WASHINGTON -- As the first live-in guests orbit Earth in the International Space Station (ISS), a forum on its utilization stirred a round of praise, as well as a lively debate Monday.

NASA officials, Canadian and European partners in the project and a U.S. congressman focused on lingering questions swirling around the building of the ISS.

The event at the National Press Club marked the Discovery Channel's upcoming airing of Inside the Space Station.

"We're on another great moment in the conquest of space," said famed broadcaster Walter Cronkite, who has provided seminal coverage of U.S. space projects.

In opening the forum, Cronkite said the ISS is an "enduring outpost" for further exploration of the universe.

NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin, said the ISS is the ideal setting to study genetic expression, growth of cells, and nervous system changes due to the absence of gravity. "As a result, this will require a whole new science," he said.

NASA is "about opening the space frontier and rewriting physics, chemistry and biology textbooks," Goldin said.

Others at the event chimed in along themes of cooperation, including Canadian Space Agency president, William McDonald Evans, Kathryn Clark, NASA chief scientist for the ISS and Antonio Rodota, European Space Agency director general, who said the ISS represents "building a new space world."

But Congressman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), chairman of the powerful House Science Committee, revisited issues he frequently raises -- cautionary views about the political health of the ISS. The effort had a price tag in 1995 of $17.4 billion and now stands at $23.8 billion, he said.

"As long as the station is viewed and managed as a science program, first and foremost, I believe the public support for it will remain strong," Sensenbrenner said.

"On the other hand," the lawmaker added, "if we use foreign policy goals, particularly our desire to improve relations with Russia as our justification, we make this program vulnerable to instability in the U.S.-Russia relationship."

Sensenbrenner took exception with the ISS program being dependent upon Russian hardware.

"Delay and failure by the Russian government to provide critical hardware pieces on time have cost the American taxpayer $5 billion and delayed completion of the station by more than four years," Sensenbrenner said.

Yet another concern, Sensenbrenner said, is the ability of Russia to deliver as promised the needed Progress and Soyuz vehicles to support the ISS. He projected a "considerable gap" in Russia-supplied spacecraft for the station may appear in the 2002 to 2004 time frame, due to a lack of money.

Public and political support for the station could be eroded with Russia providing ballistic missile and dangerous weapon technology to rogue nations, Sensenbrenner said.

One of the original justifications for inviting Russia into the confab of nations to build the station was to prevent Russian scientists from engaging in such activity, he added.

Furthermore, the congressman said, Russia has decided that early next year it will "break a secret deal" between that country and Vice President Al Gore not to ship advanced conventional weapons to Iran.

"By all accounts, we should be restructuring our relationship with the Russians on the space station," Sensenbrenner said. "If the public and Congress ever come to view the space station as the means to abate American laws designed to safeguard our national security, I feel support for the station could evaporate very quickly," he said.

Countering, Goldin said that NASA will continue to live within the laws of the land. "But this space station, I am convinced, wouldn't be there without the Russians," he said.

"If we maintain an attitude that the Russians are basically going to be trouble and are untrustworthy, we are going to reinforce an insecurity in the Russian people," Goldin said. "I think we have a robust enough society in America to learn how to work with them and hold them accountable for doing the right things."