Space Station May Be Put Off, Scaled Down Over Cost

Once estimated to cost $8 billion, the orbiting space station the United States plans for the 1990s is now estimated to cost about $13 billion and may be scaled down or slipped beyond its 1994 target date, the chief of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Tuesday.

NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher said the project nevertheless retains its high priority with the Reagan Administration, which has made it the focal point of the American space program beyond the rehabilitation of the grounded space shuttle fleet.

As soon as he can reconcile internal estimates of the station’s cost, Fletcher told the Senate space subcommittee, he plans to request development proposals from potential contractors, striving to get the station into operation in the mid-1990s.

Budget Request Cut

Although the station project was launched with President Reagan’s strong personal endorsement, Fletcher acknowledged that NASA’s request for the station in the upcoming fiscal year had been cut by $288 million by the Office of Management and Budget, which initially had sought a reduction of nearly twice that amount. The space agency’s proposed budget is $9.4 billion.

As it is, Congress is being asked to appropriate $767 million as the first development installment for the 500-by-360-foot permanently manned station, designed to be supplied and maintained by the shuttle.

“We have decided that, because it is a significant (cost) overrun, we may indeed have to slip the schedule,” Fletcher said. “We’re looking at stretching it out; we’re looking at phasing it, building it in several phases or perhaps trimming it down.

“Depending on which of those options we pick, the date of 1994 may slip. But not a significant amount, it’s more like a year or two.”

Unmanned Vehicles

Although Fletcher told the Senate panel that NASA has now turned the corner on its way to restoring the shuttle fleet to service in the wake of last year’s Challenger disaster, he indicated that there is still much debate within the Administration over the precise role of unmanned launch vehicles and the development of a new launcher for payloads beyond the capacity of present-day rockets.

Deputy Administrator Dale D. Myers acknowledged that NASA has also considered the possibility that the mothballed $3-billion shuttle launch facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California might not be put into operation as planned in 1992.

Since the accident, the civilian space agency has suspended production of new lighter-weight solid rocket boosters with filament-wound casings, and has canceled tests designed to certify the space shuttle main engines for operation at greater thrust. The lighter units were put aside because a key test facility was diverted to aid in solid rocket booster redesign after the Challenger disaster. The tests on 109% thrust level, as compared to the previous peak of 104%, were dropped for safety reasons.

Ability Limited

Without these new features, the shuttle will be unable to carry the heavy reconnaissance satellites the Air Force wants to put into polar orbit from Vandenberg.

As part of its increased emphasis on expendable launchers, the Air Force in the new budget is seeking funds to build a Vandenberg launch complex for its new Titan 4 launcher.

Myers said NASA’s contingency studies include the possibility of using the Titan to launch a polar-orbiting platform from Vandenberg as part of the space station program. Plans have called for subsequent shuttle flights from the Vandenberg complex to deliver astronaut crews to install and remove scientific instruments and perform maintenance.

But he said there is still enough time for the shuttle to be prepared to fly military and NASA missions from Vandenberg beginning in 1992.

The plan, he said, is to continue development on the filament-wound casings, later move into certification of the shuttle engines at the 109% thrust level and then return to production with the casings.

At the time of the Challenger accident, NASA was pressing toward a shuttle launch from Vandenberg in July, 1986. After the disaster, the new launch facility was put on standby status, which saves the government about $350 million a year.