Asri-unix.1111
net.space
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Sat Mar 27 18:08:38 1982
Commentary on Space Program
a511 1938 26 Mar 82
BC-NASA Future, Adv 28-2 takes,700-1500
$ADV 28
Advance for Sunday March 28
Space Program Entering Lean Era
By PAUL RECER
AP Aerospace Writer
SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - America's manned space program is
moving into a tough new era, a time of lean budgets and rugged
competition for the limited federal dollar.
Gone are the lush funds that propelled America to the moon, sent a
variety of complex robot craft cruising outward to distant planets and
seemed to offer possibilities limited only by imagination.
The dreams are just as large, the visions as ambitious, but the
budgets are smaller and the justifications are more pragmatic.
Ideals are dying in the pinch of economic realities. America went to
the moon, as the famous lunar plaque states, ''in peace for all
mankind.'' But the United States will continue in manned spaceflight,
in part, because of the perceived need for new weapons of war.
Color the changes gray, blue and red.
The young engineers and pilots who amazed the world with the
adventures of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo are now graying senior space
statesmen. Many have left the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, replaced by men skilled in the art of the practical
and the politically possible.
There's also a bluing of NASA. Blue-clad Air Force officers now work
shoulder-to-shoulder with NASA civilians, preparing for the day when
manned spaceflight becomes a part of the nation's arsenal.
The red is in the NASA budgets of the recent past. In the complex,
decade-long struggle to produce the shuttle, NASA repeatedly faced
cost overruns and was forced to return to Congress for more funds. It
soiled NASA's reputation, earned in the Apollo program, for being an
on-time, within-budget agency. And this has made it more difficult to
run the Washington budget gauntlet.
President Reagan proposed a NASA budget for fiscal year 1983 of $6.6
billion. This is a $673 million increase over the revised 1982
budget, a boost of about 11 percent, or a slight raise when inflation
is factored in.
Reagan's proposal is less than NASA requested, but more than was
suggested by Office of Management and Budget.
NASA was required to reshape priorities, cutting some areas and
boosting others. Science and aeronautics research absorbed most of the
cuts, but the effects rippled throughout NASA.
Some effects were minor. A hiring freeze created a shortage of
secretaries and some middle-level executives have had to file reports
in handwriting.
Other effects were more serious, and some fear they will erode
America's pre-eminent role in some elements of space exploration.
Planetary science was battered the hardest.
Plans to send a $350 million orbiting radar satellite to Venus were
canceled. This surrenders to the Soviet Union the lead in exploring
that planet.
Funds for processing and study of data from a group of satellites
orbiting the sun were also cut. Pioneer 6, 7, 8 and 9 are in orbit of
the sun, some out to the vicinity of Jupiter. Data from instruments
probing the solar wind and magnetic fields are now going uncollected.
The Viking spacecraft on Mars continues to send back data every
eight days, but there now is no money to study the information.
Some elements of the deep space network, which collects radio
signals from distant satellites, have been shut down.
Said one NASA official: ''We have enough voices to study the solar
system, but not enough ears to catch the data.''
An infrared telescope in Hawaii has been mothballed and the lunar
rock curatorial facility at the Johnson Space Center may share a
similar fate.
Despite the losses, NASA officials who fought the budget battle
seemed content in what was preserved. As administrator James M. Beggs
noted: ''I believe we did well .''
NASA received funds for the $640 million Galileo mission to Jupiter.
This joint German-American project will be launched in 1985 and will
arrive two to four years later. The craft will release a probe which
will descend toward the planet's surface, passing through atmospheric
layers that may be rich in organic compounds. This may give basic
chemical information on the origin of life.
A second part of Galileo will remain in orbit of Jupiter, studying
the planet and its four moons with cameras even more sophisticated
than those used on the two Voyager spacecraft that earlier studied the
planet.
The $800 million space telescope program, perhaps the most ambitious
and sophisticated astronomy project ever conceived, was also
preserved.
It involves the orbit of a telescope that will be able to look
farther out into the universe than ever before. It will conduct a
basic study of such elements in the universe as black holes and
quasars. It will also be able to search for planets orbiting distant
stars. None has ever been sighted, but the space telescope makes it
possible for the first time to conduct a systematic search.
The most money in the NASA budget, by far, is going toward the
development and operation of the space shuttle. A total of $3.5
billion is dedicated in 1983 for flying two shuttle orbiters and for
production work on two more.
Columbia, the craft being flown now, will be joined later this year
by Challenger. The two craft will make five flights in 1983.
Work will also continue toward developing an upper stage, to boost
satellites to high orbit
NASA's emphasis on the shuttle springs from two reasons. Experts see
it as the major and most complex step toward a permanent presence in
space and the opportunity to harvest vast benefits for Earth from
space.
The second reason is that the military need for the space shuttle
virtually assures that NASA will be given the money to build the
system.
''The military use of the shuttle helps support the argument for the
need of a Space Transportation System. It helps keep NASA's budget
where it is,'' said Maj. Gen. J. A. Abrahamson, the associate NASA
administrator for Space Transportation Systems.
The focus of NASA between now and 1985, said Abrahamson, is to
assure that the shuttle is operational and to continue its
''partnership'' with the Air Force.
Military experts believe the shuttle may be essential for the
defense of the nation in the decades ahead. The Air Force is spending
vast sums to develop a laser weapon which could operate from space.
The value of the weapon has not been proven, but if it turns out to be
feasible, some predict it would revolutionize warfare as much as did
the invention of gunpowder. The Soviets also are developing a laser
weapon.
If the laser is built, the shuttle will put it into space and
maintain it.
Space shuttles will also be used to deliver to orbit the various
types of military satellites which are now part of the nation's
strategic plans.
Most NASA officials feel that the military need for the shuttle
virtually assures that the planned fleet of four will be developed.
Reagan's budget proposal also provides some early funds for studies
of where the space program will go after the shuttle fleet is fully
operational.
Christopher C. Kraft, director of the Johnson Space Center, and
others favor development of some type of orbiting space station that
would enable the United States to have permanent presence in orbit.
Such a facility would make it possible to conduct Earth observations,
zero gravity manufacturing and the assembly of spacecraft for voyages
into deep space. Such platforms would also have a valuable military
function, particularly if the laser weapon is developed.
''NASA is ready to be challenged again with those kinds of things,''
said Kraft. ''We have to convince Congress.''
Persuading Congress to provide funds to meet dreams of space
visionaries means proving that space exploration is not only important
for the military, but also for purposes of peace. And that is a major
facet of NASA's new era.
''We've got to make space exploration pay off for all of us down
here on Earth - not just for us space cadets, but for everyone,'' said
Kraft.
Instead of being but a spinoff of pure space exploration, commercial
products and services from space will be the first consideration and
space exploration will be second, believes Kraft.
''We will get to go to Jupiter, for instance, because we have first
built a system to benefit people on Earth,'' said Kraft. ''It's the
exact reverse of the old concepts.
''Space may provide us the balance of trade 20 years from now. We'll
make better products in space, and provide worldwide communications
and seek out vital new Earth resources,'' he adds. ''You can see it
coming. This thing (the commercial use of space) is really going to
take off.''
End Advance Sunday March 28
ap-ny-03-26 2233EST
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