Paper Session II-A - Space Station Freedom Accommodation of the Human Exploration Initiative

In his July 20th speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of the first Apollo Moon landing, President Bush proposed "...a sustained program of manned exploration of the solar system...and the permanent settlement of space." The President's plan for the future of America's manned space program calls for Space Station Freedom to be operational in the 1990's followed by a return to the Moon for the new century, "this time to stay", and then a manned mission to Mars. Space Station Freedom is a fundamental part of this long-range, evolutionary, human exploration initiative. It will support continuous human presence in Earth orbit for the purposes of scientific research and the development of technologies critical to the exploration missions. In addition to serving as a research and development facility in space, Freedom will be used as a spaceport or transportation node to support the assembly, servicing and checkout of space transfer vehicles which will ferry crew and cargo to the lunar surface and on to Mars. A study conducted by NASA during the Autumn of 1989 identified exploration accommodation requirements for the Space Station and formulated plans to implement mission-supporting capabilities. It was determined that the initial Space Station Freedom configuration (termed Assembly Complete) must be augmented to provide additional resources and capabilities. Increases will be required to Freedom crew, power, pressurized volume and truss structure. New capabilities will be required such as spacecraft assembly and servicing. A significant conclusion of the 90-day NASA study was that Space Station is capable of accommodating the necessary additions due to the evolutionary nature of the design.