WASHINGTON — NASA’s budget request for 2004, which was finalized weeks before the launch of Columbia’s fatal mission, will likely undergo dramatic changes as a result of the accident that destroyed NASA’s oldest shuttle and killed all seven crew members.
"The NASA budget request has been rendered irrelevant in its broad contours by the events of this past weekend," said Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), the ranking Democrat on the House Science space and aeronautics subcommittee. "Before we move forward on NASA, we need to understand the policy implications of the Columbia tragedy."
In its original form, NASA’s 2004 budget request was already seeking $3.968 billion for the space shuttle program, about $300 million more than the agency requested for the program for the 2003 budget that Congress still has not approved.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) who flew on Columbia in 1986 when he was still a congressman and chairman of the House Science Committee, said in an interview with Space News that NASA has been starved for funding in recent years. The agency needs more money and must stop delaying shuttle safety upgrades, Nelson said.
In testimony Sept. 6, 2001, before the Senate Commerce science, technology and space subcommittee, Nelson said that if Congress did not provide NASA with the funding for safety upgrades "our country will pay a price we can’t bear." He complained at that time that the 2002 NASA budget left out some of the most critical safety upgrades for the shuttle fleet.
"The spending of NASA of today in current-year dollars is not the same as NASA was getting 12 years ago. I don’t think there’s any connection to this catastrophe, but we can’t keep flying this highly technical system if we don’t have the budget to fly it," Nelson said in a Feb. 7 telephone interview with Space News.
"Basically, we have to get those safety upgrades that have not been started since that hearing and get them going, and now I believe we have the political will in Congress to help NASA, whether it is in the ’03 appropriation that has still not been passed, or in the new ‘04 request. I think you will see that Congress is ready to do that," Nelson said.
In the 2004 budget request NASA is seeking $1.7 billion that would be spent over the next five years for the so-called Service Life Extension program of space shuttle upgrades. The new nomenclature reflects a decision NASA made last year to try and keep the shuttle flying until around 2020, a plan also likely to be reconsidered.
Robert Walker, a partner in the Washington lobbying firm Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates, said the reception the NASA budget request receives in Congress will depend on which way the political winds are blowing.
"It somewhat depends upon where Congress finally decides the politics come down. Do they want to shift funding around to prove to the public they are dealing with the Columbia tragedy and rob future-oriented programs to do that or will there be a recognition that some of these problems accrue from the fact that we depend too much on mature technologies?" Walker said.
Brian Chase, executive director of the National Space Society and a former congressional staffer, said he would expect NASA to continue its investment in space shuttle upgrades, perhaps accelerating the timetable for implementing those upgrades that are intended to improve the overall reliability and safety of the vehicle.
At the same time, Chase said he would not be surprised to see NASA accelerate its investment in the Orbital Space Plane program and other launch technologies.
NASA announced in its 2003 budget request that the agency intends to spend $2 billion over the next five years to field an Orbital Space Plane by 2010. Early estimates have pegged the total development cost at $13 billion or more. The concept is to launch a smaller, shuttle-type vehicle atop an expendable rocket. NASA used expendable rockets to launch capsules and the large Skylab laboratories during the 1960s and 1970s before the first shuttle flight.
The Orbital Space Plane could be launched on either a Boeing Delta 4 or Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 rocket.
An early version of the space plane would be launched to the space station unpiloted where it would serve as a lifeboat in an emergency. A later version, ready by around 2012, would be used as a back-up to the space shuttle launching crews and a limited amount of cargo into space.
NASA’s 2004 request, as it exists today, would continue the investment in the space plane. The request also would continue the trend of increasing budgets for the space shuttle program. Congress approved $3.273 billion for 2002; about $11 million less than NASA sought, but still $154 million more than the program got for 2001.
Overall, NASA’s original request sought $15.469 billion for the 2004 budget, a $469 million increase above the 2003 request, which also needs to be approved by Congress.
NASA spokeswoman Sarah Keegan said it is too early to say how or if NASA might modify its 2004 spending request in light of the Columbia accident. Congressional sources said they would anticipate that NASA would send an amended budget request to Capitol Hill this spring or early summer if substantial changes are needed.
Chase said he would "be surprised if NASA fundamentally changes the nature of its request" or abandons its new ambitions.
The budget includes several new initiatives, including efforts to send a nuclear probe to Jupiter and place a laser telecommunications satellite in orbit around Mars.
The Jupiter Icy Moon Orbiter (JIMO) is a proposed tour that would take a spacecraft into and out of orbits around three of Jupiter’s moons — something not possible with the current generation of spacecraft that rely on chemical propulsion systems.
JIMO is related to Project Prometheus, an effort to develop spacecraft nuclear propulsion that would culminate around 2010 with the flight of JIMO.
Prometheus would cost $2 billion over the next five years, an investment that would be made on top of the $1 billion Nuclear Systems Initiative NASA unveiled last year. Overall for 2004, NASA is requesting $279 million for nuclear work.
"I think, in fact, you may see a major push to see that those programs [like Prometheus] are preserved in the budget," Chase said. "Those programs really encapsulate the vision we have for the space program."
But others, like Rep. Gordon, said the Columbia tragedy could have a big impact on the funding that would be available for ambitious, groundbreaking new projects like Prometheus. "I feel strongly that NASA needs to adequately fund its existing activities before embarking on expensive new initiatives," he said in a statement issued by his office Feb. 4.
Researchers had hoped to hear more about Project Prometheus during the Space Technology & Applications International Forum in Albuquerque, N.M. Feb. 2-5. However, a major session to unveil the project was canceled. Sources said NASA Headquarters asked agency officials not to openly discuss details of the project given the Columbia catastrophe.
A congressional staffer said that while NASA’s new initiatives won’t be treated as "dead on arrival," they will have to be scrutinized in light of present circumstances. "Human spaceflight is the crown jewel of NASA and its on hold right now," the staffer said. "Any other new initiatives are going to take a back seat to assessing the problem we have and remedying it."
Other highlights from the request include:
$973 million for biological and physical research, up slightly from the 2003 request of $913 million.
$1.7 billion for the international space station, continuing the trend of declining station budget as assembly nears completion.
$200 million over five years for an Optical Communications Initiative intended to lead to development of an advanced telecommunications satellite that would orbit Mars at the end of the decade.
$26 million for new education initiatives.
$26 million for the acceleration of climate change research.
In its major areas NASA is seeking $4 billion for space science, $1.55 billion for Earth science programs, $913 million for biological and physical research, $949 million for aeronautics technology, $160 million for education, $6.1 billion for spaceflight and $1.7 billion for what the agency calls crosscutting technologies. That last category includes $1.1 billion for the space launch initiative.
The $4 billion budget for space science would be a a $532 million increase over the 2003 space science request that would also help NASA get started on the Beyond Einstein Initiative that features two missions: the Laser Interferometer Space Antennae and Constellation-X.
