White House Leans to Military Plans Despite Rhetoric on Civilian Space Use

Civilian space policy is still in serious trouble a year after the Challenger tragedy.

Despite Congress’ transfer of defense funds to pay for a replacement shuttle and despite modest but important increases in the proposed National Aeronautics and Space Administration budget over the next five years, a lack of clarity and comprehensive national purpose continues. This is the same situation that, over 15 years, caused a climate conducive to a shuttle accident in the first place.

The NASA Advisory Council, a group from science and industry, concurs. In a rare public statement, Chairman Daniel J. Fink recently said, “Over the past decade the untempered public expectation of U.S. preeminence in space has not been backed up by the requisite resources.”

The blue-ribbon National Commission on Space, created by the Congress and appointed by the President nearly a year before the shuttle exploded, also concurs. This commission was to evaluate U.S. space programming and recommend a 25-year policy. Before the Challenger accident the commission had already reached a tentative consensus to suggest more than doubling our commitment to the civilian space program over a 10-year period. After the explosion, this recommendation was issued with three specific implementing suggestions:

--Restoration of the National Aeronautics and Space Council (NASC) in the Office of the President.

--Amendment of NASA legislation to permit five-year authorizations that would promote consistency and long-range planning.

--Phase-out of NASA involvement in commercial space transportation, returning to the original mission of exploration, research and development.

A year later only the final action is assured. On the strength of findings by the Rogers Commission following its Challenger investigation, the Reagan Administration eliminated most commercial traffic from the shuttle fleet while streamlining and deregulating the fledgling private space transportation industry.

NASA’s renewed focus on research seemed to promise work toward development of a practical hypersonic or trans-atmospheric craft. Yet even this new venture has become ensnared in the perennial funding debate--between those who prefer a secret military aerospace plane and those who prefer an open program leading to a civilian spaceliner. The military preference within the National Security Council seems to enjoy Administration favor--and may hamper support for the program in Congress.

Not since the end of the Johnson Administration has civilian space policy been treated as an issue of essential importance. Despite presidential rhetoric lauding civilian space activities, the record shows only meager budget increases for NASA during the Reagan years up to the shuttle accident. The military space budget was the one that increased, exceeding NASA’s budget for the first time.

While the Strategic Defense Initiative has been a centerpiece of Reagan foreign policy, civilian space policy languished, entrusted to a senior interagency group, gathered from various government departments. This “sig-space,” an ad hoc committee with no permanent members or staff, has been manned and chaired by the NSC in cooperation with the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

A National Aeronautics and Space Council (NASC), originally created by the NASA Act to coordinate national space policy, was abolished by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969--when the precipitous decline of NASA budgets really began. In that year the management of space policy was entrusted to the Office of Management and Budget, where money concerns would later influence design decisions on the shuttle. Testing and backup systems were reduced; scientific programs scrapped. Since 1969, there has been an lack of coordinated, high-level attention to national space policy.

NASC was first created after Sputnik for just such top-level attention; Congress and President Dwight D. Eisenhower agreed to a council with a permanent staff in the White House. Since its demise, the health of civilian and scientific programs, as well as questions of safety, have not always been a priority for an advisory system dominated by NSC and OMB.

Therefore, for the second time in 30 years, Congress in late 1986 voted to establish a National Space Council in the Office of the President. Heeding the recommendation of the National Commission on Space and the research findings of both old and new investigations, Congress planned for the new council in the 1986 NASA Authorization Act.

But the Administration balked at new “unnecessary bureaucracy.” Apparently, NSC wanted to continue its dominance. Before Congress acted, the President issued a veto threat.

To satisfy Administration objections, Congress scaled down the new NASC concept. This pared approach was advocated by key Republican senators, making for strong bipartisan support.

Even unsympathetic congressional staffers conceded that most members of Congress were in favor of the new council. It would be a partial remedy for the lack of communication or coordination on space policy that existed between the security-conscious Reagan Administration and the Congress.

But the President, apparently upon NSC advice, vetoed the 1986 NASA Authorization Act and its new National Space Council. Ominously, at about the same time, an internal memorandum was circulating in NASA concerning the need to cut costs in the civilian space station “by opting for higher program risk . . . and by reducing the basic program supporting costs.”

If this is to be the policy, America will continue to suffer an eroding leadership in the worlds of science, commerce, information and education. There will be a further sacrifice of safety and long-range national security. As we near the International Space Year in 1992, such an approach could have profoundly negative implications for our traditional position in favor of international cooperation, open skies and freedom of information.