US astronaut sees science breakthrough in space

A US astronaut departing this week for the International Space Station said on Monday that the bulk of the scientific benefits from the orbiting laboratory will be seen over the coming decade, amid questions on whether the estimated US$100 billion spent in the last 12 years is worth the effort.

“The first ten years were really intensive in the construction side of it, bringing all the pieces together and really getting the science enabled,” said Nasa astronaut Kevin Ford, who will blast off on a Soyuz craft from the Russian-leased Baikonur spacer centre in Kazakhstan on Tuesday together with Russian colleagues Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin.

Portland, Indiana-born Ford said the station would now enter its “utilisation phase”.

“We’re going to learn the bulk of everything we know about the science that we’re doing up there in the next decade,” he said at a press conference on the eve of the launch. He spoke from behind a glass screen designed to ensure the astronauts do not contract illnesses before their mission.

Of the three men departing on Tuesday, only Ford has spent any time in orbit. He spent two weeks in space as pilot of the space shuttle Discovery in 2009 on a mission to transport scientific equipment to the ISS.

The US space programme has been in a vulnerable position since the decommissioning of the US Shuttle fleet last year, which left Russia’s Soviet-designed Soyuz craft as the only means for international astronauts to reach the space station.