NASA chief defends emphasis on shuttle and space station

Members of the House Science Committee expressed anguish Thursday over budget cutbacks and slowdowns in NASA's science and space exploration programs as the agency's administrator said limited resources required him to set a higher priority for the continuation of manned space effort and the International Space Station.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin testified before the panel that "strategic implications" drove his decision to put a higher spending priority on the space station and manned flight than on the less glamorous space science missions.

"The plain fact is," Griffin said, "that NASA simply cannot afford to do everything that our many constituencies would like the agency to do. We must set priorities, and adjust our spending to match those priorities. NASA needed to take budgeted funds from the science and exploration projections for fiscal 2007-fiscal 2011 in order to ensure that enough money was available to the space shuttle and the International Space Station."

The outcome, he acknowledged, is NASA "cannot afford the costs of starting some new space science missions."

In defending the agency's fiscal 2007 request of nearly $16.8 billion, Griffin cited the costs of such programs as the mission to Jupiter's moon, Europa, and astrophysics missions beyond the James Webb Space Telescope, a next-generation successor to the Hubble.

Griffin tried to assuage committee members who expressed alarm at the shift of resources by assuring them that science and exploration would not be eliminated but simply slowed down.

"It is important to know," he said, "that NASA is delaying these missions, not abandoning them."

House Science Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., said he is "extremely uneasy about the budget," though he understands the administration's rationale for shifting some $2.2 billion from other programs to the shuttle and space station.