Questions Arise About Space Station Costs : Science: A GAO report says technical problems could push the Freedom project over budget. Critics say NASA hasn’t set aside enough reserve funding.

A week before the House decides the fate of the planned space station Freedom, congressional investigators and others are raising new questions about near-term technical problems and the long-term cost of the controversial project.

A new report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, questions whether the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has set aside enough money to pay for unbudgeted work or unexpected problems in the development of the $30-billion orbiting space laboratory.

GAO investigators believe that contractor cost overruns or other unanticipated difficulties could put the program substantially over budget, seriously disrupt its schedule and send NASA scurrying back to Congress to seek more money later in the decade.

“We were very concerned about the level of reserves (last year) and we remain very concerned today, even more so,” said a senior GAO official, who asked not to be named. The GAO report has not yet been made public.

Industry sources say that problems already are cropping up. The largest space station contractor, McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co. of Huntington Beach, has hit snags in development of cooling systems and data management software for the station’s computers, according to a report in Thursday’s edition of Space Station News, a Washington-based newsletter.

The newsletter quoted unnamed NASA officials as saying that the additional costs of solving these problems could total as much as $500 million to $1 billion, an assertion denied Thursday by McDonnell Douglas spokesman Thomas E. Williams.

Williams declined to release specific figures but said that extra costs associated with McDonnell Douglas’ $3.5-billion space station contract generally stem from changes in the construction schedule made by NASA. McDonnell Douglas and NASA are about to begin talks on how much of those costs NASA will pay.

The cost problems at McDonnell Douglas have forced NASA to slow the work of other contractors. Earlier this year, for example, NASA ordered Sunnyvale-based Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. to delay some work on the station’s solar panels to accommodate more spending this year at McDonnell Douglas, sources said.

A senior NASA official, who asked not to be named, said Thursday that reserve funding is adequate, that design problems are not unusual for such a complex research and development project and that the problems will be solved.

Neither NASA nor GAO officials would provide precise figures on NASA’s reserve funding. However, a GAO source said that the agency has calculated reserves at about 15% of the estimated program cost, instead of an optimum reserve level of 30% to 35%.

The new questions about space station costs come at a critical time for the program, which faces serious opposition from those in Congress who argue that in a tough economic environment the nation should not spend billions of dollars on space ventures.

A bipartisan coalition of House members will move to cut virtually all funding for the space station when the House debates NASA’s appropriation for the 1993 fiscal year. The debate is scheduled for next Wednesday.

The House Appropriations Committee voted Thursday to spend $1.725 million on the space station in the 1993 fiscal year.