NASA Supporters Fear Bush May Cut Space Plan

    Budget Shortfall May Imperil Return to the Moon

By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 29, 2006; Page A18

President Bush has finally won endorsement of his "Vision for Space
Exploration" from a once-skeptical Congress, but supporters now fear the
administration is backing away from its own initiative to send humans
back to the moon and then on to Mars.

For at least three months, the White House Office of Management and
Budget and NASA have struggled to find a way to make up a budget
shortfall of between $3 billion and $5 billion and perhaps more, in the
troubled space shuttle program -- and to do so without inflating overall
space spending well beyond the $16.5 billion that NASA has this year.

   President Bush announced his "Vision for Space Exploration" in 2004
   after a telecast with Michael Foale at the space station. Since then,
   some question his reticence on the initiative. (By Larry Downing --
   Reuters)

Congress last month unanimously passed a bipartisan bill -- which Bush
signed -- endorsing the vision for the first time and urging the
president to fund NASA for $17.9 billion in 2007 and $18.7 billion in 2008.

Lawmakers gave several reasons for embracing a program they had widely
criticized after Bush announced it in early 2004, but all cited as a
contributing factor the arrival last year of new NASA Administrator
Michael D. Griffin, a blunt-spoken space scientist and engineer.

"He is very, very competent and knows how these things work," said Sen.
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), who heads the Senate Commerce
subcommittee on science and space and is a key player in the space
debate. "If he comes back to us and says there's a need for more money,
I think he can get it."

But the question now being asked on Capitol Hill is whether Bush will
ask for enough money to keep the vision on track when the administration
rolls out its 2007 budget Feb. 6, or whether he will shortchange the
shuttle program or cripple the new exploration initiative or both. Bush
has said he intends to freeze discretionary spending unrelated to
national security for the next five years.

Shortchanging the space budget, lawmakers said, should not be an option.
"This is a period of transformation," said Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.),
chairman of the House Science subcommittee on space and aeronautics. "We
are at the dawn of a new space age, and we have to do it right."

Industry and congressional sources said the administration has abandoned
an early OMB proposal to slash the number of planned shuttle flights by
more than half, but hemmed in by other budget priorities, especially the
war in Iraq, it still appears unwilling to fund a full slate of 19 flights.

The sources said the administration may also let the planned deployment
of the next generation spaceship slip to 2014. This was the original
date proposed by Bush, but Griffin said last year he expects to fly the
new "crew exploration vehicle" by 2012. That would cut to two years the
"gap" that will open after the shuttle is retired in 2010, leaving the
United States with no human spaceflight capacity.

These sources declined to be identified by name because they either were
not authorized to speak for their bosses or did not want to insert
themselves in the ongoing budget debate. They agreed, however, that
Congress has "let the administration know loud and clear" that it is
time "to indicate whether it intends to stand behind the vision," as one
source said.

"The ball is in their court, and if they come in low on the budget, we
will have a struggle," added Rep. Bart Gordon (Tenn.), the House Science
Committee's senior Democrat. "This is the right thing for the country
and the right priority. I'm not sure it's a high priority for [Bush] or
OMB."

NASA refused to discuss its plans before the budget is made public, but
Griffin spokesman Dean Acosta said, "The administration is fully
supporting NASA and has done so since the president made the
announcement two years ago for the Vision for Space Exploration."

Congress has always had doubts. Bush's Jan. 14, 2004, speech called for
a revamped spaceflight program to return humans to the moon by 2020 and
eventually send them to Mars, all of this to be accomplished without
dramatic increases in NASA's budget or changes in its portfolio.

The vision's cornerstones were the space shuttle's return to flight
after the Columbia tragedy, completion of the international space
station, and development of the new exploration vehicle to take humans
to the moon and beyond.

Bush, however, has seldom spoken of the initiative since the
announcement, a reticence that caused Congress to question his
commitment. Lawmakers were also concerned about a lack of details to
flesh out the proposal and were generally wary because of NASA's history
of killing new spaceflight schemes in infancy.

But plans for the exploration vehicle moved forward quickly after
Griffin's arrival in April, and he won lawmakers' support for the vision
after he all but promised the shuttle would fly a servicing mission to
the Hubble Space Telescope and suggested the exploration vehicle would
be ready by 2012.

Other problems were not so easily resolved. Congress refused to let
Griffin cut NASA's aeronautics programs this year and is worried that
aeronautics, space science and the rest of the agency's portfolio would
be "cannibalized" to pay for the vision.

Then, in early November, Griffin told a congressional hearing that
NASA's earlier estimates on the vision's cost had left the shuttles
underfunded by "$3 billion to $5 billion." The fleet is grounded while
engineers seek a way to keep the external fuel tank from shedding foam
insulation during launches. Plans call for flights to resume in May.

Industry and congressional sources said Griffin's acknowledgment of the
shortfall was accompanied by news leaks that OMB was proposing to cut
the number of shuttle flights to between eight and 11, retiring one of
the three orbiters and reducing the shuttle workforce to free up money
for the exploration vehicle.

Hutchison and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), representing the two states
with the largest involvement in human spaceflight, led Senate efforts to
stop this move, but sources said the heavy lifting was done by
then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), whose district includes
the Johnson Space Center. The sources said DeLay met separately late
last year with Bush and Vice President Cheney to make the case.

"DeLay said that in his judgment the Congress would not stand by a
unilateral decision by the administration to walk away from the space
shuttle and the space station," said one source familiar with these talks.

DeLay did not return phone calls seeking comment, but he was the
instigator of a sharply worded Dec. 9 letter signed by himself and 35
colleagues warning Bush not to contradict "your own stated priorities"
in the space program.

Days later, Congress unanimously passed its space bill, stipulating full
funding for the shuttle and the exploration vehicle for 2007 and 2008,
and forbidding the administration to use aeronautics and science money
to pay for the vision.

Such bills, which authorize programs but do not appropriate money, are
partly wish lists to be shaped later in spending bills, but the
legislation left little doubt that lawmakers now regard Bush's vision as
crucial to U.S. space policy.

"The bill is an affirmation of support," said John Logsdon, director of
George Washington University's Space Policy Institute. "But it's also a
challenge to the administration to pony up for the transformational
space program it outlined two years ago."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

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