Word: orbiters
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...will also enable scientists to perform more mundane research, like that planned for Spacelab. Among them: investigations into the behavior of metals, chemicals and even living cells in what scientists call the microgravity of orbit, the familiar condition of weightlessness. Some student experiments will be carried up as well, probably as part of NASA'S so-called getaway specials, compact canisters as small as 1.5 cu. ft. that can be placed on a flight for as little as $3,000. One young man recently announced he intended to use such an experimental package to see if fruit flies breed...
...Robert Latter, "you can test the satellite all the way up. Maybe you could even fix it in flight." After the astronauts perfect their skills at retrieving satellites with the shuttle's big mechanical arm, ailing "birds" may also be recovered and repaired either in orbit or on the ground...
...early operational flight of the shuttle, in 1983, is scheduled to carry a tracking and data relay satellite aloft for the Space Communications Co. AT&T is planning to use a 1984 flight to put one of its new Telstar 3 satellites into orbit. Foreign nations have rented a total of 18 payloads, among them: an Arab consortium, Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Great Britain, Japan and Luxembourg. Other potential users of shuttle space have been slower to come forward, in part because the idea of working in orbit is still a bit too risky and futuristic for most corporate chiefs...
...shuttle missions in the next ten years. It has even considered subcontracting shuttle operations to an airline, and United Airlines has expressed interest. Farsighted planners are thinking about more ambitious roles for the shuttle, or its successor. In the future, such a spacecraft may carry work crews into orbit, where they will be left behind inside comfortable modules that could serve as building blocks for permanent space stations. As more components are shuttled up, these centers might begin to produce space goods, perhaps even utilize raw materials, as Gerard O'Neill suggests, from the moon or from asteroids. There...
...more distant future, such stations, like the great wheel in 2001: A Space Odyssey, could serve as a launch pad for journeys far beyond the earth, maybe to Mars. Interplanetary spacecraft assembled in earth orbit could be made of much lighter and less costly materials since they would not have to survive the stresses and friction of travel through the earth's atmosphere...