Opinion
 

ISS vital to future space travel

By Paul Hensarling

So we want to go to Mars, do we? Of course we do ­ provided we have the money. In the meantime, we probably want to be prepared. That comes from the International Space Station, the laboratory we share with some of our earthly neighbors. That is where we need to put more of our space resources.

It's very gratifying to see the cooperation the United States has received from its 15 ISS nation-partners ­ which include Russia, Canada, Japan, Brazil and the 11 nations that make up the European Space Agency.

In our emerging global society, cooperation between nations in a venture like the ISS will only further positive global interaction. The United States' contractor, NASA, will divert more funds from the ISS and other existing space programs for moon and Mars missions. Only $1.7 billion of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's $15.3 billion 2004 budget will go toward the ISS.

One would think the United States would want to put more time and money into such a magnificent working laboratory in space. Of course, the Columbia tragedy caused a work stoppage, but all the recent talk is of more flashy ventures, such as a moon base and a manned mission to Mars. If we really want to go to Mars and establish a moon base, there should be a lot of enthusiasm about getting the ISS built and working at full capacity. The ISS will provide the know-how and the answers for a large portion of living in space and the nature of space.

Once the space shuttles go back up, one of the first few missions will take the European Space Agency's Columbus Orbital Facility module up to the ISS. Some of the mini-laboratories that will be set up and conducted in Columbus are the European Physiology Modules, Biolab, the Material Science Laboratory and the Fluid Science Laboratory. These laboratories will house decade-long studies of how the human body, materials and fluids all behave in the weightlessness of space. The Biolab will examine how plants, small animals and tissue culture adapt to space. As of Saturday, an unmanned Russian Progress took supplies and experiments to the ISS. There was one experiment that was taken to the ISS to further measure radiation. Food, oxygen and fuel were among the cargo. 

A moon base or a mission to Mars will have to be self-sufficient and self-sustaining. These are exactly the experiments that will be carried out on the ISS. The study of how plants grow in space, which will be done in Biolab, will open the door to growing food in space. How materials act in space, and the crystallization and solidification of those materials, will bring a better understanding of how materials act in the extreme environment. But until we begin laboratory work on making oxygen and fuel in the ISS, we'll still only talk about a moon base and a mission to Mars.

If we are even thinking about going back to the moon for a permanent presence there, or spending several weeks or months on Mars, we are going to have to get more involved in the ISS. We are still in the infancy of our understanding of what it takes to survive in space for long periods of time. Only by doing basic research and taking baby steps toward understanding these things can we even begin to prepare to live on the moon and travel to Mars. We need to put more time and money into the ISS. We need to get enthusiastic about the ISS before we get enthusiastic about Mars.

Hensarling, an editorial writer for The Daily Cougar,
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu.