SPECIAL RECOMMENDATIONS

A. Establish the ISS Program Office separate from, but residing at JSC, reporting to a new Associate Administrator (AA) for ISS.

B. Consolidate prime and non-prime contracts into a minimum number of resulting contracts all reporting to the program office.

C. Develop a life cycle technical baseline and manage the ISS Program to total cost and schedule as well as fiscal year budgets.

D. Consider revising the ISS crew rotation period to 6 months and reducing the

Space Shuttle flight rate accordingly. The result would be a delay in U. S. core complete assembly sequence by up to 2 months. Target cost savings: $668m, and continue to examine Strategic Resources Review (SRR) and institutional cost reductions. Target cost savings: S350M-S450M.

E. Develop a credible program road map starting with core complete and leading to an end state that achieves expanded research potential. Include gate decisions based on demonstrated ability to execute the program and identify funding to maintain critical activities for potential enhancement options.

F. Establish research priorities. The Task Force is unanimous in that the highest research priority should be solving problems associated with long-duration human space flight, including the engineering required for human support mechanisms, and provide the Centrifuge Accommodation Module (CAM) and centrifuge as mandatory to accomplish top priority biological research. Availability as late as FY08 is unacceptable, and establish a research plan consistent with the priorities, including a prudent level of reserves, and compliant with the approved budget.

G. Provide additional crew time for scientific research through the use of extended duration Shuttle and overlap of Soyuz missions.

H. Create a Deputy Program Manager for Science position in ISS Program Office. Assign a science community representative with dual responsibility to the Program and OBPR.

I. “The IMCE Report proposes a strategy to restore confidence in the ISS Programme”

J. “The goals of the US International Space Station Programme are not well – defined”

K. “The IMCE strategy raises serious issues for the ISS International Partners”

L. “NASA cannot afford to delay”

M. Manage strategically

N. Provide aerospace products and capabilities

O. Generate knowledge

P. Communicate knowledge.

The IMCE addressed the two major concerns over the ISS programme. The problem of severe cost overruns was responsible for the introduction in the report of the new concept of bringing ISS to “American Core Complete”, rather than the original, legally agreed, “Station Complete”. Core Complete was a unilateral American decision to save money by reducing American involvement in ISS while retaining America’s role as the controlling partner in the alliance. Core Complete deleted the American Habitation Module, the American CRV, and Node-3 from the ISS design, without any negotiation with Russia and the International Partners. The decision to eliminate the Habitation Module effectively limited future Expedition crews to just three people for the foreseeable future, which would severely constrain the European and Japanese agencies’ access to their own laboratories.

The cancellation of the X-38 CRV development programme meant that the Space Shuttle would remain NASA’s only access to ISS for the foreseeable future, given that American access to the Russian Soyuz spacecraft was limited by the Iran Non-proliferation Act at that time. Even without that legislation, the idea of NASA paying the Russians to carry American astronauts to and from space had never been very palatable to the Americans, even though it would be cheaper than continuing to fly the Shuttle. Attempts to replace the Shuttle were plagued by lack of long-range goals and a too narrow focus on ISS. Problems developing the X-33 Flight Test Article proved that Lockheed-Martin’s bold talk of the VentureStar vehicle were nothing but hyperbole. The Orbital Space Plane (OSP) would be criticised as being too poorly defined and too narrowly focused on the ISS CRV role. Finally, in the wake of disaster (STS-107, with seven people onboard would be lost in February 2003), NASA would be set a new goal and the definition of a new spacecraft would become easier to complete.

The second area that the IMCE addressed was the lack of science that would be able to be completed on a station that was restricted to the new Core Complete configuration. One recommendation that the committee made was one-month-long Soyuz taxi flights. In this scenario one Expedition crew would already be in space. Their relief would be launched one month before the original crew’s occupation came to an end. The six astronauts would then work together for one month with two Soyuz CRVs docked to the station. At the end of that month the original crew would return to Earth, leaving the new crew in orbit. In turn their relief crew would be launched one month before the end of their occupation and the two crews would work together for one month before the second crew returned to Earth, leaving the third crew alone in orbit. Due to restrictions on consumables, Shuttle flights would only visit the station during the periods when a single Expedition crew was in occupation. This recommendation would not be acted on after Node-3 was re-instated with living quarters for a further three occupants.