SPACE EXPLORATION Congress frowns on NASA plans

Lack of a clear strategy, record budget deficits and Iraq are the reasons.
WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON -- President Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration" made headlines when it was announced 3 1/2 months ago, but Congress has refused to even consider funding the initiative until NASA comes up with more concrete proposals to flesh it out.
The impasse has brought to a standstill NASA's plans to begin work on the new strategy, even as long-standing programs ranging from the grounded space shuttles to Earth science and aeronautics remain mired in uncertainty.
Space advocates in both the Senate and the House have already rebuffed NASA's attempts to reallocate money in the current year to jump-start parts of the plan and have warned the agency that its 2005 budget proposal will not pass at its $16.2 billion price tag -- and maybe not at any price -- in a Congress trying to cope with record budget deficits and protracted war.
The pessimism shrouding the proposal is unusual for Capitol Hill in that it is both bipartisan and unequivocal. "I cannot commit this Congress or future Congresses to support an undefined program," Rep. James Walsh, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, said at a hearing last month.
"There's a lot of consternation about this process," added Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., the ranking minority member. "I think we would like a plan, and that's not apparent here at all."
Up to Bush
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, making his budget pitch to the panel, promised "we're prepared to deliver whatever you believe is necessary," but several lawmakers said selling the initiative may be beyond O'Keefe.
"It comes down to what priority the president gives it," said Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee, ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee. "Is he committed?"
Bush unveiled the "Vision" in a Jan. 14 speech, promising to "extend a human presence across our solar system," starting with a return to the moon by 2020 and an eventual human spaceflight to Mars.
The plan called for completion of the international space station by 2010, after which the three remaining space shuttles would be retired. A new "crew exploration vehicle" would be designed and developed to travel to the moon and beyond.
He described the initiative as "a journey, not a race" and, in a concession to burgeoning deficits and war costs, asked for only $1 billion in new money for the plan for the next five years. The remaining $11 billion would be reallocated from within NASA's existing programs.
Despite charges of election-year grandstanding, Bush appears to have gained nothing politically from the announcement. A Jan. 18 Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 62 percent of Americans opposed the plan. Bush has not mentioned it since the speech.
Reaction
In Congress, however, Bush appeared to win almost universal approval for providing a badly needed new direction for NASA, still reeling from the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia last year.
In a recent telephone interview, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., involved in NASA and space funding for well over a decade, echoed several colleagues when she described Bush's concept as "a wonderful dream."
But the devil is in the details, and in the three months that have elapsed since the Bush speech, lawmakers say NASA has done relatively little to fill in the original broad-stroke outline: "What they have is a schedule, not a plan," Mikulski said. Right now, she added, "I am overtly opposed to it."
In repeated appearances on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, first to win support for the plan and now to gain approval of NASA's 2005 budget, O'Keefe has braved withering criticism for failing to detail adequately what Mollohan described last month as a restructuring of NASA, "major in every way."
Throughout these ordeals, NASA's chief has stressed the virtue of avoiding over-promising early in an initiative likely to last decades. The president has pointed NASA in a different direction, he says, and given it the flexibility to adjust its timetable and funding as circumstances dictate.
The lack of details is "not a reluctance on our part," O'Keefe said in an interview. "We establish the program details as we move forward, and build on the successes as they are achieved. All of these things should be refined as you move along."