These include the magnitude of ongoing space station operations for at least the next two decades, the heightened vulnerability of an aging shuttle fleet, the imperatives for ensuring adequate future launch capability for crews and cargo, and the risks associated with technical or programmatic difficulties, reliance on international partners, and the need for uninterrupted public and political support. All in all, the constant attention demanded by having such a major asset in Earth orbit, magnified manifold, of course, by the expectation that it will be permanently inhabited, introduces a continuing and sustained level of urgency sure to affect the entire agency. One might even see the beginnings of some commercial ventures. At its worst, according to the detractors, the station could become a technical, programmatic, and budgetary nightmare with limited scientific returns, causing divisions among the partners and indifference or antagonism from the public. The truth will surely lie somewhere between these two extremes.
Earth scientists is decidedly more optimistic than in recent years.
This is in sharp contrast to the prevailing mood at the onset of the Shuttle era, when most correctly foresaw a long fallow period for space research. The SSB and its committees and task groups issued a dozen major reports and three short ones. Three of the SSB reports take broad cuts across all the science disciplines at NASA to consider research and data analysis, technology development, and U.S.-European collaboration. The last of these was a product of our own international collaboration with the SSB's sister group, the European Space Science Committee. All three reports address issues that profoundly affect future research and touch nearly every individual investigator.