American Geophysical Union Position Statement on “The NASA Space Station”

(Note: In order to increase the level of awareness in the physics community about the public policy activities of the ten Member Societies of the American Institute of Physics, FYI expanded its coverage last year to include societies’ resolutions and other actions.)

The following is a Position Statement of the American Geophysical Union on “The NASA Space Station.” It was adopted by the AGU Council on May 26, 1994:

“A healthy and effective space program is of critical importance to many fields of geophysics. The Space Station defined in the President’s FY95 Budget is designed to maintain human presence in space and to allow microgravity and life sciences studies. Although this version of the Station is supposed to be less costly than the original Space Station Freedom, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) remains deeply concerned that the high cost of implementing the current Station design will detrimentally affect NASA’s science programs: Mission to Planet Earth, those in the space sciences, and others. The impact within NASA is already evident in that there are no resources identified for new space science missions in the projected budgets for future years. The situation threatens the viability of a balanced national space program. AGU is also concerned that the high costs of the Station may detrimentally impact geophysical science programs in other agencies.

“The commitment to a predetermined multiple-year budget for the Space Station, in an era of declining NASA funding, is at the root of the problem. AGU recommends that the 1990 Report of the Advisory Committee for the Future of the U.S. Space Program be carefully heeded. The Report argues for a balanced space program, with science as the `fulcrum’, and with selected program elements (e.g., Station) that are tailored to match the availability of funds. Implementation of the Space Station must not be allowed to cause the decline or demise of the exciting and important science elements of the national space program. AGU recommends that funds be included in the projections of future budgets for science elements of the space program, even if this action results in future reduction of the scope of the Station.”