NASA Asks Small Increase for ‘94, Promises Austerity : Space: Agency drops work on new launch vehicle, defers dreams of putting astronauts on moon and Mars, trims space shuttle budget.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, preoccupied with the uncertain future of its proposed space station, Thursday asked Congress for a small increase in its $15-billion budget for next year but promised austerity that will save $24 billion over the next five years.

To reduce projected spending over the five years, the agency is dropping work on a huge new launch vehicle, turning to simpler, less expensive communications satellites, deferring its dream of sending astronauts to the moon and Mars, and trimming future budgets for the space shuttle.

But Administrator Daniel S. Goldin found a silver lining in the reductions, which came after the White House directed the agency to do more with less.

“This budget represents a fiscal declaration of independence from old ways of doing business at NASA,” Goldin said. “It represents our independence from old technology, old ideas and old assumptions. This spending plan will move us out of the fog of bureaucracy past the old patterns that were a serious threat to our ability to execute a broad mix of programs vital to the future of our nation.”

Goldin spoke as NASA engineers worked to find a design for a space station that would cost as little as $5 billion and no more than $9 billion over the next five years. The space agency asked for $2.3 billion for work on the station next year.

The program will face a serious attempt on Capitol Hill to wipe it out altogether.

The savings projected over the next five years include $8 billion from earlier projections for space station Freedom, $3.4 billion from space shuttle operations and $1.5 billion from space communications.

Less specific were projected additional savings of $2.8 billion from “infrastructure reductions” and $3.5 billion from “other efficiencies and reductions.”

The leaner and meaner space agency, Goldin said, will press boldly for technological innovation to position itself to capitalize on major new developments when they come and will press for shuttle improvements and breakthroughs in aeronautics.

In the field of aeronautical research and development, he said, NASA will concentrate on higher-speed civil aircraft, more advanced subsonic planes and the use of remotely piloted aircraft to supplement satellites conducting Earth resources observations.

The dream of sending astronauts back to the moon and eventually to Mars is not abandoned, Goldin said, only put off “until we’re ready, and the nation is able to afford it.”

In spite of trimming its plans and its machinery in the years just ahead, the administrator said that there is no plan for layoffs at the agency. Less certain is what will happen with contractors once the Administration has a new space station plan.

A NASA design team, overseen by a blue ribbon panel named by the White House, is to submit by June 7 at least three options for a space station that can be designed, constructed and operated for no more than half the $30-billion total cost of the late space station Freedom.

Although the space agency said that it is dropping work on a new rocket to lift heavy payloads into orbit--an endeavor on which it spent $3 billion last year--it decided to press ahead with a controversial advanced motor for the shuttle system.

The improved version of the reusable booster that now propels the shuttle through the first minutes of launch has been the target of complaints, with critics charging that it survived only because plans are to build it in the home district of Rep. Jamie L. Whitten (D-Miss), for many years chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.