1987: SPACE STATION “FREEDOM”
Notes:
NASA's first detailed cost assessment in February 1987 revealed the “Dual Keel” Space Station would cost at least $14.5 billion in 1984 dollars, or $21 billion in current-year dollars. This caused a political uproar in Congress, where many politicians had started to express doubt about the project. However, NASA and Reagan Administration officials reached a compromise in March 1987 which allowed the agency to proceed with a cheaper $12.2-billion Phase One Station (1984 dollars; $17.7B in current-year dollars) that could be completed after 10 or 11 Shuttle assembly flights. Annual funding levels would be: $767 million in FY 1988, $1.4 billion in FY 1989 & 1990, $2.3 billion for the next three years and $1.4 billion in FY 1994. This design initially omitted the $3-4 billion “Dual Keel” structure and half of the power generators. The new Space Station configuration was named “Freedom” by Reagan in June 1988.
The Space Station “Freedom” assembly plan. NASA tried to reduce the number of Shuttle assembly flights by making several modifications. The first launch would now take place in March 1994, the Station would be permanently manned from April 1995 onwards and be completed in March 1997 after 17 flights. Congress disliked the 6-9 month delay and briefly demanded that the schedule be accelerated.
Space Station work distribution following the 1987 redesign. As always, considerable political filling and sanding was required since the Lewis and Goddard Spaceflight Center-led Work Packages mostly involved “Dual Keel” elements that now were postponed indefinitely.
