Washington DC – October 13, 1997 – The final version of the NASA FY98 budget contains protected funding for the Bantam small space booster project and the X-Rocket research programs, but not the follow-on program, SpaceCast learned last week as the U.S House of Representatives neared approval of the space agency’s budget, with the Senate voting likely in the week just ahead. The final budget numbers approved by a joint conference committee are believed to be close to the administration’s request, with few major changes or cuts to the dollars for the fiscal year now already nearly two weeks old.
The Bantam program received $20 million to continue design studies awarded
last fiscal year to four space businesses. Bantam aims to build and
eventually fly two $40 million prototype small launch vehicles of entirely
new design, and eventually select one for commercial development by
industry. The launcher, which can be either expendable or reusable, must
provide a ride to orbit for a small payload for under $1.5 million in total
cost, a major reduction in today’s launch prices.
But one project that didn’t get any money was the proposed “Future X”
advanced space transportation program, pitched as a possible dedicated “new
start” for FY98. NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin proposed Future X
earlier this year as part of NASA’s ongoing advanced space transportation
research conducted out of the Marshall Spaceflight Center near Huntsville,
Ala.
While Goldin’s FY98 budget had already been submitted when the project
was announced late last winter, and thus contained no new money identified
for Future X, Congressional planners were hoping to insert specific money
earmarked for the program within the space agency’s space transportation
research accounts. That didn’t happen, however. Even a few million would
have been enough to begin trade studies and other research aimed at
development of a new, more radical single stage space vehicle prototype
than the X-33 now under development. The X-33 project, as well as the
smaller X-34 test program, is believed to have both been fully funded in
the budget recommended by the joint House-Senate committee. Such a
committee is always formed when the House and Senate pass budget proposals
that differ, as was the case this year with the NASA dollars.
Future X is identified as a potential launch vehicle that would use
technology not now on the drawing boards to achieve operational space
launch well into the 21st century. As described earlier in the year, first
test flights in the program wouldn’t begin until the X-33 system has become
operational, and a working version of the Future X craft wouldn’t come on
line to space users until after the second decade of the 21st century.
If any work is done towards Future X during the ’98 fiscal year, it will
have to come from the space agency’s existing budget for transportation
research. With those dollars already stretched to the limit, that prospect
appears unlikely.
