WASHINGTON - Members of a congressional panel that controls NASA's budget lashed out at the agency Wednesday over its six-year-old partnership with Russia to build the International Space Station (ISS).

Words like "foolish," "destructive" and "tragedy" dominated a hearing of the House Science Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics that had summoned NASA Administrator Dan Goldin to talk about NASA's FY2001 budget. Instead, Goldin -- the lone witness -- got an earful from Republican members of Congress who felt its Russian partners were duping the space agency.

The arrangement with Russia to build critical pieces of the $60 billion station is "a grievous mistake that has finally caught up with our space program," said subcommittee chairman, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-California). "No other recent problem in our space program has cost the American public so dearly both in money and lost opportunities."

Goldin defended the program, noting that any large project has its share of difficulties. "We're all nervous about it…[but] we are doing what we think is in the best interests of America."

At issue Wednesday was an additional $35 million that NASA wants to pay Russia for docking equipment that would allow a U.S.-made component, the Interim Control Module (ICM), to dock with the station. The House committee was told of the need for the funds last Friday.

The $200 million ICM is a propulsion and control unit that would keep the embryonic station stable in orbit. That task had been assigned to the Russian-built Zvezda service module, which would also double as living quarters to allow crews to take up residence on the ISS.

But the service module is nearly two years late in getting launched. Its delay is due partly to problems with the Russian booster rocket that is to put it in orbit and partly to NASA's own delays in getting U.S.-made pieces that would follow Zvezda ready to go.

"If we continue our quest to find an honest partner in Russia, [Goldin] might compare [himself] to Diogenes."
     

The result, Rohrabacher said, was "we're behind the eight-ball" and "vulnerable to what the Russians are capable of doing" to wring more money from the American side. "Nothing has been so destructive as the naïve assumption that Russia's government would spend its limited resources to help us build the International Space Station."

The entire federal budget of Russia is about $35 billion, he said, while the Russian Space Agency's share of that is just $50 million. NASA's proposed budget for FY2001 is $14 billion.

House Science Committee Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), scolded Goldin for what he called a series of broken promises by NASA to get the ICM ready for launch. Reading from a timeline, Sensenbrenner pointed out half a dozen times in the past four years when NASA had a chance to put the module into the pipeline to launch, but didn't do so.

NASA now plans to launch the ICM to the station in December if the Russians aren't ready to put up their service module by this summer. Otherwise, the ICM will be launched to the station in 2001.

Goldin said it would unfair to lay all the blame for the station's delays on the Russians.

"We in American were not ready. We had our own problems" in getting pieces of the station ready, he said. About 86 percent of all the station's components are now finished and ready to be launched and assembled in orbit.

But Goldin also said NASA would keep a close eye on Russia to make sure it upholds its commitments to the station.

NASA would consider "very troublesome" any decision by Moscow either to cut back on station funding or to keep their currently orbiting space station, Mir, going at the expense of the ISS.

NASA already was "shocked, upset and disappointed," Goldin said, at the recent discovery of the huge price differences charged by Russian aerospace giant Energia, which owns Mir.

Energia, for example, had wanted to charge the U.S. government $65 million for a single Soyuz capsule that would be launched and attached to the ISS as an emergency escape module for station crews. But NASA backed away from the offer upon learning that Energia had charged a private company just $20 million for one Soyuz, two Progress supply flights and a 45-day stay on Mir.

For the most part, Goldin was upbeat, saying the space agency's first budget increase in seven years made him feel like a mythic figure.

"On some of these occasions, I've felt like Sisyphus," Goldin said, referring to the legendary Greek king who was condemned to roll a boulder up a hill in Hades only to have it roll down again upon nearing the top. "Today I feel like Hercules."

Rohrabacher later suggested that Goldin might be more at home with another comparison.

"Perhaps if we continue our quest to find an honest partner in Russia, you might compare yourself to Diogenes," Rohrabacher said, referring to the ancient Greek philosopher who scoured the streets of Athens each night in search of an honest man. "Diogenes without a lamp sometimes."