NASA Fund Bill Could Be Boon to O.C. Firms

A proposed two-year, $28-billion NASA funding bill introduced in Congress on Thursday includes a special measure that would likely benefit one of Orange County’s two major aerospace companies.

Inserted into the budget bill by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) is a $750-million funding authorization for a new version of the X-33 rocket for which Lockheed Martin Corp. won a $1-billion contract in July. Lockheed outbid Seal Beach-based Boeing North American Inc. and Huntington Beach-based McDonnell Douglas Space Systems for the X-33 development pact.

Rohrabacher said while introducing the measure Thursday that NASA officials have told him they would like to pursue more than one concept for an X-33, also called a single-stage-to-orbit rocket.

The X-33 program envisions a rocket that would operate much like a commercial airplane and would not need to be substantially rebuilt between missions, as happens with the space shuttles. Such a craft, proponents believe, would shave millions of dollars from the cost of every rocket launch and ultimately make commercial space flight economically feasible.

Under the program Rohrabacher proposes, a second version of the X-33 would be developed in the 1998 and 1999 fiscal years. Because Lockheed already has the initial X-33 contract, McDonnell Douglas and Boeing North American--formerly the space and defense unit of Rockwell International Corp.--are the likeliest beneficiaries of the new program if it wins Congressional approval.

Because it is a prototype development project, the contract probably would not create much new employment, but it would put the contract winner back into a race with Lockheed for potentially lucrative, job-generating private and government contracts to develop a fleet of rockets that would take off, reach orbit and return to earth in one piece.

Boeing, which acquired Rockwell’s space operations in December, also has entered an agreement to purchase McDonnell Douglas Corp. later this year. That means Boeing would end up owning both key contenders for the new rocket development contract. Additionally, Boeing North American’s operations include Canoga Park-based Rocketdyne, which is making the engines for Lockheed’s version of the X-33.

Officials at Boeing North Ameri-Dana Rohrabacher

can and McDonnell Douglas said it was too soon to comment on the measure, which still must be approved by several committees and both houses of a Congress that hasn’t looked favorably on increasing the nation’s space budget in recent years.

The Civilian Space Authorization Act introduced Thursday by Rohrabacher, chairman of the House subcommittee on space, increases NASA’s funding about 1% over fiscal 1997 levels--to $13.8 billion in fiscal 1998 and $13.9 billion in fiscal 1999. Almost all of the increase would go to fund the $750 million alternate X-33 development.

In the initial bidding war, McDonnell Douglas had proposed a revolutionary craft that would take off and land vertically, like a rocket in an old Buck Rogers science fiction serial. Rockwell, now Boeing North American, had proposed a much-modified version of the existing space shuttle, configured to take off and land like an airplane.

Lockheed Martin’s winning concept calls for a flying wing-shaped craft that would take off vertically, like a rocket, and land horizontally, like an airplane.

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Ralph Vartabedian in Washington.