Senate Appropriations Report on NASA - EOS, Mars Observer

On September 9, the full Senate Appropriations Committee sent to the floor its version of H.R. 2491, the VA, HUD, Independent Agencies Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 1994. A floor vote is expected either September 20 or 21. The bill is accompanied by a 208-page report specifying the Senate Appropriations Committee’s recommendations; selected portions pertaining to NASA are highlighted in this FYI.

MISSION TO PLANET EARTH

“The Committee makes the following changes to the budget request:

+$10,000,000 for program reserves for the Earth observing system data information system [EOSDIS]. -$28,000,000, including a rescission of 1993 funds of $10,000,000, from the consortium for international Earth science information network. -$20,000,000 from funds for science data purchases in Earth science. No plan exists that has been presented that suggests how these funds would be allocated... -$3,100,000 for research operations support, taken subject to the normal reprogramming guidelines.”

“Earth observing system -- The Committee expects the Agency to continue to abide by the principles outlined for this program in Senate Report 102-356. ...The Committee wishes to restate its desire to retain firm cost caps not only on all EOS spacecraft development costs, but EOS instruments as well. ...Now that all EOS instruments for the first series of platforms are under contract, the Committee directs the Agency to set a cap for each instrument, by year and as a whole for development, to be submitted in the operating plan...”

“EOSDIS -- The Committee has included a total of $192,700,000 for the EOSDIS program, $10,000,000 above the budget request....The Committee has added [the] $10,00,000 to be used as reserves by the program office only for activities related to the development of the EOSDIS core system.

“The Committee remains concerned that members of the Earth science and environmental communities expect EOSDIS to be all things to all people. For example, a higher number of standard data products are now baselined than was originally envisioned by the EOS investigator working group. Frankly, the Committee wishes to restate what it said about EOS last year: NASA cannot be expected to have EOS be the sole locus of the U.S. global change program. It is not designed to answer every question ever asked about climate change, nor should anyone insist that it assume added roles in the U.S. global change program, like extensive analysis of the human dimension of climate change...

“The Committee wishes to note that it has substantially cut the out-year costs of the EOS program, at great difficulty to the program’s managers, including the removal of instruments related to the middle and upper stratosphere and solid Earth geophysics. A program that was previously scheduled to get $18,000,000,000 from fiscal year 1991-2000 is now scheduled to receive a total of $8,000,000,000. Yet despite this reduction of 55 percent, certain other Federal agencies expect EOS to pick up even more of the costs of the program rather than less...”

“Earth probes -- The full budget request of $97,300,000 is included...”

MARS OBSERVER

“The recent, apparent loss of the Mars Observer mission is a serious blow to NASA’s credibility with the Congress, and more importantly, the American people. It is also a serious, though not irreparable, setback for our Nation’s planetary science community. The development of Mars Observer was marked by many of the fundamental problems for which NASA has been criticized in recent years: seeking to perform large missions at the expense of a more balanced program; overpromising the capability of technology; and substantially understating cost requirements. Mars Observer’s development, according to the Agency’s last project status report on the mission, grew from $300,000,000 to $511,000,000, a growth of more than 70 percent. In fact, the mission overran its annual budget submission for fiscal years 1991 and 1992 by more than one-third in order to meet its September 1992 launch date.

“The Committee will await making its final evaluation about what lasting effect this mission failure should have on NASA or space science until after various review boards that have been established complete their work...

“While critics of the space program will justifiably challenge NASA for how and why the Mars Observer mission has ended as it apparently has, the Committee wishes to restate a subtle, but often overlooked fact in space missions and space-related technology. There has been, and will always be, an inherent degree of risk in the exploration of space, and no one should be lulled into believing that it is anything less than a dangerous and often uncertain business.

“The Committee notes, however, that the failure of the Mars Observer only increases the pressure upon NASA to successfully repair and service the Hubble space telescope later this year. Should this mission fail to live up to the promise that Hubble’s capabilities will be fully restored as a result of this undertaking, NASA’s entire flight program will suffer a substantive and financial setback that will take many years from which to recover.”

“Mars Observer recovery -- Approximately $43,300,000 is contained for costs previously associated with mission operations and data analysis, and research and analysis, with the now lost mission, Mars Observer. The Committee is fencing these funds until the Agency submits a recovery plan connected with this mission. The Committee notes that a series of flight spares exist that could be assembled and then flown, with launch either aboard the shuttle or even a Russian proton launch vehicle.... Noting that time is of the essence, particularly if any recovery mission is to be coordinated with the Russian Mars 1994 mission, the Committee expects a decision by the administration on this matter no later than October 1, 1993.”