Shuttle Diplomacy

The article highlights key points of a special National Research Council (NRC) committee on Space Shuttle upgrades’ ‘Upgrading the Space Shuttle’ report. The NRC committee reviewed two $1 billion-plus proposals for changing what NASA uses to propel the orbiters to space, and found that these could be broached only if more flights were planned, much more design review was done, and the Shuttle would be in service after 2012. The committee used NASA's grouping of the proposed upgrades into phases, with one being the least expensive, time-consuming, and risky, and four being the most costly, long term, and risk-prone. The committee studied another upgrade that would eliminate a hazardous material. The upgrade would modify the Shuttle's orbital manoeuvring and reaction control systems to use liquid oxygen and ethanol propellants instead of current engines' toxic N2O4 and monomethyl hydrazine propellants.