NASA Official Says Space Station Cuts Necessary : Impact: Administration fears project would draw too much money away from other programs. Proposed reductions would seriously affect McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach.

The Clinton Administration moved to make severe cutbacks in the planned Space Station Freedom because it feared the project eventually would gut the nation’s remaining space science programs, the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Wednesday.

In his first public explanation of the Administration’s surprise decision to again redesign the troubled space station, NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said the $30-billion project had become “an unacceptable bow weight churning on ahead, threatening to wash away the other meaningful things that we do.”

President Clinton, Goldin said, wants to reduce not only the $30-billion development cost of the space station, but also cut in half the long-term operational costs, which have been variously estimated at $60 billion to $118 billion over 30 years. The figures were the most specific released to date about the size of the reductions being sought.

Cuts in the space station project will have a major impact in Orange County, home to McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co. in Huntington Beach. One of the space station’s three prime contractors, McDonnell Douglas holds station contracts worth about $3.5 billion and employs 1,500 workers on the project at its Orange County plant.

A second prime contractor, the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell International, is based in Canoga Park. More than 60 California companies and 4,200 workers have a stake in the project.

During an address to the American Astronautical Society in suburban Virginia, Goldin said NASA and its contractors must adjust to the post-Cold War world, in which space projects no longer can be justified on the basis of national prestige.

“Human and robotic space flight, space science . . . exploration and the pursuit of new . . . technologies have to stand on their own merits,” Goldin said. “They cannot stand as an entitlement program.”

The Administration expects that the cutbacks will free money for the nation’s other space science programs, such as unmanned planetary probes and efforts to examine environmental conditions on Earth with orbiting satellites.

During the speech, Goldin outlined the major goals he has set for a team of outside engineers that has been charged with developing a new design for the space station by June 1.

One way to cut development costs, Goldin said, would be to dramatically reduce the number of space shuttle missions needed to assemble the laboratory, which would orbit 200 miles above the Earth. The most recent design had called for 17 shuttle assembly missions, beginning in November, 1995, and concluding early in 2000.

Goldin also suggested that NASA would seek means to resupply the space station other than flying the space shuttle. A resupply mission with an unmanned rocket, for example, might cost significantly less than sending up the manned orbiter.

In addition, Goldin suggested that the planned life span of the station would be far shorter than the three decades envisioned earlier.

“We are no longer in a position to try to build a huge infrastructure that operates for decade after decade in space,” Goldin said. “When we decided to build a space station with a 30-year life, we aimed high. The reality is that we simply cannot afford that approach any longer.”

The NASA chief vowed that the redesigned station will be finished and placed in orbit by the end of the decade, and that it will achieve the original scientific goals of providing a platform for studying human biology and materials processing in a near-weightless environment.

Critics, however, have suggested that cutting the station’s costs is sure to compromise its already diminished scientific capabilities.

For example, the last space station design called for separate living and laboratory modules for a crew of four to be suspended from an aluminum backbone the length of a football field. Large solar arrays attached to the ends of the aluminum “truss” would provide power. Eliminating the truss, as some have suggested, would almost certainly reduce the amount of power available to conduct scientific experiments.

Construction of the truss is one of the prime responsibilities of McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co., which also is developing the space station’s command and control systems.

But Goldin cautioned contractors that they cannot think of their self-interests as the redesign proceeds.

“If you wear your corporate hat . . . you will destroy what we have,” he said. “You’d better put on a baseball cap that says, ‘United States of America’ or we’re not going to have a coherent space program.”