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The Political and financial aspects of the International Space Station are a complex set of legal and financial agreements between the fifteen nations involved in the project, governing ownership of the various components, rights to crewing and utilisation, and responsibilities for crew rotation and station resupply.

[edit] Legal aspects

[edit] Agreement

Cover page of the Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement signed on January 28, 1998.

The legal structure that regulates the space station is multi-layered. The primary layer establishing obligations and rights between the ISS partners is the Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA), an international treaty signed on January 28, 1998 by fifteen governments involved in the Space Station project. The ISS consists of Canada, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States, and eleven Member States of the European Space Agency (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom). Article 1 outlines its purpose:

This Agreement is a long term international co-operative framework on the basis of genuine partnership, for the detailed design, development, operation, and utilisation of a permanently inhabited civil Space Station for peaceful purposes, in accordance with international law.^[1]

The IGA sets the stage for a second layer of agreements between the partners referred to as 'Memoranda of Understanding' (MOUs), of which four exist between NASA and each of the four other partners. There are no MOUs between ESA, Roskosmos, CSA and JAXA because NASA is the designated manager of the ISS. The MOUs are used to describe the roles and responsibilities of the partners in more detail.

A third layer consists of bartered contractual agreements or the trading of the partners' rights and duties, including the 2005 commercial framework agreement between NASA and Roskosmos that sets forth the terms and conditions under which NASA purchases seats on Soyuz crew transporters and cargo capacity on unmanned Progress transporters.

A fourth legal layer of agreements implements and supplements the four MOUs further. Notably among them is the ISS code of conduct, setting out criminal jurisdiction, anti-harassment and certain other behavior rules for ISS crewmembers.^[2]

[edit] Utilization

Allocation of ISS hardware between nations.

There is no fixed percentage of ownership for the whole space station. Rather, Article 5 of the IGA sets forth that each partner shall retain jurisdiction and control over the elements it registers and over personnel in or on the Space Station who are its nationals.^[1] Therefore, for each ISS module only one partner retains sole ownership. Still, the agreements to use the space station facilities are more complex.

The three planned Russian segments Zvezda, the Multipurpose Laboratory Module and the Docking and Cargo Modules are made and owned by Russia, which, as of today, also retains its current and prospective usage (Zarya, although constructed and launched by Russia, has been paid for and is officially owned by NASA). In order to use the Russian parts of the station, the partners use bilateral agreements (third and fourth layer of the above outlined legal structure). The rest of the station, (the U.S., the European and Japanese pressurized modules as well as the truss and solar panel structure and the two robotic arms) has been agreed to be utilized as follows (% refers to time that each structure may be used by each partner):

• Columbus: 51% for ESA, 46.7% for NASA and 2.3% for CSA.^[3]
• Kibō: 51% for JAXA, 46.7% for NASA and 2.3% for CSA.^[4]
• Destiny: 97.7% for NASA and 2.3% for CSA.^[5]
• Crew time, electrical power and rights to purchase supporting services (such as data upload & download and communications) are divided 76.6% for NASA, 12.8% for JAXA, 8.3% for ESA, and 2.3% for CSA.^[3][4][5]

[edit] New Partners

The heads of both the South Korean and Indian space agencies announced at the first plenary session of the 2009 International Astronautical Congress on 12 October that their nations intend to join the ISS program. The talks are due to begin in 2010. The heads of agency also expressed support for extending ISS lifetime.^[6]

[edit] Future of the ISS

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.

Former NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin says the International Space Station has a role to play as NASA moves forward with a new focus for the manned space programme, which is to go out beyond Earth orbit for purposes of human exploration and scientific discovery. "The International Space Station is now a stepping stone on the way, rather than being the end of the line," Griffin said.^[7] Griffin has said that station crews will not only continue to learn how to live and work in space, but also will learn how to build hardware that can survive and function for the years required to make the round-trip voyage from Earth to Mars.^[7]

Despite this view, however, in an internal e-mail leaked to the press on 18 August 2008 from Griffin to NASA managers,^[8][9][10] Griffin apparently communicated his belief that the current US administration had made no viable plan for US crews to participate in the ISS beyond 2011, and that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) were actually seeking its demise.^[9] The e-mail appeared to suggest that Griffin believed the only reasonable solution was to extend the operation of the space shuttle beyond 2010, but noted that Executive Policy (i.e. the White House) was firm that there will be no extension of the space shuttle retirement date, and thus no US capability to launch crews into orbit until the Ares I/Orion system becomes operational in 2014, at the earliest.^[9] He did not see purchase of Russian launches for NASA crews as politically viable following the 2008 South Ossetia war, and hoped the incoming Barack Obama administration would resolve the issue in 2009 by extending space shuttle operations beyond 2010.

A solicitation issued by NASA JSC indicates NASA's intent to purchase from Roscosmos "a minimum of 3 Soyuz seats up to a maximum of 24 seats beginning in the Spring of 2012" to provide ISS crew transportation.^[11][12]

On 7 September 2008, NASA released a statement regarding the leaked email, in which Griffin said:

"The leaked internal email fails to provide the contextual framework for my remarks, and my support for the administration's policies. Administration policy is to retire the shuttle in 2010 and purchase crew transport from Russia until Ares and Orion are available. The administration continues to support our request for an INKSNA exemption. Administration policy continues to be that we will take no action to preclude continued operation of the International Space Station past 2016. I strongly support these administration policies, as do OSTP and OMB."

—Michael D. Griffin^[13]

On 15 October 2008, President Bush signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2008, giving NASA funding for one additional mission to "deliver science experiments to the station".^{[14][15][16][17]} The Act allows for an additional space shuttle flight, STS-134, to the ISS to install the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which was previously cancelled.^[18]

President Barack Obama has supported the continued operation of the station, and supported the NASA Authorization Act of 2008.^[18] Obama's plan for space exploration includes finishing the station and completion of the Orion spacecraft programme.^[19]

[edit] Costs

The most cited figure of an estimate of overall costs of the ISS ranges from 35 billion to 100 billion USD.^[20] ESA, the only agency actually stating potential overall costs on its website, estimates €100 billion.^[21] Giving a precise cost estimate for the ISS is not straightforward, as it is difficult to determine which costs should actually be contributed to the ISS program, or how the Russian contribution should be measured.

[edit] NASA

[edit] Overview

NASA's current budget projections see an end to ISS funding in 2017, in order to free funds for the Vision for Space Exploration.

The overall majority of costs for NASA are incurred by flight operations and expenses for the overall management of the ISS. Costs for initially building the U.S. portion of the ISS modules and external structure on the ground and construction in space as well as crew and supply flights to the ISS do account for far less than the general operating costs (see annual budget allocation below).

NASA does not include the basic Space Shuttle program costs in the expenses incurred for the ISS program, despite the fact that the Space Shuttle has been nearly exclusively used for ISS construction and supply flights since December 1998.

NASA's 2007 budget request lists costs for the ISS (without Shuttle costs) as $25.6 billion for the years 1994 to 2005.^[22] For each of 2005 and 2006 about $1.7 to 1.8 billion are allocated to the ISS program. The annual expenses will increase until 2010 when they will reach $2.3 billion and should then stay at the same level, however inflation-adjusted, until 2016, the defined end of the program. NASA has allocated between $300 and 500 million for program shutdown costs in 2017.

[edit] 2005 ISS budget allocation

NASA allocates about 125 million US dollars (USD) annually to EVAs.

The $1.8 billion expensed in 2005 consisted of:^[23]

• Development of new hardware: $70 million were allocated to core development, for instance development of systems like navigation, data support or environmental.
• Spacecraft Operations: $800 million consisting of $125 million for each of software, extravehicular activity systems, and logistics and maintenance. An additional $150 million is spent on flight, avionics and crew systems. The rest of $250 million goes to overall ISS management.
• Launch and Mission operations: Although the Shuttle launch costs are not considered part of the ISS budget, mission and mission integration ($300 million), medical support ($25 million) and Shuttle launch site processing ($125 million) is within the ISS budget.
• Operations Program Integration: $350 million was spent on maintaining and sustaining U.S. flight and ground hardware and software to ensure integrity of the ISS design and the continuous, safe operability.
• ISS cargo/crew: $140 million was spent for purchase of supplies, cargo and crew capability for Progress and Soyuz flights.

[edit] Shuttle costs as part of ISS costs

The only non-ISS related Shuttle flight between 2005 and 2010 is a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission on STS-125.

Only costs for mission and mission integration and launch site processing for the 33 ISS-related Shuttle flights are included in NASA's ISS program costs. Basic costs of the Shuttle program are, as mentioned above, not considered part of the overall ISS costs by NASA, because the Shuttle program is considered an independent program aside from the ISS. Since December 1998 the Shuttle has, however, been used nearly exclusively for ISS flights (since the first ISS flight in December 1998, until October 2007 only 5 flights out of 28 flights have not been to the ISS, and only the planned Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission in 2009 will not be ISS-related out of 13 planned missions until the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2010).

Shuttle program costs during ISS operations from 1999 to 2005 (disregarding the first ISS flight in December 1998) have amounted to approximately $24 billion (1999: $3,028.0 million, 2000: $3,011.2 million, 2001: $3,125.7 million, 2002: $3,278.8 million, 2003: $3,252.8 million, 2004: $3,945.0 million, 2005: $4,319.2 million). In order to derive the ISS-related costs, expenses for non-ISS flights need to be subtracted, which amount to 20% of the total or about $5 billion. For the years 2006-2011 NASA projects another $20.5 billion in Space Shuttle program costs (2006: $4,777.5 million, 2007: $4,056.7 million, 2008: $4,087.3 million, 2009: $3,794.8 million, 2010: $3,651.1 million and 2011: $146.7 million). If the Hubble servicing mission is excluded from those costs, ISS-related costs will be approximately $19 billion for Shuttle flights from 2006 until 2011. In total, ISS-related Space Shuttle program costs will therefore be approximately $38 billion.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Overall ISS costs for NASA

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Assuming NASA's projections of average costs of $2.5 billion from 2011 to 2016 and the end of spending money on the ISS in 2017 (about $300–500 million) after shutdown in 2016 are correct,^{[citation needed]} the overall ISS project costs for NASA from the announcement of the program in 1993 to its end will be about $53 billion (25.6 billion for the years 1994-2005 and about 27 to 28 billion for the years 2006-2017).^{[citation needed]}

There have also been considerable costs for designing Space Station Freedom in the 1980s and early 1990s, before the ISS program started in 1993. Plans of Space Station Freedom were reused for the International Space Station.^{[citation needed]}

To sum up, although the actual costs NASA views as connected to the ISS are only half of the $100 billion figure often cited in the media, if combined with basic program costs for the Shuttle and the design of the ISS' precursor project Space Station Freedom, the costs reach $100 billion for NASA alone.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] ESA

ESA calculates that its contribution over the 15 year lifetime of the project will be €9 billion.^[24] Just the costs for the Columbus Laboratory tops more than €1.4 billion (about $2.1 billion), including the money spent on the ground control infrastructure known as Columbus Control Center to operate it. The total development costs for ATV amount to approximately €1.35 billion^[25] and considering that each Ariane 5 launch costs around €150 million, each ATV launch will incur considerable costs as well.

The ISS has been far more expensive than originally anticipated. The ESA estimates the overall cost from the start of the project in the early 1990s to the prospective end in 2017 to be in the region of €100 billion ($157 billion or £65.3 billion).^[21]

[edit] JAXA

The development of the Japanese Experiment Module, JAXA's main contribution to the ISS, has cost about 325 billion yen (about $2.8 billion).^[26] In the year 2005, JAXA allocated about 40 billion yen (about 350 million USD) to the ISS program.^[27] The annual running costs for Japanese Experiment Module will total around $350 to 400 million. In addition JAXA has committed itself to develop and launch the H-II Transfer Vehicle, for which development costs total nearly $1 billion. In total, over the 24 year lifespan of the ISS program, JAXA will contribute well over $10 billion to the ISS program.

[edit] Roskosmos

A considerable part of the Russian Space Agency's budget is used for the ISS. Since 1998 there have been over two dozen Soyuz and Progress flights, the primary crew and cargo transporters since 2003. The question of how much Russia spends on the station (measured in USD), is, however, not easy to answer. The two modules currently in orbit are derivatives of the Mir program and therefore development costs are much lower than for other modules. In addition, the exchange rate between ruble and USD is not adequately giving a real comparison to what the costs for Russia really are.

[edit] CSA

Canada, whose three main contributions to the ISS are the Canadarm2, the mobile base system, and Dextre (the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, also known as the Canada Hand), estimates that through the last 20 years it has contributed about C$1.4 billion to the ISS. Canada has continued to be a vital member of ISS through the past ten years and continues to play a major role in the ISS.^[28]

[edit] Criticism

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The International Space Station has been the target of varied criticism over the years. Critics contend that the time and money spent on the ISS could be better spent on other projects—whether they be robotic spacecraft missions, space exploration, investigations of problems here on Earth, or just tax savings.^[29] Some critics, like Robert L. Park, argue that very little scientific research was convincingly planned for the ISS in the first place.^[30] They also argue that the primary feature of a space-based laboratory is its microgravity environment, which can usually be studied more cheaply with a "vomit comet".^[31]

One of the most ambitious ISS projects to date, the Centrifuge Accommodations Module, has been cancelled due to the prohibitive costs NASA faces in simply completing the ISS. As a result, the research done on the ISS is generally limited to experiments which do not require any specialized apparatus. For example, in the first half of 2007, ISS research dealt primarily with human biological responses to being in space, covering topics like kidney stones, circadian rhythm, and the effects of cosmic rays on the nervous system.^[32][33][34] Critics argue that this research has little practical value,^{[citation needed]} since space exploration is today almost universally done by robots.

Other critics have attacked the ISS on some technical design grounds:

1. Jeff Foust argued that the ISS requires too much maintenance, especially by risky, expensive EVAs.^[35] The magazine The American Enterprise reports, for instance, that ISS astronauts "now spend 85 percent of their time on construction and maintenance" alone.
2. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific has mentioned that its orbit is rather highly inclined, which makes Russian launches cheaper, but US launches more expensive.^[36] This was intended as a design point, to encourage Russian involvement with the ISS—and Russian involvement saved the project from abandonment in the wake of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster—but the choice may have increased the costs of completing the ISS substantially.

In response to some of these criticisms, advocates of manned space exploration say that criticism of the ISS project is short-sighted, and that manned space research and exploration have produced billions of dollars' worth of tangible benefits to people on Earth. Jerome Schnee estimated that the indirect economic return from spin-offs of human space exploration has been many times the initial public investment.^[37] A review of the claims by the Federation of American Scientists argued that NASA's rate of return from spin-offs is actually very low, except for aeronautics work that has led to aircraft sales.^[38]

Critics also say that NASA is often casually credited with "spin-offs" (such as Velcro and portable computers) that were developed independently for other reasons.^[39] NASA maintains a list of spin-offs from the construction of the ISS, as well as from work performed on the ISS.^[40][41] However, NASA's official list is much narrower and more arcane than dramatic narratives of billions of dollars of spin-offs.

It is therefore debatable whether the ISS, as distinct from the wider space program, will be a major contributor to society. Some advocates argue that apart from its scientific value, it is an important example of international cooperation.^[42] Others claim that the ISS is an asset that, if properly leveraged, could allow more economical manned Lunar and Mars missions.^[43] Either way, advocates argue that it misses the point to expect a hard financial return from the ISS; rather, it is intended as part of a general expansion of spaceflight capabilities.

[edit] References

v • d • e Components of the International Space Station Major components in orbit Zarya (Functional Cargo Block) · Unity (Node 1) · Zvezda (Service Module) · Destiny (Laboratory) · Quest (Airlock) · Pirs (Airlock / Docking Module) · Harmony (Node 2) · Columbus (Laboratory) · Kibō (PM, ELM-PS, EF) · Poisk (MRM 2) · Integrated Truss Structure (ITS) Subsystems in orbit Canadarm2 (MSS) · Dextre (SPDM) · Kibō Remote Manipulator System · External Stowage Platforms (ESPs) · Pressurized Mating Adapters (PMAs) · Electrical System · ExPRESS Logistics Carriers 1&2 (ELCs) Launched periodically Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules (MPLMs) · Kibō (ELM-ES) Scheduled for Shuttle Tranquillity (Node 3) · Cupola · Rassvet (MRM 1) · ExPRESS Logistics Carriers 3&4 (ELCs) · Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer · Leonardo (PMM) · OBSS Scheduled for Proton Nauka (Multipurpose Laboratory Module) · European Robotic Arm (ERA) Not currently scheduled ExPRESS Logistics Carrier 5 (ELC5) · Interim Control Module (ICM) Cancelled Propulsion Module · Centrifuge Accommodations Module (CAM) · Habitation Module · Crew Return Vehicle (CRV/ACRV) · Science Power Platform (SPP) · Universal Docking Module (UDM) · Russian Research Module (RM) Support vehicles Current: Space Shuttle · Soyuz · Progress · Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) · H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) Future: Dragon · Cygnus · Orion  · Rus Mission Control MCC-H (NASA) · TsUP (RKA) · Col-CC (ESA) · ATV-CC (ESA) · JEM-CC (JAXA) · HTV-CC (JAXA) · MSS-CC (CSA) Station Assembly · Project · Major Incidents

v • d • e National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Policy & History NACA (1915) · National Aeronautics and Space Act (1958) · Paine (1986) · Rogers (1986) · Ride (1987) · Space Exploration Initiative (1989) · Augustine (1990) · U.S. National Space Policy (1996) · CFUSAI (2002) · CAIB (2003) · Vision for Space Exploration (2004) · Aldridge (2004) · Augustine (2009) General: Space Race · Administrators · Chief Scientist · NASA Budget · NASA spin-off · NASA TV Robotic Programs Past New Millennium · Hitchhiker · Pioneer · Mariner · Lunar Orbiter · Ranger · Surveyor · Viking · Planetary Observer · Mariner Mark II · MESUR · Mars Surveyor '98 Current Living With a Star · Lunar Precursor Robotic Program · Earth Observing System · Great Observatories program · Explorer · Small explorer · Voyager · Discovery · New Frontiers · Mars Exploration Rover · Project Prometheus · Mars Scout Human spaceflight Programs Past X-15 (suborbital) · Mercury · Gemini · Apollo · Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (with USSR) · Skylab · Shuttle-Mir (with Russia) Current Space Shuttle program · International Space Station program Future/Planned Constellation program Individual Featured Missions (Human and robotic) Past COBE · Magellan · Pioneer 10/11 · Voyager 1/2 · Galileo Currently Operating MRO  · Mars Odyssey  · Dawn  · New Horizons  · Kepler  · Space Shuttle  · International Space Station · Hubble Space Telescope · Spitzer  · RHESSI  · WMAP  · SWIFT  · GALEX  · THEMIS  · Mars Exploration Rover  · Cassini  · GOES 14 · Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Future Glory · SDO  · Juno  · James Webb Space Telescope  · MAVEN  · EJSM  · JDEM · RBSP · MSL · Constellation program: Ares I · Ares V · Orion · Altair Space Comm and Nav (SCaN) Space Network · Near Earth Network · Deep Space Network (Goldstone · Madrid · Canberra) NASA Categories and Lists NASA personnel · NASA programs · NASA probes · NASA images · NASA NASA Astronaut Groups · List of astronauts by selection · List of NASA contractors