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News briefs: September 7-8
Posted: Mon, Sep 9, 2002, 11:05 AM ET (1505 GMT)
- The International Space Station will cost NASA an average of $1 billion a year through the lifetime of its mission, Florida Today reported Saturday. The total cost to complete and build the station, as well as operate it through its planned deorbit in 2017, is $14-17 billion, although year-by-year numbers were not available. Station program manager William H. Gerstenmaier said that there will be "dramatic" budget reductions in the project starting in 2004 or 2005 as assembly of the station is completed.
- A small sample of lunar dust was recently stolen from a Swedish museum, collectSPACE reported this weekend. The samples, given to Sweden by the US in 1970, were noticed missing from the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm on September 3. The samples consist of four dust grains, each about one millimeter across, embedded inside a coin-sized capsule.
- Lance Bass remains in Moscow as backers of his planned space flight try to salvage a deal with the Russians, MSNBC reported. Jeffrey Manber, president of MirCorp, said that he is still optimistic that a deal can be worked out in the coming week even though Rosaviakosmos officials said September 3 that Bass had been removed from the crew of the Soyuz taxi flight because of unpaid bills. Manber said many of the principals involved in the negotiations were unavailable last week, so talks are not expected to get into gear again until this week.
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