Preliminary studies look at off-loading station building to rockets

By James Oberg NBC News space analyst Special to MSNBC Updated: 9:45 p.m. ET Oct. 28, 2004

"HOUSTON - Even as NASA gears up for the space shuttle's return to flight next year, officials at the space agency are quietly studying the possibility of cutting back its number of missions and retiring the spacecraft years ahead of schedule, MSNBC.com has learned.

"With the shuttle's main objective being the completion of the international space station, such an early retirement would mean either transferring major station assembly and supply jobs to expendable rockets and/or dropping some station components entirely.

"No decisions have been made and it is not unusual for NASA to study several courses of action. Any change to the shuttle program's current schedule would have significant economic and diplomatic repercussions at home and abroad, however, which makes even such tentative discussion a touchy topic at the battered space agency.

"On condition of anonymity, one current and one former high-level NASA employee, each with direct knowledge of the studies, provided MSNBC with details of the discussions. In addition, two former astronauts and a senior space policy expert, also requesting anonymity, said they had been told of the shuttle discussion by current NASA officials."