WASHINGTON (States News Service) -- NASA is poised to receive a funding boost to its $14.2 billion budget, which includes new programs to develop a replacement for the space shuttle and to prepare to send rovers to Mars in 2003.

The NASA 2001 budget -- part of a larger spending bill to be signed into law by President Clinton as early as this week -- offers $633 million more for the space program than last year.

"This measure provides an excellent budget for NASA," NASA Administrator Dan Goldin said in a statement.

Yet the bill also seeks to tie up loose ends after harsh criticism of NASA for lax management and oversight failures. The rosy outlook for new initiatives -- such as shuttle upgrades and a mission to observe the Sun -- does not apply to all of NASA's programs, including Science and Aeronautics and Earth Science, which face decreases.

The bill also urges NASA to rethink its management strategy in various ways.

It urges the agency to devise a new plan for all 10 NASA centers to coordinate staffing, funding and mission activities. NASA has been criticized for duplicating its activities at more than one center.

The bill also asks NASA to restructure and train its work force, a plan Goldin has said he is eager to take on. "The Congress has recognized that the revolution has taken hold at NASA, and that our faster, better, cheaper way of doing business has allowed us to do more for less, with spectacular mission success, while increasing productivity," he said.

The bill's accompanying conference report casts some doubt on "faster, better, cheaper." The two recent losses of the Mars Polar Lander and the Mars Climate Orbiter "should have been easily avoided," the report says.

Yet the Mars program would be boosted. The bill provides $40 million that NASA had asked for to develop the next phase of the Mars program -- sending twin rovers to the Red Planet in 2003 to probe for water. Congress asked NASA for a five-year profile of any cost increases that may come with beefing up its Mars program.

The Mars funds came at the expense of other programs in the $5.4 billion human spaceflight office -- which handles the International Space Station (ISS) and the space shuttle.

The ISS will receive its requested level of funding: $2.1 billion. However, the bill recommends a reduction in monies to the station because of the program's "history of delays and overruns that mean many activities and associated costs will be pushed into subsequent fiscal years."

The bill notes that the station's cost overruns total $8 billion, and will be completed 38 months late. A separate bill passed by Congress this month caps spending on the station at $25 billion.

The Earth science and aeronautics programs each face funding decreases under the bill. The bill provides $1.5 billion to Earth Science, which develops weather and Earth-environment watching satellites. But the funds are to be held until NASA provides Congress with a 10-year plan for how Earth Science can address practical near-term problems not confined to the scientific community. Such a plan was requested from NASA in the 2000 appropriations bill.

The Science and Aeronautics Program, which handles Mars and other missions and develops space launch technology, is funded at $5.3 billion, which is $256 million less than last year.

Congressional spending committees opted against proposed cuts to two new programs: "Living with a Star," to observe the Sun and the Space Launch Initiative, to develop a next-generation shuttle.

The $290 million space launch plan is to lay the groundwork for replacing the shuttle after 2012.

Congress has insisted that this next generation shuttle be built and run by private sector industry, not the government. The space shuttle safety upgrades to prepare for nine flights next year are fully funded.