Word: nasa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Many flights carried few passengers and at times returned empty after discharging travelers at their destinations. During 1980 and 1981, for example, two NASA aircraft made more than 700 flights with no passengers. The cost of the riderless flights...
...NASA and the Soviets reach for a permanent foothold in space...
...next logical step": that is what NASA planners are calling their dream of a permanent manned station in orbit. Such a development, they argue, would help bring about the era of cheap and easily accessible exploitation of space for science, technology development and commerce. Yet while NASA is still trying to garner support for its vision, the Soviets are already pushing ahead to build their own permanent space station...
Western experts believe that the Soviets' eventual goal is to have a continuous manned presence in orbit, with rotating shifts of cosmonauts at a permanent space base. NASA Administrator James Beggs earlier this month warned that the U.S. was in danger of losing its pre-eminence in space unless it pressed forward with a program to build its own space station...
Such a plan is currently on the drawing boards at NASA. The space agency has not settled on any one design for a station, preferring to think through the idea further before submitting it to the Administration. An official on the Space Station Task Force has said, however, that NASA is contemplating a "modest but useful" station with room for six-to-eight crew members. Such a station, which would probably consist of several modules for manufacturing, conducting scientific experiments and other uses, could be in operation by 1991. Possible price tag: $8 billion to $9 billion...