Re: Bush says about the shuttle....and that the White House would not be all that upset if it never flew again.
- From: "Bob Haller" <hallerb@xxxxxxx>
- Date: 24 Oct 2005 18:36:45 -0700
NASA plans for tight budget florida today
If $5B request isn't met, agency may cut shifts or its work force
BY TODD HALVORSON
and JOHN KELLY
Cutting back. Shuttle Atlantis rolls into the Vehicle Assembly Building
in this 2001 photo. NASA is working on a backup plan that would cut the
number of flights to the International Space Station. FLORIDA TODAY
file photo
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Budget issues
NASA's budget this year is $16.2 billion.
The space agency has asked the White House for up to $5 billion more
for its budget between now and 2010. If approved, the agency would be
able to fly 18 shuttle missions to the space station and one repair
flight to the Hubble Space Telescope.
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CAPE CANAVERAL - NASA does not have enough money to finish building the
International Space Station, and the agency is studying more cuts in
the number of shuttle flights as well as the Kennedy Space Center work
force.
The space agency has asked the White House for up to $5 billion more
for its budget between now and 2010. If approved, the agency would be
able to fly 18 shuttle missions to the space station and one repair
flight to the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin has ordered deputies to craft a backup
plan that would cut shuttle flights by an unspecified amount. Some
options potentially could trigger thousands of layoffs at KSC.
"It is incumbent on us to develop an executable option, or face the
risk of a less desirable option being imposed upon us," Griffin wrote
to space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier in an Oct. 4 memo obtained
by FLORIDA TODAY.
Specifically, Griffin instructed Gerstenmaier to estimate how much
money could be saved and how many jobs could be cut if KSC prepared one
shuttle at a time for launch instead of working on all three orbiters
simultaneously.
The work likely would be done in a single shift, rather than two or
three. Only one shuttle hangar would be fully operational, and work in
the Vehicle Assembly Building would be limited to a single external
tank and solid rocket booster set.
It's not known how many employees it will take to process one shuttle
at a time. It is difficult to determine because safety checks and other
systems would have to remain in place, regardless of the number being
processed.
"You would only really need one team of people working one shift to do
that work," said Jim Banke, vice president of Florida operations for
the Space Foundation. "You would not necessarily need to have full-up
teams at each hangar or every facility that supports operating a whole
fleet."
The backup planning will allow Griffin to show the White House's Office
of Management and Budget options, and the implications for each, as the
Bush administration prepares its 2007 spending proposal for NASA and
the rest of the federal government.
Difficult task
No decisions have been made. The president's next five-year spending
plan is not due to be presented to Congress until February. NASA and
the White House budget writers declined to comment on their internal
discussions about shuttle funding.
However, the agency faces a difficult political environment with people
in Washington looking for ways to offset the growing costs of the war
in Iraq and hurricane reconstruction. And, in recent months, the OMB
has asked NASA for detailed information about cost-saving options
ranging from fewer shuttle flights to retiring the orbiters now instead
of waiting until 2010.
NASA's shuttle program, which currently employs about 14,500 people at
KSC, already has estimated it could fly no more than two or three
missions a year, rather than the four or five currently planned.
One of the hardest hit by any cutback could be the private company that
operates the shuttle fleet on a day-to-day basis, United Space
Alliance. The company, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin partnership which
employs about 6,500 people at the space center, said it has no
near-term plans for layoffs. The company does expect the work force to
shrink as NASA retires the shuttle orbiters and moves on to moon
missions, but it still aims to absorb most of those job cuts through
normal retirements and departures.
"We have not and are not actively considering any layoffs at USA based
on current plans and budgets," company spokesman Jeff Carr said. "We
don't have any reason not to fully expect a reasonable and manageable
solution to the budget challenges that NASA is facing in the out
years."
Slowing shuttle processing to one at a time would accelerate job
reductions at KSC that many expected to happen slowly over five or six
years.
"It's clearly understood that there is going to be a reduction in the
work force as we move away from the space shuttle era and into the Crew
Exploration Vehicle era," Banke said. "What happens in serial
processing is that the work force reduction would happen a lot sooner."
Budget planning
NASA and the OMB now are working on the agency's budget for 2007 and
four subsequent years. A proposal that would cover 19 shuttle missions
was submitted to the OMB, but it is between $3 billion and $5 billion
more than the current White House budget guidelines. OMB asked for a
separate proposal that would keep NASA within the existing five-year
shuttle budget projections.
NASA's budget this year is $16.2 billion. Projections mapped out in
2004 show yearly shuttle costs dropping from $4.5 billion this year to
$2.4 billion in 2010. But the projected shuttle cost reductions did not
materialize.
Science missions
The fiscal crisis is raising questions about the country's ability to
fulfill commitments to launch science labs and other station components
that Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada have spent billions of dollars
and decades developing.
"This is an important test of the political will of the United States
to be a responsible leader in international space affairs," said John
Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington
University in Washington. "It would be unfortunate if the United States
walked away from its past international commitments as it begins its
journey of space exploration."
In an earlier reduction of flights, the agency axed a Japanese-built
centrifuge module and a Russian electrical power tower. And NASA cut
its own plans for a crew quarters module and an American-built rescue
vehicle.
Griffin's instructions to deputies working on the shuttle budget backup
plan is to place high priority on launching remaining international
partner components, such as the European and Japanese science
laboratories, to avoid reneging on commitments President Bush has said
the U.S. will keep.
"Of course we are concerned that there might be a further change of
plans," said Alan Thirkettle, head of the European Space Agency's human
spaceflight program. "And we have established our strategy accordingly
so that we can react to any potential new scenario."
Contact Kelly at 242-3660 or jkelly@xxxxxxxxxxxx
.
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