O'Keefe's ISS spadework

With the post-Columbia shuttle mess keeping NASA super busy and considering
the uncertainty about the return-to-flight schedule, I noticed that Sean
O'Keefe has done the expected. At the IAC meeting going on now in Bremen,
Germany he announced that the ISS probably can get by with a significantly
smaller crew than the originally planned 6-7 persons. He says that the
experience with the post-Columbia 2-person crew has shown that you don't
actually need 2.5 persons to fly the ISS as previously believed and that the
2-person crew has done *significant amounts* of science.. Sounds a lot like
the Administrator is setting the stage for the other shoe to drop, i.e. a
NASA decision to limit the ISS crew to 3 persons indefinitely. It'll be
interesting to see how this resonates with the ISS international partners
and with that part of the U.S. science community that has a big stake in ISS
as a *world-class* scientific lab.

Later
Ray Schmitt