Space Station Again Faces Budget Cuts : Science: Surprised congressional aides are told the Administration will downsize the orbiting laboratory, which means it may be eventually killed.

The future of space station Freedom was in doubt again Wednesday, after a Clinton Administration official told surprised congressional aides that the White House will once again redesign the controversial orbiting laboratory to cut its size and long-term cost.

The news stunned officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Despite persistent rumors of severe budget cuts, two senior members of Congress announced last Friday afternoon that Vice President Al Gore had assured them that the space station would get full funding of $2.25 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

But Wednesday morning, a senior aide to Gore told a gathering of congressional staff members that half of that money would pay the cost of terminating existing contracts on the station. Much of the rest would be spent to develop a new, scaled-back design, congressional sources said.

“The message on Friday . . . was pretty clear,” said one NASA official, who insisted on anonymity. “This is not what people expected.”

Starting fresh with a new design would seriously delay the project, perhaps for several years beyond the planned initial launch date of November, 1995, industry analysts said. That could lead to an erosion of congressional support.

“Those who think we should not be building the station at all will certainly have additional ammunition,” said John E. Pike, who heads the space policy project for the Federation of American Scientists. “It may be the (Administration’s) way of allowing Congress to cancel it for them.”

However, a spokeswoman for Gore said Wednesday that the Clinton Administration wants a space station built, but not necessarily the one that NASA has designed.

“The Administration has a commitment to preserve the science and jobs but also to deal with the (cost overruns and other) problems that we face,” Marla Romash said. “We are talking about restructuring. We are talking about moving forward in a different direction.”

The space station is critical to California’s beleaguered aerospace industry. The state is home to two of the three prime contractors for the project--McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co. of Huntington Beach and the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell International in Canoga Park--as well as 60 subcontractors.

Contractors were blindsided by the news. “It’s very confusing to say the least,” said spokesman Thomas E. Williams of McDonnell Douglas.

In a related development, the Clinton Administration vowed to push on with work on the nation’s other major science project, an $8-billion atom smasher known as the superconducting super collider, to be built in Texas. According to the White House, spending on the super collider will increase $108 million to $640 million in the 1994 fiscal year. The budget will increase 3% a year until the project is completed in 2003.

Critics seeking to kill off the space station program, including Leon E. Panetta, director of the Office of Management and Budget, contend that the nation can ill afford a lavish science project of dubious social value in tough economic times.

But supporters, including key members of Congress whose home districts benefit from NASA contracts, argue that killing the space station would end the nation’s manned space program.