The numbers won't be official until then, but agency managers say they are delighted with the White House decision to back a nearly 5 percent increase to NASA's $13.65 billion budget. If Congress were to approve the boost to $14.3 billion, then it would mark the highest spending for the space agency since 1995. And they also are happy with the administration's plan to start work on a new generation space shuttle to replace the current vehicle designed in the 1970s, as well as to funnel money into a sweeping research effort to understand the sun.

"There are a lot of happy faces around here," one NASA official said.

NASA also will get more money for work on a series of new government-wide initiatives. For example, the agency can expect a 32 percent increase to its $174 million in spending on information technology -- a $2.27 billion effort spread through seven agencies.

And then there's a proposed whopping 400 percent increase to the $4 million NASA spends on nanotechnology, or manipulation of matter at the molecular and atomic level. Overall, the president wants to spend nearly $500 million on this type of technology, an area that could benefit NASA's efforts to build smaller components for spacecraft.

The 2001 request marks a major departure from Clinton's previous position on space spending. NASA funding peaked in 1994 at about $14.6 billion, and then went into a nosedive for the next three years. By 1998, agency funding had stagnated at about $13.6 billion, putting enormous pressure on existing programs and leaving little room for new initiatives.

Congress proved slightly more supportive of the agency, generally upping its budget modestly above the president's request. Last year, for example, Clinton proposed $13.58 billion for NASA, but lawmakers increased that to $13.65 billion.

This year the political situation began to change, with far-reaching implications for most U.S. government research and development (R&D) efforts like space. The economy is pouring revenues into the U.S. treasury, while Clinton's new chief of staff, John Podesta, proved more open than his predecessors to R&D spending, including space.

Most importantly, the incoming tax revenues meant that neither Republicans nor Democrats needed to abide by a stringent budget agreement hammered out in a previous era of deficits. That agreement made it difficult to increase spending for any domestic discretionary spending -- including NASA's budget.

Also, an increasing number of senior Washington figures -- such as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan -- began to talk publicly about the need for investing in science and technology in order to create new industries such as the internet.

"It is information technology that defines this special period" of economic growth, Greenspan said last year. "Information technology lies at the root of productivity and economic growth." At a Senate hearing January 26, he reiterated the importance of such investment.

This talk bolstered the efforts made behind the scenes by White House officials, intent in recent months on making significant boosts to a host of science and engineering programs within the 2001 request. NASA actually fared only modestly compared with its other bureaucratic cousins; the National Science Foundation, for example, will receive a massive 17 percent requested boost, while spending overall for most civilian science efforts will increase 7 percent. Podesta and Science Advisor Neal Lane were behind the increases, with strong support from the Office of Management and Budget, say administration officials.

The campaign to boost the profile of R&D spending culminated in a January 21 speech by Clinton at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where he praised researchers and engineers there for developing "America's first satellite" and giving Americans "our first guided tour on the surface of Mars."

Clinton pledged that "my budget supports increases not only in biomedical research, but also in all scientific and engineering disciplines." That is a reference to the massive increases in recent years to the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a favored agency in Congress, at a time when the budgets of other agencies like NASA stagnated. This year, NIH will receive a modest 4.6 percent boost in its request, slightly less than NASA.

Clinton added in the Caltech talk that his 2001 request underscores "in the clearest possible way that science and technology have become the engine of our economic growth," pledging that he will push to give research at U.S. universities "a major lift."

So far, preliminary response from Capitol Hill has been positive. Rep. Ralph Hall (D-Texas), who is the ranking minority member of the House Science Committee, said in a January 21 statement that Clinton's proposed initiatives are "responsible strides."

Even Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), a long-time Clinton antagonist and chair of the House Science Committee, spoke in conciliatory tones about the budget request: "I am confident that together we can make fundamental research and development a real priority," he said the same day. But he also added that R&D priorities should not be part of "a larger government spending spree."

Rep. Nick Smith (R-Michigan), who chairs the House Basic Research Subcommittee, said he supports the proposed increases so long as it is compatible "with other priorities like strengthening Social Security, paying down the debt, and providing tax relief for working families."

Those cautionary words by Sensenbrenner and Smith are signs that Republicans are not about to begin spending freely, and they are sure to take a close look at NASA's budget -- and particularly the Clinton-favored initiatives -- before writing a check. And, given this is an election year at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, the battle over NASA's budget is sure to keep agency managers on the edge of their seats until fall, when the new fiscal year begins.