WASHINGTON — The U.S. Congress agreed to provide $14.8 billion for NASA in 2002, $508 million over the agency's 2001 spending level and $282 million more than U.S. President George W. Bush requested.
The NASA money was included in the $85 billion Veterans Affairs, Housing, Urban Development and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act of 2002 (H.R. 2620), which is on its way to Bush's desk after clearing the House and Senate Nov. 8. The House of Representatives approved the bill by a vote of 401-31. The Senate passed an identical bill later the same day by a vote of 87-13.
If Bush signs the bill into law, the international space station program would see an overall decline of $95 million. However the bill would provide $40 million for continuing development of the X-38, a NASA prototype of the Crew Return Vehicle the space station needs to support a seven-person crew. According to the conference report accompanying the bill, the X-38 money was added in response to the International Space Station Management and Cost Evaluation Task Force's recommendation that NASA should spend the minimum amount of money necessary to preserve the option to build a Crew Return Vehicle and other so-called enhancements required for the space station to accommodate more than three residents at a time.
The House and Senate bill also encourages NASA to "move with all deliberate speed" in concluding a barter agreement with the Italian Space Agency to provide a stretched version of the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module as a substitute of the terminated U.S. habitation module project.
The space shuttle program would be fully funded and provide just over $200 million for shuttle safety upgrades.
The bill allots $25 million to begin repairs on the space shuttle Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Rep. David Weldon (R-Fla.) was not happy to see money diverted from human space flight in order to prop up programs near and dear to Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), the powerful chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations VA HUD subcommittee.
"While I was happy to see that money was still provided for repair work on the VAB doors, the bill was closer to the Senate appropriations bill which carved out money from human space flight and diverted it to places like Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland," Weldon said in a Nov. 8 statement.
Kennedy Space Center, the base of operations for NASA's shuttle fleet, is located in Weldon's Florida congressional district.
Jenny Luray, Mikulski's chief of staff, said the senator was en route to Louisiana and unable to comment by press time.
Congress snipped $10 million from NASA's $475 million request for the Space Launch Initiative, a five-year, nearly $5 billion effort to develop the technologies needed to build a space shuttle replacement.
The House and Senate ultimately went against NASA and Bush administration wishes by including $30 million for the Pluto Kuiper Express mission. That move drew immediate applause from the Planetary Society, a space exploration advocacy group.
"This is a victory for public interest," said Louis Friedman, executive director of the Pasadena, Calif.-based group. "The people let Congress know that they want NASA to explore Pluto — the only remaining unexplored planet in our solar system — and Congress responded."
The $30 million is only a small down payment on what NASA has estimated to be at least a several hundred million dollar undertaking. Departing NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin wrote Mikulski in October urging her not to add funding for the Pluto mission.
Goldin also used the Oct. 4 letter to implore Mikulski and her fellow appropriators to resist the temptation to saddle NASA with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of congressional pet projects known as earmarks.
That call also went unheeded. The spending measure includes nearly 50 separate earmarks totaling more than $400 million.
Included among the earmarks is $1 million for Triana's science team to continue its work in preparation for a launch that has yet to be scheduled. The finished Earth observing satellite was placed in storage at Goddard Space Flight Center following a decision by NASA to delete the payload from its space shuttle launch manifest.
