An influential member of Congress said Wednesday that he believed NASA should adopt a slower approach to its new space exploration program because of budget concerns.

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY). Credit: Jeff Foust

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), chairman of the House Science Committee, said in an address during the AIAA's International Policy Seminar on Capitol Hill in Washington that he agreed with the "broad outlines" of the exploration initiative unveiled by President George W. Bush in January, but was concerned with its cost and schedule.

"The pace at which we move ahead probably will have to be slower than what the President proposed because funds are likely to be more limited than he assumed," Boehlert said.

His concerns stemmed from the ongoing debate over the fiscal year 2005 budget. The president's budget proposal called for a 5.6 percent increase in NASA's budget, to $16.2 billion, to help in part pay for the initial stages of the exploration plan. That increase is among the largest in the proposed budget outside of defense and homeland security; the average domestic "discretionary" program in the budget will see an increase of only half a percent, according to Boehlert.

"In such a budget, should NASA receive almost a six percent increase? Is it the highest domestic spending priority? I don't think so, and I doubt my colleagues will either," he said.

Boehlert also noted that it is unlikely that Congress will pass a budget for NASA - as part of an appropriations bill that also includes money for the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, as well as other independent agencies - by the time the 2005 fiscal year begins this October 1. Boehlert predicted that the budget would not be approved until after Election Day in early November, requiring NASA and other affected agencies to subsist on temporary "continuing resolutions" until a final budget is approved. Those continuing resolutions will not include funding for new programs in the exploration initiative that start in fiscal year 2005.

Boehlert also expresses concern that the proposed NASA budget makes too many cuts in other NASA programs, including space science, earth science, and aeronautics, to provide funding for the exploration initiative. He was particularly concerned about cuts in the earth sciences, including climate change research funded in part by NASA. "Do I think that it's more important to know more about the Earth than it is to know more about Mars?" he asked. "I do, and I don't think it's a close question."

Those issues led Boehlert to conclude that the exploration plan - which calls for completing the space station and retiring the shuttle by 2010, developing a replacement Crew Exploriation Vehicle capable of carrying humans into orbit by 2014, and returning humans to the Moon by 2020 - may need to be slowed down. "How much slower? Slow enough to delay a return to the moon beyond 2020? It's too soon to know that." He added that his staff on the Science Committee is working to draft an alternative version of a 2005 NASA budget that would restore some of the cuts in other programs while allowing exploration efforts to get started.

While critical of the budget and schedule components of the exploration plan, Boehlert indicated that he supported what he called the "broad outlines" of the plan, including retiring the shuttle, sending humans to the Moon, and planning for eventual human missions to Mars. "The president deserves enormous credit for doing what many of us had been calling for: laying out a clear vision for the space program, making tough choices, and providing a plan that does not rely on Apollo-like spikes in spending," Boehlert said.

He cautioned, though, that his enthusiasm for the plan does not necessarily carry over to his colleagues in Congress. "I have no idea of how the Congress would vote right now on any of the notions I just mentioned, although I imagine that most members would be reluctant to simply walk away from the human spaceflight program," he said.

"I think it's fair to say that most members of Congress have not begun to wrestle with these questions, or even to take the space initiative seriously, or to ponder what alternatives there are to the President's proposal," he added. "In broad terms there aren't a lot of palatable alternatives if you want to continue the human space flight program."