NASA Space Station, Science Missions Survive House Mark-up

With the House Appropriations Subcommittee on VA/HUD having marked up its spending bill on June 9, the space station continues to cling to life. Reports indicate that the subcommittee gave NASA a budget of $14.0 billion, $300 million less than the Administration’s request, and $240 million less than the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) estimate of NASA’s fiscal year 1995 needs. It appears that the subcommittee performed a nearly-impossible feat and reduced NASA’s budget while still fully funding both the space station and NASA’s major science missions.

In the subcommittee’s bill, the space station would receive its full request of $2.1 billion for fiscal 1995. Subcommittee chairman Louis Stokes (D-Ohio) said he voted to fund the station “because the President wanted it and felt that it was a vital part of his foreign policy.” The subcommittee reduces the Human Space Flight account by $127 million “to be taken at the agency’s discretion,” but makes the following recommendations: Accelerate shuttle cost reduction efforts; reduce shuttle flight rate from the planned eight per year; eliminate some funds for launch site equipment and replacing payload bay cables; and reduce payload and utilization program commensurate with the decrease in flight rate.

The account for science, aeronautics and technology also receives the full CBO estimate of $5.9 billion, implying full support for NASA’s science missions, including AXAF and Cassini. A reduction of $113 million is taken from the Mission Support account, with the recommendations to consider savings from personnel buyouts in 1994 “which achieved a higher than anticipated reduction in employment;" and to defer planned replenishment of the tracking and data relay satellite (TDRS.)

The reductions in the shuttle program and mission support total $240 million, the difference between the subcommittee’s mark and the CBO estimate.

However, the outlook is grim in the Senate. Senate VA/HUD chair Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) has said that, without additional help from the Administration, she probably could fund NASA no higher than $13.7 billion (see FYI #79.)). NASA head Daniel Goldin argued that he couldn’t cut that deeply without sacrificing one of NASA’s major accounts (most likely the space station or either AXAF or Cassini.)

Venturing into the realm of speculation, if the House brings to conference the $14 billion mark, the Senate comes in with $13.7 billion, and they split the difference, NASA would come out with a budget of $13.85 billion. To complicate matters, one of the station’s major supporters in Congress, Rep. George Brown (D-California), has threatened to withdraw his support if the overall NASA budget is tight enough that funding the station would significantly damage space science (see FYI #71.) He announced recently that he would “draw the line on support for the space station” at a NASA budget of $14.15 billion. But then he softened his stance somewhat, indicating that while $14.04 billion might still be acceptable, $13.8 billion would not be. This leaves open the question of whether Brown will support the House mark of $14 billion, knowing that it is likely to be reduced in conference.