Duke Experts Give Different Views on Future of Shuttle

Full transcript of the panel discussion.

Three Duke observers of America's space program looked into the future following the shuttle Columbia tragedy and came up with different views last week at a special panel discussion at the Pratt School of Engineering.

Alex Roland, professor of history and a former NASA historian, said the International Space Station currently in orbit with three men aboard should be mothballed and NASA should focus on building a much safer, less expensive rocket ship than the space shuttle.

Earl Dowell, J.A. Jones Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Sciences and a member of past space advisory panels, said the investigation into the cause of the Columbia's breakup during its return to Earth Feb. 1 may never come up with a definitive answer. And he said the appearance of a lack of independence on the part of the government investigation board may come back to haunt NASA.

Al Rossiter Jr., a long-time space journalist who retired from Duke in 2001 and now heads Pratt's communications on a part-time basis, said the nation has no alternative but to fix the remaining shuttles so they can continue to service the space station. He said the United States and 15 partner nations have too much invested in the station to shut it down.

"Next the White House and Congress must decide whether to extend the life of the shuttles -- which as we know were built on technology that already is a quarter of a century old -- or bite the bullet and proceed to a second generation shuttle, something the Bush administration placed on the back burner before the Columbia accident," Rossiter said.

Roland, whose anti-shuttle views have been widely cited by national news media, argued that NASA should stop relying on the shuttle and get on with space exploration.

"It can be either manned or unmanned," he said. "I have no preference. Both could be valuable.

"In the situation in which we find ourselves, however, the space shuttle inhibits exploration. It doesn't mean that manned exploration could never make sense in a different environment, but right now it doesn't make sense. And that's because all existing manned space vehicles retard exploration. The first mission of any manned spacecraft is not to explore; it's to return the crew alive. And any exploration you do is a secondary mission. '

"The shuttle is especially counterproductive as a manned space vehicle. It is the most sophisticated launch vehicle in the world by far but it also the most expensive, and it is also the most fragile, the most vulnerable. And as long as we are chained to this technology -- the space shuttle or something like it -- then anything that we want to do in space is going to be cheaper without the people, either with fully automated spacecraft, or as most of our spacecraft are, by spacecraft that are simply controlled by people here on Earth."

Dowell blamed NASA budget constraints for the fact that the agency is still relying on shuttles.

"The only reason we haven't scrapped them is that no one wants to pay the bill to build a new one," he said. "It's cheaper to keep your old car, at least on a year to year basis, than it is to buy a new car, even though in the long term it may be a wiser investment to buy a new car. And the same thing applies to the space shuttle."