Gannett News Service February 16, 2001, Friday,
Troubled space station to cost more
LARRY WHEELER; Gannett News ServiceWASHINGTON -- The International Space Station could cost American
taxpayers an additional $ 4 billion to complete - bad news for
a project plagued with cost overruns and delays after it seemed
to be getting back on track with the impressive delivery of the
U.S.-built laboratory module Destiny.
If accurate, that would put the development cost of the orbiting
research facility at $ 28.2 billion, a 62 percent increase since
1993 when NASA redesigned the station and said it could finish
the project for $ 17.4 billion.
With the Bush administration still putting together its budget
request and Capitol Hill lawmakers settling into new assignments,
NASA headquarters officials have been making the rounds with the
startling numbers.
Friday, headquarters managers put space centers in Florida, Alabama,
Texas, California and elsewhere on notice that their budgets were
going to get cut to feed the space station's growing appetite.
Kennedy Space Center spokesman George Diller said the center still
is waiting to see what effect the space-station budget crisis
will have on the Atlantic Coast launch complex.
"We're going to play our part in this," Diller said
Friday. "We know we're going to have to look for ways to
cut."
At headquarters, a spokeswoman acknowledged that NASA managers
recently identified a number of what she called challenges in
the station spending profile, but she declined to quantify the
amount.
"The space-station program has been reviewing its budget
over the past several months," said Kirsten Larson, a National
Aeronautics and Space Administration spokeswoman. "We've
kept both the (Bush) transition team and congressional folks on
our committees informed about our budget situation hoping to avoid
any surprises."
The few lawmakers who pay close attention to the space program
aren't pleased.
"I'm very concerned about these significant cost overruns,"
said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Commerce, Science
and Transportation Committee. "Costs in the $ 4 billion range
are not easily explained."
Wants reasons now
McCain said he asked NASA to provide an immediate explanation
of the unexpected overruns and predicted the station again would
come under close scrutiny in his committee and elsewhere.
The United States is building the orbiting research outpost with
Russia and more than a dozen other nations.
After President Reagan proposed building an outpost to be called
Space Station Freedom, NASA first estimated such an operation
would cost about $ 10 billion.
In 1993, the Clinton administration ordered NASA Administrator
Dan Goldin to redesign the station or lose it. What emerged was
a smaller research outpost that could be built more quickly with
the assistance of the Russian Space Agency.
At the time, NASA said it would take $ 17.4 billion to finish the
station by 2002. Since then, the development price tag has increased
to $ 24.2 billion and complete assembly is now projected for 2006.
The General Accounting Office estimates the lifetime costs of
the project -- including the cost of shuttle transportation --
at nearly $ 100 billion.
The additional $ 4 billion that NASA may need to complete the station
does not correspond to any GAO estimate, said Allen Li, a GAO
associate director who has specialized in space-station cost analysis.
"If it is true, that seems like a large increase," Li
said.
NASA's Larson said costs associated with delays of both Russian
and U.S. components are contributing to the escalating price.
Workload is another big factor, she said.
"We've kind of recognized we're requiring more manpower than
we expected," Larson said. "This manpower is necessary
to test hardware and software and get different elements of the
station ready for launch in a timely manner."
Unanticipated hardware and software problems also are draining
budget resources, she said.
For example, in October, NASA had to spend about $ 20 million to
fix a problem with devices called control moment gyros before
they could be launched aboard a shuttle and installed on the station,
Larson said.
Cutting shuttle tough
How NASA's space centers will absorb the hit isn't clear yet.
At Kennedy Space Center, the largest cost is the shuttle program,
already cut in recent years as the agency downsized and transferred
operational duties to the aerospace consortium United Space Alliance.
If NASA tries to save money by slowing the pace of shuttle flights
to the station, it would not save much, said Andrew Allen, USA's
director of technical shuttle operations.
"If there was a major cut to the space-shuttle program, the
difference between flying three or four flights or seven or eight
is not a significant cost factor," Allen said. "We have
6,000 people working here at USA and about 8,000 to 10,000 people
working the total space-shuttle program. The work force for four
is pretty much what you need for eight."
Some in Congress say they suspect NASA has kept these costs hidden
for 18 months or longer to allow the first pieces of the orbiting
outpost to be launched and become operational, thus making it
harder for lawmakers to kill the project.
However, even with previously known delays and cost overruns,
Congress has shown increasing support by voting in ever-larger
margins to defeat annual amendments designed to cancel station
funding.
The latest challenge comes during a leadership void in U.S. civilian
space policy. The Bush administration has yet to appoint its own
NASA administrator, preferring instead to leave Goldin at the
helm for the time being.
On Capitol Hill, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., has taken over
as chairman of the House Science Committee. In initial comments
and speeches, Boehlert has not emphasized the civilian space program.
But warnings of unexpected station costs now have caught the committee's
attention.
"We need to take a good look at it," said David Goldston,
staff director for the House Science Committee. "With these
cost overruns, it is time to review with a fine-toothed comb."
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., and chairman of the House Space
and Aeronautics Subcommittee --the panel that has scrutinized
NASA programs more than any other on Capitol Hill-- declined to
comment Friday.
Three options possible
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington, D.C.-based
think tank, said the Bush administration doesn't know what it
wants out of the space station.
"The Bush administration does not have those ducks lined
up yet," he said.
Pike said the options are clear-cut:
-- Write a check to NASA to cover the extra costs.
-- Slow construction to spread costs over a longer period.
-- Send up a few more pieces and call the station a done deal.
Temporarily dubbed Space Station Alpha by its current crew, the
orbiting outpost is close to becoming self-sustaining.
The station has life-support equipment for three crewmembers in
the Russian Zvezda Service Module. Huge solar arrays added in
December provide enough power to run the station, and the $ 1.4
billion Boeing-built Destiny laboratory was added last week.
The station is scheduled to get its own 52-foot-long robot arm
in April. In June, an airlock is to be added to allow astronauts
and cosmonauts to make space walks around the station.
The president or Congress could order construction halted after
the airlocks are delivered and still have a functioning research
lab.
But stopping construction at that point could undermine Bush's
foreign-policy goals, especially his pet project -- a ballistic
missile defense shield, Pike said.
"I don't think (Secretary of State) Colin Powell wants to
go to Europe to discuss national missile defense and then have
to tell them they won't be a big part of the space station,"
Pike said.
The Japanese Space Agency and European Space Agency are building
laboratory modules of their own for the station. The Japanese
contribution includes a pallet and robot arm to let researchers
expose materials to the vacuum of space.
Japan also is building a centrifuge under contract from NASA.
The module, scheduled as the last piece added to the station in
2006, would simulate gravity in space.
NASA is to build two more 18-foot-long nodes connecting segments
of the station and a large habitation module. The habitation module
would allow a crew of six or seven to live aboard the outpost.
NASA wants to build and deploy a $ 900 million emergency escape
pod now on the drawing board to supplement or replace the Russian
Soyuz spacecraft that now fills that role.
NASA also is responsible for the 360-foot-long span of solar panels
that will power the station.
Many components are lined up in the Space Station Processing Facility
at Kennedy Space Center awaiting launch.
(Contributing: Frank Oliveri, FLORIDA TODAY)
Copyright 2001 Gannett Company, Inc.
