Space Station, Collider Spared, but Cuts Loom : Budget: Clinton won’t kill programs but may slash funding to close deficit. O.C. contractors would suffer.

The Clinton Administration pledged Friday not to cancel the nation’s two premier science projects--the $30-billion space station Freedom and the $8.2-billion superconducting super collider--but it left open the possibility of sharp budget cuts that could cripple both programs.

The controversial space station, critical to the health of California’s beleaguered aerospace industry, is the principal target of cost-saving measures outlined in the last week by Leon E. Panetta, director of the Office of Management and Budget, according to industry and congressional sources.

But powerful members of Congress began an intense lobbying effort to save the space station Friday, as word began circulating among aerospace industry leaders and on Capitol Hill that Panetta had stepped up efforts to cancel one or both of the science programs.

Late in the day, White House spokesman George Stephanopoulos put the worst case scenario to rest. President Clinton is “not canceling the super collider or the space station,” he said, adding that the President is “looking at all areas of the budget for appropriate cuts.”

The final decision, expected by Tuesday, will be watched especially closely in Orange County, home to McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co. of Huntington Beach. The space giant has station contracts worth $3.5 billion and has 1,500 employees working on the project in Orange County.

“It would be devastating for the Southern California aerospace community for that program to go away,” said company spokesman Thomas E. Williams.

The decision represents a watershed in Clinton’s young presidency. The debate pits powerful factions in the Administration who want Clinton to honor his pledge to attack the budget deficit against those who insist he commit the nation to developing the new technology that will carry it into the 21st Century.

During the presidential campaign, Clinton and Vice President Al Gore both vowed to back continued funding for both the science programs.

The space station, to be launched in pieces via the space shuttle fleet beginning in late 1995, is intended to serve as an orbiting science laboratory and jumping off point for future manned space exploration. It is to be completed by 2000, and has a projected life of 30 years.

A longtime critic of the station during his tenure in the House of Representatives, Panetta reportedly has told Clinton that eliminating the program would save $2 billion in the 1994 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, and scores of billions more over the project’s life. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration already has spent $8 billion on the project.

NASA officials have said that if funding of the space station falls substantially below $1.9 billion a year, they would be unable to keep the program on track and on schedule.

Severely cutting the space station’s budget would deal a severe blow to California. The state is home to two of the project’s three prime contractors--McDonnell Douglas and the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell International in Canoga Park--and to about 60 subcontractors. The companies together hold space station contracts worth more than $5 billion and employ more than 4,200 workers on the project.

But critics of the program--including many scientists--argue that congressionally mandated cuts over the years have so compromised the station’s scientific mission that it can no longer accomplish its major goals. The station, for example, originally was designed to accommodate a crew of eight. Current plans call for only four crew members.

In addition, the program has been plagued by unexpected costs. McDonnell Douglas in particular, has had problems with computer software and electrical hardware, and will have to take up to $185 million out of program reserves this year and next to cover the extra costs. Some sources have said the cost overruns could reach $500 million.

Even so, a longtime space station critic came to the program’s defense Friday.

“Without the space station, you have no long-range plan for the space program,” said John E. Pike, director of the space policy project for the Federation of American Scientists.

The superconducting super collider, to be built at a site 30 miles south of Dallas, would be the world’s largest particle accelerator and, according to its supporters, could help unlock the secrets of the origin of the universe. Congress approved $550 million for the project in the 1993 fiscal year, which began last Oct. 1.

Project officials said they have let 1,461 contracts in California, with a value of $118 million. Cuts in that program would affect 12 California universities that hold contracts worth about $19 million. The largest single contractor, General Dynamics Corp., has about 100 people working on the program at its San Diego facilities.

According to sources in the aerospace industry and on Capitol Hill, Panetta first proposed eliminating funds for the space station and the super collider during a Cabinet-level retreat last weekend at Camp David.

The proposal did not elicit any immediate reaction, according to congressional sources.

However, at a meeting with Clinton on Thursday, Panetta is said to have pressed the point. Clinton reportedly pointed out that he and Gore had promised to continue funding for the space station. But the President is said to have then added that the deficit is turning out to be a tougher problem than anticipated. That ended the conversation, the sources said.

Meanwhile, industry sources said Panetta and his aides had been lobbying members of the Texas congressional delegation and Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, a former Texas senator, seeking their support to kill the space station and perhaps save the super collider.

“They’re trying to leverage the station against other Texas programs and the super collider,” one aerospace industry source said. A spokesman for Bentsen said he would have no comment on the report.

“They’ve clearly got a deficit problem,” Pike said, “and Panetta clearly viewed the station as being part of that problem when he was in Congress, and canceling it as being part of the solution.”

The lobbying effort to save the station included a letter from powerful members of the House asking Clinton to include funding for the program in the 1994 budget. “We must continue to demonstrate the national will to complete technologically challenging projects,” said the letter, signed by Reps. George E. Brown (D-Colton), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee; Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose), chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, and Jack Brooks (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

In an interview, Rep. Brown said he was encouraged Friday after speaking to White House Science Adviser John Gibbons. “I think the science adviser feels that there is still a little wiggle room,” Brown said.

Times science writer Mark Stein contributed to this story from Los Angeles.