Panel calls for giant boost to space station research

What is the point of the International Space Station (ISS)? For some, the station—by some accounts the most expensive structure ever built—represents a triumph of engineering. It has also hosted astronauts for more than 2 decades straight, showcasing the endurance of international partnerships, even amid wars, and it has provided a destination for space agencies that cannot yet afford to return humans to the Moon. For University of Florida biologist Rob Ferl, however, the ISS is a one-of-a-kind laboratory—one that is just beginning to be utilized well. Since the station’s first components were launched in 1998, researchers have conducted more than 3000 experiments there to understand how the topsy-turvy environment of space affects everything from protein crystallization to combustion. But with access to space getting cheaper, and with commercial replacements to the ISS on the horizon, Ferl hopes the number of studies will rise dramatically. He was among 75 scientists who today called for NASA’s funding of biological and physical science on the ISS and elsewhere to expand by a factor of 10, to deliver both basic research and science that could advance the agency’s human space exploration goals. “There is an absolutely huge movement into space, for which we need a huge amount of science,” says Ferl, who co-chaired the panel, which was overseen by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The resulting “decadal survey...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news