The defense was published in its draft report, a copy of which was published by NASA Watch, a web site that monitors the civil space agency. "The committee recognizes that the funding reduction for NASA is significant," the document says. "But the recommendations are less severe than they appear at first," it adds.

Projects that were noted for cancellation "were early in their development, so sunk costs are minimal and long-term savings are significant." Among the projects the committee said should be canceled were the Lightsar satellite and the SIRTF space telescope.

The committee said that other reductions were in the budgets for "planning future missions and technology development, and many of these budgets have grown significantly over the last two years."

It gave examples of supporting research and technology with the Space Science accounts, which it said increased by $250 million since Fiscal Year 1998. It also said that the Explorer and Discovery programs had grown by $145 million since Fiscal Year 1998. Earth probe funding had also risen by $100 million since FY 1998. These projects, said the committee report, "delivered minimal products to NASA" and thus "were the most compelling reasons to justify the reductions proposed by the committee."

But what the committee report did not state was that other NASA programs had either been cut or had their growth reduced to make room for the science increases. NASAs overall budget had not been increased in more than seven years, and had not been significantly increased under the Clinton administration.

Congress has however restored cuts totaling more than $100 million in other NASA projects that had been proposed in 1997 by the White House and had also restored other programs within NASAs budget accounts over and above administration requests.

NASA Watchs Keith Cowing told space.com that his site was the first to publish the committee report.