Why build a new space station?
An astronaut's perspective
British-American Michael Foale, deputy director of the
Johnson Space Center in Houston and an astronaut who has
flown on the Russian Mir space station, outlined why
humanity needs a new station:
"The basic reason we are going into space as human beings
from our planet is that we are curious people....
"To a certain extent that is expressed as scientific
research...that is a major part of the International
Space Station's goal, which is pure scientific research.
"However there is much, much stronger in the background
the desire to do something in space anyway. So the research
is not actually the drive, the be all and end all of the
International Space Station. It is really a vehicle to do
something in space, continuing the exploration, moving out
from the planet, while doing useful things with it....
"It's an expression of human will to go out from the Earth
into space, explore, while doing something useful there."
"Without the space station we will not get to Mars, that
I can tell you. But getting to Mars is not the be all and
end all either. It's a progressive exodus of human beings
from the planet Earth in exploration. Mars will be just a
step. A colony on Mars will be just one phase in it. Then
there will be industrial activity in the Asteroid Belt and
eventually from that industrial activity in the Asteroid
Belt there'll be outposts in the outer solar system and
eventually a star ship going to other stars. That will
happen.
"The whole question is 'Is the station critical to that?'
Right now politically it is, because without that inter-
national endeavour of doing the space station we will
never do the international things that we need to do
to go to Mars by way of the moon and then out to the
Asteroid Belt."
REUTERS
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International Space Station
(Courtesy NASM)
U.S. and Russian Astronauts to Train