Orlando Sentinel March 1, 2001
New budget gives NASA the blues
Michael CabbageSentinel Space Editor
CAPE CANAVERAL -- The Bush administration announced sweeping changes in the NASA-led international space station program Wednesday to slash $4 billion in projected cost overruns. The likely result: A smaller station with fewer residents and less near-term science. It was the Bush White House's first major policy announcement on the U.S. civilian space program -- and a clear indication the next four years won't be business as usual at NASA. "This was a giant wakeup call for NASA," said Jim Muncy, a Washington space consultant and former Republican congressional staffer. "The White House is saying 'We're going to reform. We're going to streamline.' " The cuts were outlined in the administration's 2002 budget blueprint. Three major U.S. station components -- a crew habitation module, propulsion module and crew return vehicle -- were canceled. A planned centrifuge science facility also is in jeopardy.
Research on the station will ramp up slower than expected because of smaller crews and limited resources. And oversight of the program will shift from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to NASA headquarters in Washington.
2 percent increase
Detailed budget figures won't be made public until April, but overall NASA funding would rise 2 percent in 2002 to $14.5 billion under the Bush plan. That's less than the inflation rate. Next year's spending on station development and operations also would marginally increase. However, the increase would be offset by future reductions in planned station hardware and related programs.
Spiraling costs have been a problem for the station. A January estimate by the government's General Accounting Office put the outpost's cost at $96 billion. The figure includes U.S. station hardware, contributions from the project's 15 other international partners, launches required for assembly and operations over the program's lifetime.
The price tag for U.S station components in particular has ballooned from $17 billion estimates in the mid-1990s. Last year, an angry Congress capped spending on U.S. hardware at $25 billion. The latest White House projections say the cost could exceed that cap by up to $4 billion during the next five years.
Much of the overrun has been blamed on unrealistic budget estimates by NASA and prime station contractor Boeing. The Bush blueprint calls for an effort to "restore cost estimating credibility," including an independent review of future projections.
Other critics contend officials at Johnson Space Center did too little, too late, to deal with exploding costs. The center's longtime director, George Abbey, was ousted last Friday by NASA administrator Dan Goldin and reassigned to the agency's headquarters as a senior assistant.
"Certainly, the conventional wisdom was that Abbey was basically the fall guy for the cost overrun," said John Pike, director of the Washington-based GlobalSecurity.com policy research organization.
Less research likely
The cuts will force program managers to rethink future station operations. The canceled habitation module was designed to house four astronauts. The crew return vehicle would have carried seven.
Without those elements, the station could be limited to its current crew size of three instead of expanding to seven as planned. That means less people to do research. NASA is looking at ways of housing astronauts in other modules.
"Clearly, this plan supports a three-person crew," said Mike Hawes, a senior station manager at NASA headquarters. The plan also ensures a continued reliance on Russia. NASA program managers and congressional lawmakers had hoped to reduce Moscow's role because of chronic Russian delays and financial woes. However, elimination of a crew return vehicle means NASA must depend on Russian Soyuz capsules as the emergency lifeboats that remain docked to the station. And without a U.S. propulsion module, Russian spacecraft will be needed to help keep the station boosted to its proper orbit.
NASA's assembly plan was designed to produce an orbiting laboratory complex the size of two football fields by April 2006. But the changes eventually could cancel almost a dozen station construction flights aboard the shuttle and several additional components. The Bush administration pledged Wednesday to continue building the station until it is ready to receive major planned elements from other international partners. Europe and Japan are scheduled to add laboratories by January 2005.
No budget raids
In Congress, the announcement was viewed as a strong signal station overruns will have to be covered without raiding other parts of NASA's budget or asking for more money.
A Democratic Capitol Hill aide said it's too early to tell whether Congress will go along with the proposal. The station isn't the only NASA program targeted for cuts. The Bush proposal would fund only six shuttle flights per year instead of the seven or eight planned now. A probe bound for Pluto and another designed to study the sun were canceled because of rising costs.
Tamara Lytle of the Sentinel Washington bureau contributed to this report. Michael Cabbage can be reached at mcabbage@orlandosentinel.com or 321-639-0522.
Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel
