Funding for Space Station Faces Spirited Attack : Congress: Critics will try to strip away most of the $2.25-billion requested. Showdown today may be first of many such battles.

Congressional critics of the nation’s plan to launch a $30-billion space laboratory into Earth orbit by the end of the decade will mount the most spirited attack yet on the controversial project today when the House debates funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Led by Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.), opponents of Space Station Freedom said they will try to strip from the 1993 federal budget virtually all of the $2.25 billion requested for the project by NASA. The attack will come as an amendment to legislation that would set maximum spending levels for the agency over the next three years.

Today’s showdown is the first in what could be a series of bitterly fought congressional battles this year over the space station, which is intended to serve as a laboratory for life science and microgravity research, and as a jumping-off point for 21st Century missions to the moon and to Mars.

The burgeoning federal budget deficit will force lawmakers to slash or eliminate many pet programs this year. Supporters fear that the space station could fall victim to the budget crisis.

“Good sense and good science tell us the space station is not worth the money,” said Roemer, who has promised to continue his fight to cancel the space station program even if he loses on the House floor today.

Like other critics, Roemer is arguing that the station, which originally was to cost $8 billion, has been so stripped down as costs escalated that it can no longer achieve its basic scientific mission.

But supporters, who include Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, and other lawmakers from the state, have called the station the key to the future of America’s manned space program. California is home to two principal space station contractors, whose work packages together are worth about $5 billion.

Brown said he will address the cost argument by telling his colleagues that “investment in research and development builds economic competitiveness” and that continued funding for the space station “helps alleviate some of the pain of military cutbacks,” especially in California. Brown predicted that his forces will muster 250 votes to save the station, 32 more than required.

Last year, the House turned back an attempt to cut station funding on a 240-173 vote.

Under the current schedule, the first component of the space station would be launched aboard a space shuttle in late 1995.

Even if space station supporters prevail today, other fights are likely when the Senate votes on the three-year NASA spending authority, and when the House and Senate separately vote on a specific NASA appropriation for the 1993 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. The House legislation to be considered today would authorize NASA spending of $47.3 billion over the next three years, but actual appropriations could be much smaller.

In a speech delivered Tuesday to members of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, NASA chief Daniel S. Goldin defended the station, downplaying its scientific mission and emphasizing its role in planetary exploration.