Asri-unix.1111 net.space utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:C70:sri-unix!TAW@SU-AI 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 *************** ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.