14 DAY TRIAL // NASA recently announced that it finished renovating an old, Apollo-era building it had at its Florida Spaceport, following a $55 million investment in the new infrastructure. The new Operations and Checkout Building stands as a symbol that, even if the American space agency will renounce its fleet of shuttles in 2010, the future of manned spaceflight is brighter than ever. The Constellation project and the new Ares V launching platform will undoubtedly bring about a new wave of discoveries and exploration, and the new building will play a crucial role in this endeavor, NASA officials say.
The new structure will house the testing facilities for the new Orion capsule, to be completed in 2015, and will offer support for the most complicated procedures associated with its launch. The capsule is scheduled to carry astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), the Moon, and, later on, Mars. Traditionally, the Kennedy Space Center has only launched vehicles, not built them on premises, but the new investment will ensure that this will no longer be a problem. In addition, an estimated 400 jobs will be saved at the new facility, thus increasing its value.
Nearby, in the Vehicle Assembly Building, the components for NASA's new carrier vehicle, designed to lift the Orion capsule to orbit by 2015, were also being tested, although admittedly they were only scraps. The same holds true for the Operations and Checkout Buildings, where mock-ups of the new Orion capsule and its heat shields could be seen on display, inside a bright gleaming clean room.
"It was dark and it was cluttered and it had miles of abandoned electrical cabling, and the basement was wet. Now it looks more like a spacecraft cleanroom operation," says Richard Harris, who is a Lockheed Martin Corp. Orion deputy program manager. "This is a first for Kennedy Space Center," he adds.
There is still however doubt over the success of the new space program, mostly because President Obama has yet to name a successor for Michael Griffin, who stepped down from the agency's command on January 17th. Also, the current economic turmoil will most likely cause a dent in NASA's predicted budget rises, which were promised from Washington, to encourage the completion of the Constellation project before 2015. Also, there is a problem with 3,000 to 4,000 jobs that may be lost once the shuttle fleet is withdrawn from activity.