Mar 10 1981
From The Space Library
Dr. Alan Lovelace, NASA's acting administrator, held a briefing on the agency's FY82 amended budget, which he said "eliminates or defers all FY81 and FY82 new program initiatives in space science, aeronautics, and applications." At a press conference January 15, he had discussed the budget for NASA proposed by the previous administration, just over $6.7 billion for FY82. The revised budget would reduce NASA funds by $604 million to a new total of $6.122 billion. The revisions preserved Space Shuttle test-flight schedules and research and development; allowed continued production of a four-orbiter fleet on the present schedule, which "meets the critical needs for both civil and military missions"; and kept the option for a fifth orbiter.
However, the funding would delete the solar-polar spacecraft; cut space and aeronautical technology development; delete construction-of-facilities projects; and eliminate 840 civil-service positions. It would defer the VOIR and the gamma-ray observatory launch from 1986 to 1988; cancel NOSS, a three agency project; end the technology transfer program; and cancel funding for energy-technology activities, a geological applications program, and a search and-rescue mission.
Aeronautics programs canceled or deferred included efforts in vertical/ sidewise takeoff and landing (V/STOL) systems, supersonic cruise research, the variable-cycle engine, and the proposed numerical aerodynamic simulator. A initiative in large, composite primary aircraft structures was eliminated.
Other programs affected were materials processing in space, AgRISTARS, instrumentation for an upper-atmosphere research satellite, and the Spacelab flight schedule.
Lovelace said that adjustments in FY81 figures would reflect impact of decisions on the FY82 budget: an increase of $60 million in 1981 Space Shuttle changes and upgrading would "provide added schedule confidence" in Shuttle development and testing and in production of orbiter vehicles. The amended budget reflected NASA's decision announced in January to discontinue the three-stage version of an inertial upper stage and to modify the Centaur upper stage instead. The modified stage would allow NASA to fly the Galileo mission to Jupiter on a single launch in 1985 and could be used for a restructured solar-polar mission in 1986 and VOIR in 1988. (NASA Text, Mar 10/81)
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