| The International Space
Station Benefits
Shuttle Press Kit
NASA, United Space Alliance
and The Boeing Company
Mission Benefits
The International Space Station (ISS) represents a
quantum leap in our capability to conduct research on
orbit. It will serve as a laboratory for exploring basic
questions in a variety of disciplines, and as a testbed
and springboard for exploration. Research on the ISS will
include commercial, science, and engineering research in
the following areas:
Advanced Human Support Technology:
Researchers will develop technologies, systems, and
procedures to enable safe and efficient human exploration
and development of space.
Long term tenefits will include reduction in the cost of
space travel while enhancing safety; the development of
small, low power monitoring and sensing technologies with
applications in environmental monitoring in space and on
Earth, and the development of advanced waste processing
and agricultural technologies with applications in space
and on Earth.
Biomedical Research
and Countermeasures:
Researchers will seek to understand and control the
effects of the space environment on space travelers (e.g.
muscle atrophy, bone loss, fluid shifts.
Long term benefits will see an enhancement of the safety
of space travel, developing methods to keep humans
healthy in low-gravity environments; and advancing new
fields of research in the treatment of diseases.
Fundamental Biology:
Scientists will study gravity's influence on the
evolution, development, growth, and internal processes of
plants and animals. Their results will expand fundamental
knowledge that will benefit medical, agricultural, and
other industries.
Long term benefits will include advancements
understanding of cell, tissue, and animal behavior; as
well as the use of plants as sources of food and oxygen
for exploration, and improvement of plants for
agricultural and forestry, growth and survival.
Biotechnology:
Microgravity will allow researchers to grow
three-dimensional tissues that have characteristics more
similar to tissues in the body than has ever been
previously available and to produce superior protein
crystals for drug development.
Long term benefits will include te use of culture
realistic tissue for research (cancerous tumors, organ
pieces,) will provide information to design a new class
of drugs to target specific proteins and cure specific
diseases.
Fluid Physics:
The behavior of fluids is profoundly influenced by
gravity. Researchers will use gravity as an experimental
variable to explain and model fluid behavior in systems
on Earth and in space.
Long term benefits will include improvement of spacecraft
systems designs for safety and efficiency; a better
understanding of soil behavior in earthquake conditions,
the improvement of mathematical models for designing
fluid handling systems for power plants, refineries and
innumerable other industrial applications.
Materials Science:
Researchers will use low gravity to advance our
understanding of the relationships among the structure,
processing and properties of materials. Since in low
gravity, the differences in weight of liquids used to
form materials do not interfere with the ability to mix
these materials, scientists will open the door to a whole
new world of composite materials.
Long term benefits will include advanced understanding of
processes for manufacturing semiconductors, metals,
ceramics, polymers, and other materials, and the
determination of fundamental physical properties of
molten metal, semiconductors, and other materials with
precision impossible on Earth.
Combustion Science:
The removal of gravity will allow scientists to simplify
the study of complex combustion (burning) processes.
Since combustion is used to produce 85 percent of Earth's
energy, even small improvements in efficiency and
reduction of soot production (a major source of pollution
on earth) will have large environmental and economic
benefits.
Long term benefits will include to enhance efficiency of
combustion processes; enhancing fire detection and safety
on Earth and in Space; and improving control of
combustion emissions and pollutants.
Fundamental Physics:
Scientists will use the low gravity and low temperature
environment to slow down reactions, allowing them to test
fundamental theories of physics with degrees of accuracy
that far exceed the capacity of Earthbound science.
Long term benefits will lead scientists to challenge and
expand theories of how matter organizes as it changes
state (important in understanding superconductivity); to
test fundamental theories in physics with precision
beyond the capacity of Earth-bound science; and to obtain
more potential to improve magnetic materials.
Earth Science and Space Science:
The Space Station will be a unique platform with multiple
exterior attached to points from which the Earth and the
Universe can be observed.
Long term benefits: Space Scientists will use the
location above the atmosphere to collect and search for
cosmic rays, cosmic dust, antimatter and “dark”
matter. Earth scientists will be able to obtain global
profiles of aerosols, ozone, water vapor, and oxides in
order to determine their role in climatological processes
and take advantage of the longevity of ISS to observe
global changes over many years.
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The Space Shuttle, Still Young at 100
Safer, More Capable and More Reliable Than Ever Before.
1. The shuttle has amassed an amazing array of
accomplishments in the past 20 years: It has launched 3
million pounds of cargo and almost 600 (596 counting the
STS-92 crew) passengers and pilots.
The shuttle fleet has cumulatively spent almost three
years in flight (2 years, 336 days, 14 hours, 47 minutes,
59 seconds to be exact, not including the planned
duration of STS-92).
The fleet has amassed more than 15 years of
passenger-hours in space. Over 850 payloads have flown,
including hundreds of individual experiments.
The Shuttle has deployed more than 60 payloads and
retrieved more than two dozen. It has traveled more than
345 million miles (not including STS-92) and completed
more than 13,500 orbits of Earth (exactly 13,573, not
including STS-92).
2. The shuttle has enabled us to make unprecedented
discoveries about ourselves, our planet and our universe.
The shuttle has supported two space stations, made three
maintenance flights to the Hubble Space Telescope and
launched planetary missions to study Jupiter, Venus and
the Sun.
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