Space Station Funding

The June 6 vote of the House of Representatives to fund Space Station Freedom will mean the postponement and reduction of scientific programs within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration because of budgetary limits (“House Saves Plan for Space Station,” front page, June 7).

One of the scientific programs that will be squeezed--perhaps to elimination--is “Dynamics of the Solid Earth,” NASA’s contribution to trying to understand motions in the Earth, including earthquakes. New space techniques based on the global positioning system have the best potential for obtaining the dense network of precise locations necessary to determine motions premonitory of earthquakes.

One of the congressmen supporting the space station was Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton). A segment of the San Andreas fault expected to undergo a major earthquake within the next century passes very close to the 36th District.

The timing of this forecast is very unsure partly because of the complexity of the region and partly because it has been sparsely instrumented due to budgetary limitations. It is probable that an earthquake will not happen before Rep. Brown retires, but far from certain.

The reason given by Brown for supporting the space station is that it would be dangerous for the United States to alienate its friends. Who would be alienated? Technocrats in other countries who are primarily interested--like NASA’s management--in large-scale space engineering involving manned space flight.

However, the continuation of the space station will mean reduced support for scientific research in these other countries, since they have similar “zero-sum games.”

WILLIAM M. KAULA

Professor of Geophysics

UCLA

Member, National Academy of Sciences