House Appropriators Quiz President’s Science Advisor on Space Station

When Jack Gibbons, the President’s Science Advisor and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), appeared before the House appropriations VA/HUD subcommittee on March 29 to discuss OSTP’s fiscal 1994 budget request, he found himself inundated with questions on the White House’s plans for Space Station Freedom.

In his testimony Gibbons discussed the OSTP budget request, which is $5.17 million, and his responsibilities. OSTP has absorbed the National Space Council and the National Critical Materials Council in addition to its former tasks, which include running the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (FCCSET), and examining the ethical and social implications of new technologies. Gibbons also noted that he was involved in discussions about whether the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) would be renewed, or whether the advisory role would be turned over to another body such as the National Science Board.

The question-and-answer period revolved around NASA’s redesign of the space station to reduce costs. The VA/HUD subcommittee, under former chairman Bob Traxler, had not been generous to the station; Traxler more than once tried to cancel the project. New chairman Louis Stokes (D-Ohio) seems to be feeling his way carefully on the issue. His questions to Gibbons focused on the likelihood that another redesign might produce a station with “sufficient benefits over Spacelab” to be worth funding.

Gibbons agreed that Freedom, as currently planned, “would be like Pac Man, and eat other NASA programs” such as space science and aeronautics. He called the redesign a “sensitivity analysis of what we get for what we put in”, and stressed that NASA would be trying to retain much of the science planned for the station, such as microgravity, biotechnology, and life sciences. Using the station as a stepping stone to Mars, he said, “is something we might want to leave to our grandchildren.” He stated that while the administration was “not trying to run NASA out of the White House,” the importance of certain areas had been emphasized: international partnerships, science capability, and the number of shuttle assembly flights and EVA time required. “Long-duration human flight,” Gibbons said, was “way down the list in terms of priorities.”

Pressed by Stokes on the project cost NASA was aiming for, Gibbons said the administration wants to look at “something that gets to substantially less than $2 billion [per year], but also something close to $2 billion.” (NASA’s FY94 request for the current configuration was expected to be $2.3 billion.) While he was prepared to see an option similar to the current Freedom, Gibbons stated, “I have yet to encounter a compelling reason for the larger size [that couldn’t be dealt with by] imaginative use of technology.”

Stokes warned Gibbons that “if our [602b] allocation is not healthy, we may not be able to deliver” the $15.3 billion NASA is expected to request for fiscal 1994.