INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Canceling the tracker layer upgrade to the spectrometer would also not be catastrophic
The addition of a silicon tracker layer on top of the detector would increase the amount of data from the $2 billion physics experiment over
the next five years by a factor of three
However, the experiment has been in operation since 2011, so it has had ample time to collect information about dark matter and other
fundamental physics in the universe.The real eye-catching proposal in NASA's options is reducing the crew size from four to three.Typically,
Crew Dragon missions carry two NASA astronauts, one Roscosmos cosmonaut, and an international partner astronaut
Therefore, although it appears that NASA would only be cutting its crew size by 25 percent, in reality, it would be cutting the number of
NASA astronauts on Crew Dragon missions by 50 percent
Overall, this would lead to an approximately one-third decline in science conducted by the space station
(This is because there are usually three NASA astronauts on station: two from Dragon and one on each Soyuz flight.)It's difficult to see how
this would result in enormous cost savings
Yes, NASA would need to send marginally fewer cargo missions to keep fewer astronauts supplied
And there would be some reduction in training costs
But it seems kind of nuts to spend decades and more than $100 billion building an orbital laboratory, putting all of this effort into
developing commercial vehicles to supply the station and enlarge its crew, establishing a rigorous training program to ensure maximum
science is done and then to say, 'Well, actually we don't want to use it.'NASA has not publicly announced the astronauts who will fly on
Crew-12 next year, but according to sources, it has already assigned veteran astronaut Jessica Meir and newcomer Jack Hathaway, a former US
Navy fighter pilot who joined NASA's astronaut corps in 2021
If these changes go through, presumably one of these two would be removed from the mission.
