Space Shuttle's Final Flight; Bob Park* Bids Farewell and Makes a Cost Comparison. (July 3, 2011)

 SHUTTLE: A FINAL LOOK AT THE US SPACE SHUTTLE.
In today's issue of Science, Dan Charles takes a clear-eyed look at "Science on the Shuttle." For 30 years the space shuttle has been the only Highway to Space for US astronauts. Next week, space shuttle Atlantis, STS-135, will deliver a load of groceries to the ISS. After its return 12 days later Atlantis will remain in Florida as a museum piece. The other surviving shuttles will likewise serve as museums in the district's of key members of Congress. Near the end of the retrospective, I find myself cast as the chief shuttle critic: Among some scientists, Dan says, antipathy to the shuttle – or any human space flight – runs deep. He quotes me, "It indulged humankind's impractical space fantasies at a cost that retarded genuine progress." And so it did, but was there any science? He cites only the repair of the Hubble space telescope, but it would have  been cheaper to launch a new Hubble.

HOMESTAKE, SOUTH DAKOTA: A MINE IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE.
It would be the deepest underground science facility in the world, 2,400m below ground; deeper than the current record holder, SNOLAB in Sudbury, Ontario at 2,100m below. At that time [8-years ago] the mine was dry and conversion to a research laboratory would have been relatively inexpensive. However, rather than risk liability for environmental infractions that might come to light, the mining company chose to flood the mine, enormously increasing the cost of conversion. It would now take between $1.2 billion and $2.2 billion to build and equip an underground particle physics laboratory at Homestake, according to a study presented last week to a federal advisory panel. Adrian Cho writing in Science magazine this week, questions whether that’s feasible. That's as much as a shuttle trip to the ISS, and who could afford that?

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*Bob Park, is an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park and a former Director of Public Information at the Washington office of the American Physical Society. He writes the weekly blog What's New.