NASA FY99 Budget Request: Space Station, Life/Microgravity Sciences

Of the $13,465.0 million requested for NASA’s FY 1999 budget, Human Space Flight would receive $5,511.0 million. This is a decrease of $168.5 million, or 3 percent, from the current (FY98) appropriation of $5,679.5 million.

Below are the FY 1999 requests for Human Space Flight and Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications. FYI #23 contained details of the requests for Space and Earth Sciences. As always in comparing budgets from year to year, keep in mind that some funding changes can result from changes to program content or to a program entering a different phase (for example, from development to operations.)

HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT:

NASA FY98 FY99 Percent

Program Approp. Request Change

(In millions)

HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT TOTAL $5,679.5 5,511.0 -3.0%

Space Station Total 2,501.3 2,270.0 -9.3

Development 1,789.9 1,055.5 -41.0

Operations 490.1 840.3 +71.5

Research Program 221.3 374.2 +69.1

US/Russian Cooperation

and Program Assurance 50.0 0.0 -100.0

Space Shuttle 2,922.8 3,059.0 +4.7

Payload & Utilization

Operations 205.4 182.0 -11.4

FY 1999 will see a series of space station assembly flights. According to the background material provided by NASA on its budget request, “in FY 1999 on flight 1R the Russian-provided service module (SM) will contain all the systems necessary for independent orbital operations and will serve as a habitat and laboratory. The SM launch schedule is December 1998, but contingency options are being addressed.” American flight 2A.1. will deliver the Spacehab double cargo module. Flight 2R “launches a Soyuz crew transfer vehicle giving the ISS three person human permanent presence capability, and initial science research microgravity capability will follow.” Flights 3A and 4A will launch truss segments and other components. The US laboratory module, with five installed system racks, will be launched on Flight 5A, while Flight 6A will supply the mini pressurized logistics module with more lab system racks and the UHF antenna deployment mechanism, among other items. Flight 7A, the last flight of Phase 2, will launch and install the airlock, to permit “ISS-based EVA to be performed without loss of environmental consumables such as air.”

At a February 5 NASA budget hearing by the House Science Subcommittee on Space, concern was raised that the International Space Station (ISS) program was not kept under the annual cap of $2.1 billion self-imposed by the Administration several years ago. Additionally, NASA is asking to reprogram additional funds from other space accounts to the station program in the current fiscal year (FY98.) Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), chairman of the full Science Committee, stated that “over the last four years, NASA has transferred or rebaselined over $600 million out of its Station science budget to pay for Station development. Yet, last March, NASA testified that the station continues to perform within the annual funding cap of $2.1 billion and the $17.4 billion completion estimate.’ A month later, NASA announced it needed to take $200 million out of the Shuttle budget and give it to the Station program.... The agency’s budget submission for this year assumes that Congress will give it another $200 million in fiscal year 1998 from the very programs that were declared off-limits. If that presumption doesn’t happen for any reason, the fiscal year 1999 budget is even more out of whack.”

Asked whether, if Congress gives NASA the authority to transfer $200 million of current (FY98) funds from other programs to the ISS, he could promise that additional transfers would not be necessary in FY 1999, Goldin announced “yes.” But he said he could not answer with the same certainty that no further transfers would be necessary in future years to bring the program to completion.

LIFE AND MICROGRAVITY SCIENCES AND APPLICATIONS:

NASA FY98 FY99 Percent

Program Approp. Request Change

(In millions)

LIFE AND MICROGRAVITY TOTAL $214.2 242.0 +13.0%

Adv. Human Support Tech. 17.9 24.5 +36.9

Biomed. Research & Counter-

measures 40.6 50.0 +23.2

Gravitational Biology &

Ecology 30.0 37.1 +23.7

Microgravity Research 100.4 106.7 +6.3

Space Products Devel. 12.9 14.4 +11.6

Space Medicine 6.8 6.9 +1.5

Occupational Health 0.7 0.7 0.0

Mission Integration 4.9 1.7 -65.3

Beginning with the FY 1999 budget, the life and microgravity science components of the Space Station program - the NASA-Mir Research program and Space Station Facilities and Utilization - have been moved to the International Space Station program. Goldin’s February 5 testimony notes that “in order to ensure continued access to flight research during the assembly of the International Space Station, NASA has added dedicated Space Shuttle research flights for the U.S. and international life and microgravity research community in October 1998 and May 2000.”