Washington DC – June 30, 1997 – A subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives gave approval last week to the FY98 budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, preserving most of the administration’s requested dollars while adding some others. A panel of the House Appropriations Committee not only agreed to the Clinton administration’s request for $13.5 billion in spending for the civil space agency- it added more than $100 million more. Most of the “plus-up” to the agency’s budget request, according to sources on Capitol Hill, went to the Human Spaceflight Account, which includes funding for the Space Shuttle and Space Station programs.
The Congressional move will help the space agency absorb the recent increases NASA needs to supplement delayed work of the Russian Space Agency on its contribution of a Service Module for the station. With the module delayed for at least eight months due to budget woes in Russia, NASA announced this spring that it would begin construction of a Naval Research Laboratory space unit as well as hire another Russian Design Bureaus to start building backups for the delayed unit. Both choices would require that NASA spend more than $100 million not originally budgeted; the Hill action is seen as avoiding the need to take money from the Shuttle program or other space projects to pay for the Russian alternatives.
The panel also boosted spending on education and technology research within NASA. The full Appropriations Committee must still approve the panel’s action, as must the full House. Such action will have to wait until after Congress returns from its summer recess.
While the civil space agency’s budget seemed to be on track, the military’s space spending programs also got some unplanned additions last week. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved money for the Defense Dept.’s FY98 budget that added $50 million for the Clementine II micro-satellite project, and $10 million for Air Force research into a winged military spaceplane. Most other military space programs were fully funded, with the exception of the Titan IV heavy lift space booster. That program was cut by $100 million from a half-billion request, primarily because funds for the Titan rocket were available that were left over from the 1997 Fiscal Year spending plan.
