrument on the International Space Station that can "smell" dangerous chemicals in the air. Designed to help protect crew members' health and safety, the experimental "ENose" will monitor the space station's environment for harmful chemicals such as ammonia, mercury, methanol and formaldehyde.