New Policy Seeks to Push Private Investment in Space

The Reagan Administration on Thursday unveiled a long-awaited new national space policy, which includes a 15-point plan to encourage private investment and a $100-million fund for development of “pathfinder” technologies necessary to expand manned exploration of the solar system.

The plan, following a high-level, five-month study, calls for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to support development of a privately owned orbiting industrial facility and to spend $140 million annually over the next five years, leasing space aboard it as the government’s principal “anchor tenant.”

The private mini-station, the size of a bus, had been the most controversial element of the Reagan Administration study, but NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher endorsed it Thursday and said the space agency will put the procurement on an accelerated track leading to selection of a contractor in 150 days.

A budget of $100 million was considered a strikingly modest amount for the “pathfinder” technologies, given the lofty objectives laid out by the White House and Administration officials.

“The policy clearly establishes that, for the first time, the United States has a long-range goal of expanding human presence and activity beyond Earth orbit into the solar system,” Fletcher said at a White House press conference.

“This is a policy of investment in the future. It lays the necessary groundwork now for the decisions of the next century. It puts the challenge squarely on NASA. And it is a challenge we accept.”

While the policy emphasized longer-range objectives and more “privatization” of the civilian space program, the White House also reiterated determination to press on with the $25-billion space station, which is being designed for assembly in the mid-1990s.

President Reagan will ask Congress for $1 billion for the station in his proposed budget for fiscal 1989 and the White House projects $6.1 billion in outlays for the project over the next three years.

Much of the 15-point plan to stimulate private investment in space research and development was a reiteration of positions announced by the Administration when, in the wake of the Challenger space shuttle tragedy, it moved to transfer satellite launching into the hands of private industry.

But in its policy stand approved by Reagan last month and announced Thursday, the Administration also called for steps to encourage private investment in the space station, to look toward development of privately owned launch facilities and to make expended space shuttle fuel tanks available for orbital research or storage.

Research Facility in Space

Besides supporting development of the private industrial space facility or ISF, the Administration pledged “to make best efforts” to launch in the 1990s a privately developed and owned research facility called “Spacehab” aboard the shuttle.

The pressurized facility will connect with the crew compartment of the shuttle orbiter and increases the pressurized work space aboard the vehicle by about 1,000 cubic feet. It is to be ready for launch about 1990.

The Administration reiterated its support for the space station but congressional sources foresee a continuing battle over its budget, with more delays likely. It was apparently concern over space station funding that pushed the idea of leasing a bus-sized, private industrial space facility.

Although NASA will immediately invite design proposals for the facility, a small Texas company called Space Industries Inc. has already raised and invested about $30 million on such a mini-station.

Designer of Spacecraft

Created by Maxime A. Faget, one of the principal designers of the U.S. Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft as well as the space shuttle, the ISF is designed to be launched in the cargo bay of the shuttle.

Plans are for the shuttle to make regular visits to the station, with astronauts boarding it to retrieve material or to install new experiments. Although astronauts can work comfortably aboard the facility while it is docked with the shuttle, the laboratory will not have its own life-support system.

Before the Challenger accident, NASA had signed an agreement with the company to launch one of the mini-stations and postpone collection of a launch fee until it began to profit from its private research customers.

At the outset, the space agency saw the ISF only as an adjunct to the space station, orbiting near it and perhaps even used for storage purposes during assembly of the station. But, with a budget squeeze that saw $342 million lopped off the space station’s $767 million request this year and a serious effort made to kill the station outright, some NASA officials have come to fear that the ISF would be viewed as an interim space station or even a substitute.

Weightless Conditions

Fletcher estimated that the government will use about 70% of the research space aboard the orbiting lab, with NASA subletting space to the National Science Foundation, the Defense Department and other agencies with a need to conduct research under weightless conditions.

The NASA administrator said it is his understanding that his agency would receive an increase in its budget to cover the $140-million-a-year lease over the five-year period.

Aside from moving satellite launches into private hands, the decision to lease space aboard the private mini-station is a large step toward eliminating the government monopoly on space research and development.