Space Station Redesign Gets Mixed Reviews : Congress: Supporters laud scaled- back version but opponents see it as new evidence the program should be scrapped.

Plans to cut the size and price of NASA’s proposed Space Station Freedom drew mixed reviews on Capitol Hill Tuesday, with supporters of the multibillion-dollar project applauding the redesign effort and opponents citing the costs as further evidence it should be abandoned.

During a House subcommittee hearing on three proposals to scale back the orbiting space laboratory, congressional supporters commended Daniel S. Goldin, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, for paring the program’s development and operating expenses.

Goldin accepted the compliment and warned that congressional efforts to permanently ground the program would irreparably harm the nation’s 35-year effort to fly people into space.

“I believe it will be a calamity if we do not have a human space flight program,” Goldin told members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s space subcommittee.

But House critics noted that NASA’s three-month redesign effort missed by $3 billion the target set by the Clinton White House of squeezing the space station budget to no more than $9 billion over the next five years.

“I do believe that the President gave NASA an impossible task, and we shouldn’t be surprised that NASA failed to perform,” said Rep. Dick Zimmer (R-N.J.), a longtime opponent of the space station program who said Tuesday that he found none of the three proposed redesigns acceptable.

“It is my conclusion that among all the options that have been proposed, the option the committee should accept is none of the above,” Zimmer said.

But Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) disagreed. “The real mistake would be to press the ejection button just as the plane is about to take off on its first flight,” said Rohrabacher, whose district includes the McDonnell Douglas plant working on the project.

There are 3,000 employees at the McDonnell Douglas Space Systems unit in Huntington Beach. The company, one of three prime contractors for the program, holds space station contracts worth more than $4 billion.

The space station’s first test in the 103rd Congress could come as early as next week, when the House is expected to vote on legislation authorizing NASA funding over the next six fiscal years.

The bill, which will face challenges from Zimmer and others, is to be considered today by the House science panel. As proposed, it would authorize about $2.2 billion a year for the space station and related NASA science programs, enough to keep the project afloat.

“This plan funds (the) space station at a level that can be sustained without breaking the bank, while still delivering a station that has the capabilities for the important scientific and engineering research that the nation needs,” said Rep. Ralph M. Hall (D-Tex.), who chairs the space subcommittee.

But on the other side of the Capitol, several senators said Tuesday that the space station and the $8-billion super-conducting super collider are among the first programs likely to be targeted as the Senate searches for more cuts in President Clinton’s budget.

“The super collider is in big trouble,” Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) said. “The space station may have more of a chance, but in these times neither makes much sense.”

President Clinton is expected to decide next week whether his Aministration will push for any of the three lower-cost, space station options developed by NASA.

A top White House official suggested Tuesday that Clinton would not necessarily fight hard for the program if it runs into trouble on Capitol Hill.

Referring to both the space station and the super collider, White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers told reporters, “Those are both in the President’s budget at this point. He supports both of them. We’ll see what gets worked out.”

Clinton ordered NASA last February to come up with three options that would cut space station development costs over the next five years to either $5 billion, $7 billion or $9 billion. After three months of study, NASA concluded that the closest it could come was spending $11.9 billion over the next five years for a radical new design that calls for launching a core space station, a 93-foot-long cylinder, aboard a single space shuttle flight.

Other options, which would more closely resemble plans for the earlier space station, would cost up to $13.3 billion over the next five years.

The total development and construction cost of the most expensive of NASA’s new space station options would amount to about $30.3 billion, including about $11 billion already spent. That compares to a revised NASA estimate of about $35 billion for the old space station design.

Times staff writer Michael Ross contributed to this story.