WASHINGTON -- The White House has turned down a NASA request for an extra $1.6 billion next year to get the three remaining shuttles flying again and speed up development of the proposed Orbital Space Plane, Florida Today has learned.
A NASA budget document also projected that spending on shuttles and the new space plane would require $20 billion in extra funding during the next five years, according to a congressional aide who has seen the document.
That would more than double the current five-year spending plan for the shuttle program. The shuttle budget is $3.8 billion this year. If the supplement was approved, it projects spending on the shuttles and the new space plane would average about $8 billion a year during the next five years.
Heidi Tringe, spokeswoman for House Science Committee Chairman Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., said she has not seen the document, but, "We're aware of the request."
If approved, the money would represent the largest expansion of spending on human space flight since the Apollo program in the 1960s.
It was not clear how much of that money might end up at Kennedy Space Center and Brevard County. However, the supplemental budget request document indicates NASA wants to hire more personnel to oversee the shuttle processing currently conducted at KSC by United Space Alliance, the Bowing and Lockheed-Martin partnership responsible for preparing the space planes for flight.
"It's not surprising that numbers such as these are being discussed," said Marc Schlather, president of ProSpace, a space advocacy group. "The current NASA budget run-out was woefully inadequate." For months, NASA officials refused to speculate on how much it would cost to resurrect the shuttle program following the Feb. 1 Columbia tragedy. Top officers, including administrator Sean O'Keefe, repeatedly said the agency could not predict expenses until the Columbia Accident Investigation Board released its final report, scheduled for Tuesday.
The supplemental budget request indicates the space agency is much farther along than officials have acknowledged. It also shows NASA has a detailed and expensive menu that goes beyond simply making the aging shuttles safe to fly again.
"This was NASA's real wish list," said the congressional aide who has seen the agency's budget request. "It was Sean O'Keefe's basic premise that the CAIB report and the reaction to it is the only opportunity he's going to have to more or less get NASA well."
Six months from now, the spotlight will have moved elsewhere and lawmakers are not going to be as sympathetic toward boosting NASA's budget, the aide said.
An agency spokeswoman declined to comment on budget discussions involving NASA and the White House. A spokesman for the White House referred calls to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not immediately respond. It wasn't clear Friday if the White House decision to reject NASA's request represents a lack of confidence in NASA or was simply a result of the give-and-take of the budget process. OMB spokesman Trent Duffy declined comment, saying budget discussions between federal agencies and the White House are privileged.
Resolving NASA's spending needs will be a key issue this fall when Congress holds hearings probing the findings and recommendations of the accident investigation board.
For the most part, members of Congress like what NASA does and support the agency. They also want to help the agency in its time of need. Space agency officials apparently are maneuvering to capitalize on the good will.
"NASA understands that in the past 15 years, it has frittered away billions of dollars in attempts to replace the shuttle and they have virtually nothing to show," Schlather at ProSpace said. "This is their last chance to produce a vehicle that actually works."
The size of the $4 billion-a-year supplemental budget request NASA sent the White House indicates agency officials are not low-balling their needs as they did with the International Space Station.
"These numbers would indicate they are trying to provide a realistic budget projection rather than going the route they've gone in the past, where budgets inflated as they got into the project," Schlather said.
Approximately two-thirds of the extra $1.6 billion that NASA requested for fiscal year 2004, which begins Oct. 1, would be spent on the remaining three shuttles.
That money would be used for jobs that include making the shuttles safer to fly, checking the quality of payloads awaiting transport to the space station, and modifying one of the shuttles for a maintenance mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Approximately $600 million of the requested 2004 increase would go to accelerate the development NASA's planned orbital space plane -- and perhaps alter the plane's mission --according to the congressional aide who has seen the request.
Currently, the spacecraft is to serve as an emergency escape pod for space station astronauts and later as a two-way crew transfer vehicle. It would be docked to the orbiting outpost and replace the Russian Soyuz vehicles currently serving that purpose.
But the NASA budget document suggests it might be modified to carry cargo to the space station instead of risking the lives of humans on future shuttle flights, the congressional aide said.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., chairman of the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, said he was not aware of the NASA budget request or its details.
He said he will not support any NASA request that would sink more money into the shuttle if the intent is to extend the useful life of the orbiters.
"They keep trying to maneuver the situation to keep us dependent on the shuttle," Rohrabacher said. "I believe the American people want to continue to have a manned presence in space and Americans should be leading the way. But that doesn't justify keeping us dependent on the shuttle.'
Published under license from FLORIDA TODAY. Copyright © 2003 FLORIDA TODAY. No portion of this material may be reproduced in any way without the written consent of FLORIDA TODAY.
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