Space Station Funding Put at $2.1 Billion

House and Senate negotiators agreed Tuesday to spend $2.1 billion next year to continue building the controversial space station Freedom, scheduled for launch beginning in late 1995.

Although the compromise figure is $125 million less than sought by the Bush Administration, officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the accord will permit work on the station to proceed on schedule. Approval by both houses of Congress is expected, perhaps as early as Friday, and President Bush appears likely to sign the bill.

The decision is of special importance to Southern California. McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co. of Huntington Beach holds contracts on the project worth $3.5 billion. In Canoga Park, the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell International has space station work valued at $1.6 billion.

“I’m pleased with the funding level for the space station, very pleased with that, considering the budget restraints,” said retiring Sen. Jake Garn (R-Utah), one of the program’s staunchest supporters.

Earlier, the Senate had earmarked $2.1 billion for space station work in the 1993 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. The House had set aside $1.7 billion, despite protests from some scientists and members of Congress. NASA officials said an appropriation of less than $1.9 billion would almost certainly have seriously delayed the project.

During a series of spirited congressional debates, critics contended that the planned orbiting laboratory is too expensive and of dubious scientific merit. Supporters, however, argued that the space station is critical to the nation’s future in space exploration.

The station, which will serve as a 220-mile-high orbiting platform for research on life sciences and microgravity, is to be launched aboard a series of 17 space shuttle flights beginning in November, 1995. It is scheduled to be ready to continuously accommodate a crew of four by the year 2000.

The agreement on space station funding came as a House-Senate conference committee approved an appropriations bill that calls for spending about $87 billion next year on urban and housing programs, veterans affairs and independent federal agencies, including NASA.

Despite his space station victory, Garn said he was disappointed by the conference committee’s decision to include $360 million in NASA’s budget for a controversial rocket program that the Administration had sought to kill.

Research on the advanced solid rocket motor, which would give the space shuttle greater lift capabilities, is under way in the home district of Rep. Jamie L. Whitten (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.