Florida Today February 24, 2003
NASA must do more with less
Funding, safety concerns at issue
By John McCarthy
NASA's budget this year sounds like a lot of money,$15 billion. But by Washington, D.C. standards, it hardly rises to the level of "real money."
In fact, the proposed increase in the Department of Defense budget -- not counting the cost of any war with Iraq -- is about the same size as the space agency's total budget.
Adjusted for inflation, NASA's budget is less than half of what it was in the mid-1960s, leaving many wondering if budget cuts have nickle-and-dimed NASA into disaster.
"(Safety) could not have helped but to be compromised," said space expert Charles Vick, senior fellow at Globalsecurity.org.
When adjusted for inflation, NASA's budget peaked in 1966 at the start of the Apollo program. NASA's budget that year was $5.9 billion. That is the equivalent of $32.9 billion in 2002 dollars. NASA's actual budget for 2002 was $14.3 billion. Measured in 2002 dollars, NASA's budget is even less today than it was in the mid-1990s, when construction of theInternational Space Station began.
Yet while NASA's budget has remained essentially flat in recent years, the agency has had extra responsibility.
An example was supporting construction of the space station, which is considered to be the greatest engineering challenge in history.
Money otherwise targeted for shuttle operations was diverted to the space station, which is billions of dollars over budget.
In 1994, NASA spent $4.59 billion, adjusted to 2002 dollars, on shuttle operations. By last year, that dropped to $3.29 billion.
One of the biggest critics of NASA's budget cuts has been Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Tallahassee.
"They've starved the space shuttle of funds," said Nelson, who as a congressman flew on Columbia in 1986 in the last shuttle mission before the Challenger explosion. "And what they are doing is compromising safety."
While NASA may not have had to cut any existing safety programs because of budget constraints, the agency has not been able to make planned safety upgrades to the shuttle fleet. Long before the Columbia disaster, Nelson warned delaying those upgrades was a recipe for a future catastrophe.
"I fear that if we don't provide the space shuttle program with the resources it needs for safety upgrades, our country will pay a price we can't bear," he told the Senate Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee in September 2001. "The proposed budget abandons some of the most critical safety upgrades for our aging fleet . . . This budget fails to adequately protect these astronauts."
Nothing so far ties the budget cuts to the Columbia disaster and NASA has consistently maintained that safety has not been compromised by the budget cuts.
Not everyone agrees the shuttle program was unfairly targeted for budget cuts.
"The issue of budget cuts at NASA is real, but I don't believe that is something which had a great deal of bearing on the safety and efficiency of the shuttle program," said Robert Walker, an aerospace consultant and former chairman of the House Science Committee.
"Everything I know indicates NASA puts intense concentration on the shuttle. That's one of the reasons the shuttle absorbs so much of NASA's budget because of the standing army required to keep it safe," he said.
But many have warned about potential disaster for years.
A 1996 General Accounting Office report on Space Shuttle safety said NASA had done a good job assessing safety risks, but noted some NASA managers were worried further cuts would impede that ability.
When adjusted for inflation, NASA's budget was cut by $1.5 billion between 1996 and 2002. Shuttle spending dropped from $3.6 billion to $3.3 billion.
A report last year by NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel also indicated that budget cuts were hampering NASA's safety efforts.
Both reports said NASA's current safety procedures were excellent. But both said also indicated that continuing budget cuts eroded NASA's ability to further improve safety features and procedures for the aging shuttle fleet.
"Clearly, if they had more money, there is more they could have done," said Brian Chase, executive director of the National Space Society.
NASA's budget has fluctuated during the years as programs started and ended. The agency's current spending level is about the same as in 1963 when accounting for inflation.
But other measures show the national commitment to space has waned. NASA's 2002 spending made up less than 3/4 of 1 percent of the total federal budget as opposed to 4.4 percent in 1966. NASA's budget as a percentage of the total economic output of the nation has shrunk by a similar amount.
Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Melbourne, said the average American is more committed to the space program than politicians are.
"I believe the nation is committed to NASA, but some policymakers are not. A Gallup poll taken right after Columbia went down showed that 82 percent of Americans want to continue sending people into space. The same poll was taken after the 1986 loss of the shuttle Challenger, and the result was nearly identical. Truly an amazing result on the heels of such an emotional tragedy," he said.
"For Americans, the bald eagle, the American flag and our brave astronauts are the symbols of our nation. Men in space have defined our courage and our need to know the unknown," he said.
Nelson, Weldon and others say NASA is likely to see budget increases, perhaps substantial ones, in the coming years. The 2004 budget, which was in the works before the Columbia disaster, calls for about $500 million in additional NASA spending next year.
"As for the long term, I think its about time NASA had a real budget, with real growth," Weldon said.
Nelson said that continued funding increases are absolutely essential to NASA's future.
"They need to get all those safety upgrades underway . . . They were being asked to do too much with too little."
Copyright © 2003, Florida Today
