Series Of Hearings Focus On Tight NASA Budgets, Space Station Woes

NASA’s FY 1997 budget request, its restructuring to save costs, and the status of the space station program were the subjects of several recent hearings on Capitol Hill. On March 20, the House VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee, which drafts NASA’s funding legislation, reviewed the agency’s programs and budget request for the coming fiscal year. The Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space heard, on March 26, about financial delays to the Russian component of the space station project. On March 28, the House Science Subcommittee on Space also held a hearing to review the agency and its FY 1997 request. Chairmen Jerry Lewis (R-California) and James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) of the House VA/HUD and Space subcommittees, respectively, demonstrated their concern over the space station by taking a January trip to Russia to discuss funding problems with Russian officials. Other items of concern included NASA’s ability to work within its projected future budgets, and ways the agency might reduce costs.

As reported in FYI #45, NASA has requested $13.8 billion for FY 1997, about the same as the agency expects to receive in appropriations this year, based on estimates from continuing resolutions and the still-unsigned FY 1996 appropriations bill. In the effort to downsize federal agencies to bring the budget into balance, NASA is working to cut nearly $5 billion from its five-year budget plan for FY 1995 through 2000. It has already achieved much of this reduction through restructuring and changing its ways of doing business. However, the Administration’s seven-year balanced-budget plan necessitates deep future reductions in nondefense discretionary funding (which includes NASA.) Numerous Members of Congress, while praising the cost savings NASA has already accomplished, questioned the viability of the space program on the basis of future budget projections. (The projections are: FY 1998: $13.1 billion; FY 1999: $12.4 billion; and FY 2000: $11.6 billion.) NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin admitted that the projections were cause for concern, but said they should not be considered final, due to uncertainties in FY 1996 funding and the possibility of additional savings. He was optimistic that he could achieve the necessary reductions without eliminating any of NASA’s core programs.

At the VA/HUD hearing David Obey (D-Wisconsin), ranking minority member of the full House Appropriations Committee, argued that funding the space station bore “very little relation to reality” when attempting to balance the budget. (Last year Obey offered an amendment, which was defeated, to terminate the station.) While stating that he had “no antagonism to the idea behind the space station,” Obey challenged Goldin with reports that the project was behind schedule and over budget. Goldin replied that while it was an average of two weeks behind schedule, it was not over budget because sufficient reserves had been built in.

Other Members of Congress also questioned the status of Russian participation in the station project. Goldin explained that the Russian government has been slow in making payments to companies building the service module, an important part of Russia’s contribution. While insisting that the Russians “shouldn’t look to America for support to maintain their space program,” Goldin asked Congress for restraint while the issues were worked out. This program “involves partnerships on a level we’ve never had on this planet,” he said, reminding them that the U.S. “caused our partners grief” when undertaking a station redesign in 1993.

Mission to Planet Earth and its major component, the Earth Observing System (EOS), remain a target for budget-cutters. Goldin reported that NASA has reduced the EOS program by $10 billion since its origin and plans to develop new, advanced technologies through the New Millennium Program to reduce the size and cost of future EOS platforms and instruments. The agency is also considering using commercial platforms and buying commercial data where appropriate. He said that while NASA believes the PM-1 platform should remain as designed, the agency has sufficient time to look into breaking up subsequent platforms into a larger number of smaller satellites.

When asked about the role of the American aerospace companies, Goldin blasted the industry (of which he had been a part) for failing to take the initiative in developing a next-generation launch vehicle. He said the U.S. has lost 60 percent of market share in the commercial launch arena, and warned that the launch industry “was going the way of other industries that have left American soil.” Goldin added that NASA had to take a role in funding high-risk, pre-competitive technologies to reduce the risk so that industry could obtain private financing.

Goldin also reported that, as additional cost-saving measures, NASA was shifting from developing a unique financial management system to purchasing an off-the-shelf one, and was changing to performance-based contracting as contracts came up for renewal.