[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 2363]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



      A TRIBUTE TO NASA EMPLOYEES AT MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

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                      HON. ROBERT E. (BUD) CRAMER

                               of alabama

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 27, 2001

  Mr. CRAMER. Mr. Speaker, today I congratulate the NASA employees and 
contractors at Marshall Space Flight Center for their role in the 
successful delivery of NASA's Destiny Laboratory Module, the second of 
the U.S. pressurized modules, to the International Space Station. I am 
proud to say that the extremely talented men and women of the Boeing 
Company built Destiny in my district at the Marshall Space Flight 
Center. This includes the successful design, development, assembly, 
integration, and testing of Destiny, as well as its delivery to Kennedy 
Space Center in November 1998.
  The Destiny Laboratory, the long-awaited centerpiece of the Space 
Station, will allow the United States and its international partners to 
perform fundamental science experiments around-the-clock in the 
microgravity environment of space. This state-of-the-art module has a 
capacity of 24 rack locations, of which 13 are especially designed to 
support important scientific research. Once these racks arrive on later 
Shuttle flights, scientists can begin fundamental long-term research in 
space that can help improve the quality of human life back on Earth. 
Some of the first experiments will focus on the growth of proteins in 
the absence of the effects of gravity, hopefully leading to a better 
understanding of the true structure of harmful viruses that develop 
under strong gravitational effects on Earth. The Station will also 
allow researchers to study how the human body is affected by long-term 
exposure to the low-gravity environment of space, which is a crucial 
first step in establishing a human presence elsewhere in our solar 
system.
  Mr. Speaker, while Destiny is primarily intended to be the key U.S. 
science facility on board Station, the addition of this engineering 
marvel to the current Space Station configuration on-orbit will also 
expand the Station's power, life support, and attitude control 
capabilities. It will enable the transfer of flight control 
responsibilities from the Russians to NASA personnel, providing command 
and control capability for NASA's Mission Control in Houston. The 
Station had been under Russian command and control since the launch of 
the Russian-built Zarya Module in November 1998. The addition of the 
Destiny Laboratory, which is 28 feet in length and 14 feet in diameter, 
will also give Station occupants more habitable space than was 
available aboard Skylab or Mir.
  The launch of Destiny now allows NASA to focus on providing other 
high priority capabilities necessary to complete the ISS. One of these 
capabilities will be provided by the U.S. Propulsion System, and is 
necessary to eliminate our dependence on the propulsion systems on 
board the Russian Service Module and the regular launch of Russian 
Progress vehicles. It is also time for NASA to aggressively move 
forward with the U.S. Habitation Module, which would provide safe 
living quarters for the full complement of seven Station inhabitants. 
This is the module that will provide for the crew and enable a full 
vigorous science research program to bring about the expected return on 
the taxpayer's investment in this unique national resource. Mr. 
Speaker, the Habitation Module and much of the Propulsion System will 
be built at the Marshall Space Flight Center by Boeing--the same highly 
skilled team that also constructed the U.S. Unity node--and therefore I 
believe they will be in good hands.
  Mr. Speaker, North Alabama has a long heritage of spacecraft 
construction, starting with the rockets that placed men in Earth orbit 
and eventually on the Moon. I am proud to congratulate the world-class 
Space Station team in North Alabama for continuing this proud heritage 
of excellence with the development of the Destiny Laboratory Module. I 
expect it to be one of the highlights of this year's space program.

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