NASA PROGRAMS Senators like Bush's agenda for space but want the price

NASA'S expected budget request for next year is about $16.2 billion.
ORLANDO SENTINEL
WASHINGTON -- In the first hearings since President Bush unveiled his new agenda for space exploration, senators said Wednesday they like the ideas but are eager to get the details on what it will cost -- and what will have to be sacrificed -- to send humans back to the moon and beyond.
Members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee raised questions about the long-term cost for the proposal, whether using only robots would make more sense and how the shift might affect NASA's workers.
"I think the American public is justifiably apprehensive about starting another major space initiative for fear that they will learn later that it will require far more sacrifice, or taxpayer dollars, than originally discussed or estimated," said U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee's chairman.
Budget request coming
National Aeronautics and Space Administration chief Sean O'Keefe said much more will be come clear Monday, when the president's budget request is released. In his proposal Jan. 14, Bush called on Congress to give NASA $1 billion in new money over the next five years for his plan and directed the agency to reshuffle programs to come up with $11 billion over that time.
O'Keefe said last week that the agency's 2005 request is expected to total about $16.2 billion. The 2004 budget, passed last week by the Senate, is about $15.5 billion.
When lawmakers see the five-year budget plan, O'Keefe asserted that they will see a prudent road map for "Project Constellation," as the effort will be known.
"We really put this through the sanity check, making sure we're not passing a balloon note out into the next decade," he said.
But while senators praised NASA's recent twin Mars landings and the agency's performance under the enormous stress of the almost 12 months since the space shuttle Columbia accident, several were still dubious about whether Bush's proposal is realistic.
"I don't want to be a wise guy, but we've been promised the moon before," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada, and others questioned whether NASA's strong robotics program might be a better place to spend the money.
"I think we really do have to take a very hard look at the cost benefit of having people up there," Ensign said.
Sen. Bill Nelson expressed concern about a potentially lengthy gap between when the shuttle would be retired, in 2010, and the first manned flight of the new "crew exploration vehicle," sometime around 2015. Nelson, a Florida Democrat, warned that gap could affect workers as well as make the American space program dependent on Russian and European spacecraft.
Key to success
Experts on space policy, however, said the key to success is NASA's ability to adapt to the new conditions. The agency does not need to reinvent the Apollo era, they said, but it does need to transform itself to take on the challenge now before it.
"The greatest frontier facing NASA right now is itself," said Rick Tumlinson, the founder and head of the Space Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group.