Washington DC – July 11, 1997 – NASA’s FY98 spending bill is headed for a Congressional ambush later this
month, as the Chairman of the House Space Subcommittee is planning to mount
an attack on the spending provisions for the Russian Space Station. Rep.
Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA.) will attempt to add a series of amendments to the
Appropriations Committee mark for the bill that would fully fund a second
“X” vehicle research spacecraft, with funds now planned for the Russian
station cost overruns.
According to pro-space movement sources, one such amendment would cut the
Goldin administration’s request for $100 million increase for “Russian
program assurance” and transfer the funding to the so-called “Future X”
experimental Single-Stage-To-Orbit (SSTO) follow-on to the X-33. A second
amendment by Rohrabacher would strip the bill’s proposed new powers for the
NASA Administrator in new “transfer authority”. The proposed power, already
approved by the full Appropriations Committee, would give Goldin the
ability in the future to move up to $150 million from other NASA program
accounts for use on the space station project. A third amendment would
allegedly cut $50 million from the space agency’s Mission To Planet Earth
program to force NASA to but Earth Science sensing data from commercial
providers.
Sources at NASA headquarters tell SpaceCast Goldin is enraged with the
move. “They (the pro-space movement) doesn’t know what the hell they’d be
doing” in stripping the funds from the Russian station assistance account,
according to one source. “They don’t understand how delicately balanced
this thing is”.
