Goodbye to Nasa's Glory Days

By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

Insiders predicted the announcement would come in the State of the Union address in January. But the President's speech passed with no mention of the much touted space initiative. When the plan was finally unveiled at the White House last week, the reason for delay became clear: the President's new space policy so downplayed the role of NASA, once the unchallenged ruler of the space program, that NASA Administrator James Fletcher had been waging a last- ditch fight against aspects of it. Even so, in the end good soldier Fletcher declared, "We're all working together. The military is going to be in space, science is going to be there, but the private sector is also going to be there in a much more serious way."

The Reagan initiative was long overdue. While the nation's manned space program has been grounded since the Challenger disaster, the commitment of Americans to space exploration remains firm. In a poll taken for TIME by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, most respondents agree that it is important for the U.S. to be the world's leading space-faring nation, and more than half fear that the U.S. has slipped behind the Soviets. Washington's dilemma has been how to maintain pre-eminence in space without exacerbating record budget deficits. Reagan's answer surprised no one: privatize wherever possible. True, his plan reasserted NASA's central role in manned space flight. It called for $1 billion in funding next year for the agency's ambitious, $30 billion space- station project and $100 million to start exploring Pathfinder technologies to establish a base on the moon and send missions to Mars. It called on NASA and the military to cooperate in building a rocket capable of lofting heavy payloads for Star Wars and the space station.

But far more significant were Reagan's promises to encourage private-sector participation. Commercial space firms, for example, were assured that federal agencies would buy their launch services. Companies across the country saw the new policy as an important symbolic move. "It's great news," said Bruce Jackson, a Houston space-engineering consultant. "It's a shot in the arm, and it will snowball." But without long-term funding, presidential promises mean little. Said Consultant Christopher Kraft, former head of the Johnson Space Center: "The proof of the pudding is, Where's the bucks?"

Federal dollars have already been committed to the Industrial Space Facility, an unmanned mini-space station designed by Houston's Space Industries, Inc. The Reagan initiative calls on NASA to become the primary tenant aboard such a facility to the tune of some $140 million a year -- the major complaint of NASA's Fletcher. The agency recently has been fighting ISF for fear that ax-wielding Government budgeteers will see the laboratory as an alternative to its own expensive space lab. Says one Commerce Department source bluntly: "NASA fears it's an effort to kill the space station."

NASA's concern was understandable. Last fall Congress slashed $342 million from the agency's $767 million space-station funding request, then voted $25 million in start-up money for ISF. NASA resistance to the mini-station had prompted a group of Senators led by Wisconsin Democrat William Proxmire to hold up some $97 million in funding until the space agency would go along with the smaller project.

NASA's opposition was probably foredoomed. At $700 million, ISF not only is much cheaper than the big station but could go into orbit by 1991 -- five years after the successful Mir orbiter was launched by the Soviets, but six years before NASA's maxi-station becomes operational. Besides, say ISF proponents, it poses no threat to NASA. Designed primarily for materials research and automated manufacturing, it will use little new technology and carry no life-support systems for visiting astronauts. Explains Space Industries CEO Maxime Faget, an ex-NASA engineer: "We're an interim step toward the space station." At least, says Thomas Lee, deputy director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, the new policy "gives us a clear understanding of the long-term priorities."

In short, NASA was force-fed a harsh dose of reality: the glory days of the 1960s are long gone. It may be that the only way the U.S. can remain a power in space in the face of a strong Soviet manned program and aggressive foreign commercial ventures is if NASA shares the costs -- and the rewards. The question now is whether a policy outlined by a lame-duck President will carry much weight with his successors.

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CREDIT: TIME Chart by Joe Lertola

CAPTION: HOW AMERICANS FEEL ABOUT THE SPACE RACE.

DESCRIPTION: Results of poll on relative positions of United States and USSR in space exploration; color illustration of rocket after launch from earth.

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CREDIT: TIME Diagram by Joe Lertola

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DESCRIPTION: Diagrams of United States' industrial space facility and proposed space station and Soviet space station Mir.

With reporting by Jerry Hannifin/Washington and Richard Woodbury/Houston