Two Senate Subcommittees Express Relief At NASA’s Budget Request
At two recent Senate hearings, NASA’s FY 1998 budget request of $13.5 billion - although $200 million below FY 1997 funding - was treated as good news in comparison with last year’s projected FY 1998 budget. In a May 6 Senate VA/HUD Appropriations hearing, Chairman Christopher Bond (R-MO) remarked that although the space agency was the only major agency in his subcommittee’s jurisdiction requesting a reduction, it was of a size “we and NASA can live with.”
The subject of Russia’s participation in the international space station program arose quickly. Russia has announced a schedule slip of about eight months in providing the service module. Bond and Ranking Minority Member Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) both questioned how NASA intends to find the money to address such contingencies. NASA has asked to reprogram about $200 million in unspent FY 1997 funds from the shuttle and other Human Space Flight programs, Goldin said, but he assured them that “shuttle safety continues to be our number one priority.” Bond commented that NASA appeared to be building up “an internal bank of uncosted carryover” funds (money appropriated in a given fiscal year that is unspent in that year and carried over to the next.) Goldin explained that the build-up of unused funds was due to the agency’s transformation from an average 77 percent cost overrun on major programs in 1992 to a 6 percent underrun now. Noting that the U.S. portion of the space station has been under a $2.1 billion annual budget cap, Bond asked at what point NASA would have to seek a change in the cap. Goldin said the program has been forced to use many of its reserves to do so, but “we’re still going to try to live within” the cap.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), who is new to the VA/HUD Subcommittee, questioned whether building the space station was the right course, or whether the U.S. could make further progress in space exploration if the funds were used in another way. “If you want to go to the Moon and Mars and have a one-time, feel-good mission,” Goldin replied, it could probably be done with the same amount of money. For a sustained presence in the solar system, however, a significant amount of fundamental research had to be done first. He cited many types of unique research dealing with humans living and working in space that would be performed on the station, and said “We’re not building an engineering temple in space -- we’re asking fundamental science questions and building the engineering to go with it.” He added that “we’re not waiting to go to Mars;" NASA’s current plans include sending a series of 10 unmanned missions to the red planet.
Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) praised the Mission to Planet Earth program for its potential role in agriculture, forestry and weather prediction. Mikulski questioned the status of software development for the program’s Data and Information System (EOSDIS.) Goldin said it was “one of the most difficult software jobs I’ve ever seen,” and reported that NASA was losing software engineers to the computer industry. “I’m hearing about software engineering shortages,” Mikulski said, “yet there are graduates in Physics and Math that can’t get jobs.” She urged Goldin to talk with NSF Director Neal Lane and Presidential Science Advisor John Gibbons about how to “retool” physical science graduates for NASA’s software needs.
Other questions centered around the X-33 program, which will contribute to a NASA decision at the turn of the century about building a new Reusable Launch Vehicle, and the prospective Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger. Goldin said he “would like to see it go through” so it would provide competition to the only aerospace giant right now, Lockheed-Martin.
Goldin also appeared at an April 24 authorization hearing of the Senate Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee. Complimenting the Administrator for handling NASA’s budget reductions with “optimism and determination,” Ranking Minority Member Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) asked where he saw NASA ten years from now. Goldin responded that, generally, non-defense R&D in federal agencies was “the lifeline between the present and future.” Noting that industry funds very little research in the 10-30 year time frame, he said federal R&D agencies are needed to support this type of research. Cuts made by NASA (tallying $40 billion in estimated savings over recent years) so far have come out of the infrastructure, not research, Goldin said. But he recommended that NASA reinvest any additional savings in long-term research. Rockefeller and Frist, both members of the Senate Science and Technology Caucus, agreed with the importance of federal support for long-term research.
A second panel of witnesses at the April 24 hearing applauded the restoration of stability to NASA’s budget after last year’s projections for future funding. Marcia Smith of the Congressional Research Service commented that “NASA seems almost ebullient at losing [only] $200 million.” Kenneth Galloway of Vanderbilt University expressed concern that cuts to mission operations for existing programs, to free up funding for new starts, would not allow taxpayers to get the full value from their previous investments. Jerry Gray of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics worried that NASA was not devoting sufficient long-term planning to areas such as the next generation of space transportation, life and microgravity sciences, and human exploration, saying the agency was making “little effort to capitalize on the things the space station will teach us.”
Neither subcommittee discussed potential legislation. The Appropriations Subcommittees still await the divvying up of budget allocations. For authorizing legislation, the House has already passed a NASA bill on April 24 (H.R. 1275; see FYI #56 for details). Science, Technology and Space authorization subcommittee chairman Bill Frist (R-TN) did not indicate whether he will use that bill as a basis for his authorization or not. Frist plans a later hearing on space station issues.
