Bush Denounces NASA Fund Cuts : Space: The President says exploration programs cannot wait until all of the nation’s social ills are solved. He also stumps for Helms in North Carolina.

President Bush Wednesday angrily denounced a House subcommittee’s refusal to fully fund his space exploration initiative and declared: “The American people want us in space.”

Using as his stage this city where Werner von Braun designed some of the United States’ first rockets, Bush challenged those who would tackle--and cure--the nation’s social ills before proceeding with a renewed exploration of the heavens.

“Some say the space program should wait--that we should only go forward once the social problems of today are completely solved. But history proves that attitude is self-defeating,” the President said.

He spoke after touring the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center--the “presidential” stop on a daylong trip to Alabama and North Carolina to attend political fund-raising events for Gov. Guy Hunt (R-Ala.), and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N. C.). By adding nonpolitical events to such a trip--at taxpayer expense--the White House saves considerable sums for the political campaigns, which otherwise would be assessed the full costs of the presidential travel.

During the speech at a fund-raising luncheon for Hunt, Bush renewed his support for a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning, saying that he is trying to back it “in a nonpartisan way” because the issue “should be above partisanship.”

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote today on the amendment.

During a news conference in Huntsville, Bush also:

--Refused to join the angry political debate over the nation’s savings and loan scandal that broke out Tuesday between congressional Democrats and his White House spokesman. But he said that some of the loan policies followed by some thrift institutions after the loosening of regulations during the Ronald Reagan Administration, in which he served, “were foolish and ill-advised.”

--Stood by his criticism of legislation--which he is expected to veto--that would order larger companies to give employees maternity leave or time off for family emergencies, despite his campaign support for such leaves. He argued that such time off should be granted voluntarily by employers and should not be mandated by the government.

The impetus for Bush’s speech on the space program was a decision by a House Appropriations subcommittee, which oversees the budget of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to eliminate all funding next year for his space exploration initiative.

The program was announced last July 20, the 20th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon. It had three goals: the launching of a space station in permanent orbit around Earth by the end of the 1990s, establishment of a manned laboratory on the moon and human exploration of Mars--a multibillion-dollar effort.

On June 12, the subcommittee cut out the $300 million in the budget linked directly to the space exploration initiative in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Overall, Bush has asked for $15.2 billion for NASA, an increase of nearly 25% and the largest single increase for any major government agency in the 1991 budget.

Although Bush said at the news conference that he would “fight for a fully funded space program,” he refused to say whether he would veto a budget measure that did not include it.

He said that, despite the pressures on the budget from domestic social programs, “we can accommodate” space spending.

The speech was the second time that the President has sought to focus public attention on the space budget in barely a month.

On May 11, he set for the first time a deadline for the Mars mission--July 20, 2019, the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing--and sought to inspire graduates at Texas A&I; University in Kingsville, Tex., to support and take part in the exploration of space.

But Bush’s new push for spending on space comes at a time of sharp pressures on the federal budget, a period when spending for long-range programs often gets shaved at the expense of more immediate demands.

The subcommittee action is not final: The deletion of the funds must be approved by the full House Appropriations Committee and by the House. Similarly, the Senate also must act on the budget request.

The subcommittee, Bush said, “voted to pull the plug on this historic undertaking, completely gutting the seed money we proposed for the moon-Mars mission.”

“In the funding wars in Congress, we face a central question--the question of whether America will continue to be a pioneering nation,” Bush said.

Bush twice invoked the memory of the late President John F. Kennedy, who launched the space program that resulted in the Apollo moon landing in 1969. He said that “some in Congress appear ready to give up on (the) pioneering spirit” that was stirred by the space missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

Those critics of the program, he said, would “turn their sights inward, to concede that America’s days as a leader in space have passed.”

“Had Columbus waited until all the problems of his time were solved, the timbers of the Santa Maria would be rotting on the Spanish coast to this day,” Bush said.

At the end of the day, in Charlotte, N. C., several hundred demonstrators outside the Merchandise Mart protested Helms’ assault on funding for what the White House has called “obscene art” supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Bush made no mention of the controversy. Helms’ reelection, he said, “isn’t a partisan crusade but a national necessity.”

“He isn’t a trendy follower who goes with the current,” Bush said.