ISS safety plans not sufficient

Florida Today : NASA isn’t adequately prepared to evacuate the International Space Station (ISS) in an emergency, says a new report from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP). The report recommends that the agency improve its emergency drills and consider alternative “lifeboat” options for ISS. There is a greater than 30% chance that a crew might have to abandon ISS between now and 2020, the planned end of ISS operations, as a result of the failure of critical systems or a deadly space debris strike, says ASAP. The panel also found NASA lacks an adequate plan to safely send the station to a remote spot in the Pacific Ocean at the end of its useful life. ASAP was created by Congress after the loss of three astronauts in the 1967 Apollo 1 launch pad fire. The group is made up of aerospace safety experts and reports to the vice president, the Speaker of the House, and the NASA administrator each year.