Help Urged For Space Station Research

NASA must do more outreach to attract researchers to the International Space Station, finds a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO-10-9). The report comes as ISS is moving from construction to being a full-time national research lab, which it was designated in 2005. The report notes that NASA expects to use up to half of the U.S. share of research resources on internal research, with the rest open to other ISS researchers. Currently, the station is set to be retired in 2015 with no new research funds to be provided after that. Under these circumstances, GAO recommends that in addition to bolstering NASA's outreach to ISS users, the agency should encourage further participation by providing more information about ISS—including research opportunities enabled by microgravity and available hardware—and about launch capabilities to the station after the space shuttles' retirement. If the Administration and Congress decide to extend ISS beyond 2015, the report recommends two additional items: that NASA set up a centralized research management office and that it develop in-house and external scientific and technical expertise to aid ISS users.