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News briefs: August 23
Posted: Sat, Aug 24, 2002, 11:45 AM ET (1545 GMT)
- Lance Bass apparently has an extra week to round up the funding to fly on a Soyuz taxi mission in October. Bass is scheduled to fly to Houston this weekend for a week of training at NASA's Johnson Space Center along with the two other members of the Soyuz crew. Bass had faced a Friday deadline to provide a significant payment to Rosaviakosmos or be removed from the crew, but Russian officials are apparently willing to allow Bass to train in Houston while funding negotiations continue.
- NASA announced Friday that the two shuttle missions scheduled to follow STS-112 will also be delayed. STS-113, a crew transfer mission to ISS, will be delayed at least several days from its previous November 2 launch date. STS-107, a non-ISS science mission, will be delayed from late November until January 16. STS-112, the next shuttle mission to fly, was pushed back earlier in the week from September 28 to October 2.
- Proposals to shut down NASA research facilities would likely cost the space agency more money than it could save, according to Aerospace Commission testimony earlier this week. Former NASA administrator James Beggs and a former Pentagon official said that NASA should avoid mistakes made by the Defense Department, which had closed too many research and testing facilities, delaying testing of new technologies.
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