The space shuttle and space station were fully funded, but the Senate bill shifts $120 million from the space science budget to the space transportation technologies budget, for programs like the X-33.
The Senate version of the spending bill was not hampered by the strict spending limits that hamstrung the House version last week. The Senate committee was given $7 billion more money to distribute from Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Ranking Member Robert Byrd, (D-West Virginia), who took it from the Labor-Health-Education spending bill.
The Labor-HHS bill was already considered drastically under-funded by both parties, and it is generally believed that it will either be defeated on the floor or vetoed by President Clinton. A spokeswoman for Stevens said the shift was part of his "overall strategy" for passing the budget bills and did not mean that he was giving up on Labor-HHS.
Mikulski said she thinks that the Senate version of the VA-HUD bill has a good chance as it travels to the full committee, to the floor of the Senate, to the conference committee, and then to the President's desk.
"But I think conference will be a significant change," Mikulski added, "and this is also where I think the administration will come in. I think it will be a
House-Senate-Administration conference."
Mikulski repeatedly called for a lifting of the budget caps, agreed to in 1997 by Congress and the White House, that have made this year's budget process difficult in both Houses.
"I will continue to ask [the White House] for a strategy of lifting of the spending caps, and that more money come to VA-HUD for their priorities, as well as my own," Mikulski said.
Republican leaders have maintained that they will oppose any attempt to lift the caps, instead leaning toward methods of creative accounting, such as creating a 13-month fiscal year.
"The bill is a work in progress," Mikulski said. "The lifting of the spending caps is a rumor in progress."
Although the bill does fund the agency to exactly the President's request, the layouts expressed Congress' continued concerns about the International Space
Station, and that more money be sent towards the development of reusable launch vehicles like the X-33 program.
"We're pleased with the subcommittee's decision to fully fund the administration's request," NASA spokeswoman Peggy Wilhide said. "We're concerned, however, for the $120 million reduction in the space science budget."
The committee separates the "Human Space Flight" budget item into its two principal components of "International Space Station" and "Launch Vehicles and
Payload Operations."
"We believe this... separation of accounts is necessary because of NASA's continuing problems with controlling funding for the space station," Bond said.
The International Space Station was given full funding at the requested level of $2.5 billion. But the bill also directs NASA to accelerate its attempts to commercialize the ISS, and says that all programs in the budget item except the actual station must be terminated if they exceed their budgets more than 15 percent.
The launch vehicles budget, meaning shuttle operations, was increased by $700,000 above the request, and $100,000 was added to the Mission Support budget. The Inspector General's office was funded $800,000 below the requested level to offset the increases.
That money will be used to increase funding for the space transportation technology programs like the X-33, X-34, and X-37. Both Bond and Mikulski said it was important to explore more commercialization of space and to research vehicles that will lower the cost of getting to orbit.
Wilhide said it was too early for NASA to comment on any of the bill's legislative riders, or on the shift of money to the shuttle budget.
Other members of the Appropriations subcommittee were even more blunt about NASA's priorities.
"I believe very strongly that the International Space Station should be terminated," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said. Instead of paying for a station of "dubious value," Harkin said, that money "ought to be used to re-establish a moon base... and we ought to be launching a manned mission to Mars."
When Bond pointed out that there had been a number of votes supporting the ISS, Harkin said smiling, "I know I'm a minority on this."
Byrd, who sits on the VA-HUD subcommittee and is the senior Democrat on the full Appropriations Committee, placed the importance of NASA funding in an historical perspective. The 81-year-old is considered the Senate's greatest historian.
Byrd told of the first time he saw a radio in 1927, as Jack Dempsey tried to regain his heavyweight title from Gene Tunney. The same year, he said, Charles
Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic, which "certainly made an impression on this young boy."
It was only thirty years later, he said, "I was in Congress when Sputnik... terrified the entire world. And only twelve years later, America put a man on the moon. So we live in an amazing time."
Mikluski said her concern over the House-proposed NASA cuts was heightened as Hurricane Floyd seemed poised to strike Kennedy Space Center Tuesday night, threatening all four space shuttles "at a possible replacement cost of $12 billion," she said.
"I saw Administrator Goldin invoking divine intervention to save the Cape" and the shuttles, Bond said.
"I think that was the same divine intervention that I invoked to save Goddard [Space Flight Center in Maryland]," Mikulski joked back.
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