May 9, 2003	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 6, 1424

LONDON: The mini is back while the miniskirt never really went away, and now another icon of the 1960s could be about to make an unexpected return. The American space agency Nasa is thinking of resurrecting its Apollo spacecraft, which took men to the moon in 1969.

Nasa needs to get astronauts off the International Space Station in a hurry in an emergency. Its most high-profile plan is for an orbital space plane, which looks like a stubby version of the space shuttle. But with funds tight, the agency is considering other options. Nasa documents leaked to a space website reveal that these include docking an Apollo-style command module on to the station as a lifeboat. Nasa has even considered refurbishing modules built in the 1960s, and currently in storage or museums. The command module from the Apollo 10 mission is at the science museum in London.

“We are considering a number of options along these lines,” Nasa confirmed at its Johnson space centre in Houston.

The command module was used to return astronauts, including Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, from space to earth. It seated three people, but the Nasa report shows how it could be adapted to take six or seven: the intended full crew of the space station.

The report was written by high-level officials and astronauts, many of whom were involved in the agency’s glory days more than three decades ago.

It says that using an Apollo command module as a rescue vehicle “has sufficient merit to warrant a serious detailed study of the performance, cost and schedule”. An Apollo service module could even be used to ferry crew to the station, it adds.

Revisiting decades old technology may seem a backwards step, but it could make sense, said Keith Cowing, a former Nasa scientist who posted the report on his Nasawatch website. “A capsule is cheap and safe and if you aim it right then the laws of physics will make it land,” he said. “But it’s not clear what the real reason is behind these discussions.”—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.