House Backs Space Station Funding, Despite Opposition

In what has become an annual tradition here, the House on Wednesday staved off attempts to reduce the budget for NASA’s international space station.

Much of the debate centered on a $100-million appropriation to help economically strapped Russia pay for its share of the station, which is scheduled to take flight in 2002. Supporters of this payment say it would strengthen diplomatic ties, while opponents liken it to writing “a blank check” to Russia.

Ultimately, the House agreed that the space station, which supports more than 1,000 jobs in Orange County, would receive the full funding NASA has requested--$2.1 billion for 1998.

The station will be an orbiting research lab funded by 14 nations--including the U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada and several European countries. NASA estimates the station’s total cost at $72.3 billion, with the U.S. providing $17.4 billion. Part of the station is being constructed at the McDonnell Douglas plant in Huntington Beach.

Russia says it is unable to fund a key component of the station--the service module, which contains life-support systems for those living on it. The House narrowly defeated, 227 to 200, a move to block the United States from providing the $100 million for the module.

Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.), who has tried unsuccessfully every year since 1992 to kill the entire program, says the additional appropriation was essentially giving money away to Russia.

“I don’t mind helping out Russia, but let’s deal with that in the foreign policy bills that come before this body,” says Roemer, who earlier this year lost his latest effort to have the United States withdraw from the station’s development. “We can’t continue to turn NASA into a foreign aid program.”