Yet a growing consensus among U.S. scientists, several of whom have recently testified before Congress, is that the space station Freedom will not yield significant benefits for science; that it, in fact, has no scientific rationale at all.
In the course of the space station's design and recent redesign, a number of its planned laboratories have been either removed or scaled back. It has lost a number of external science experiments, including a space telescope and instruments for observing Earth. Also removed was a large superconducting magnet, which was to represent a major step forward for cosmic ray research. The microgravity laboratory is also gone. Many scientists, being urged by NASA to support the redesigned space station, anyway, are now wondering whether Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.
The U.S. is on the verge of making a decision on whether to go ahead with the space ...
