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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 1970)
■ •: : - - : THE BATTALION Page 4 College Station, Texas Wednesday, January 14, 1970 Purse Strings Tightening On NASA Programs By Harry F. Rosenthal WASHINGTON (A>)—After en joying lavish funds in the ’60s for its exotic forays into space, NASA is beginning the ’70s with a purse drawn so tight it can barely stay aloft. It won the ’60s race with the Russians; it is losing out to the national needs of the ’70s. Its already shrunken work force is being cut by 50,000 people. Other curtailments may signal an indefinite delay in sending men to Mars and a slowdown by at least a year in the next big space moves—building a space shuttle and advanced earth stations. To save money, the space agen cy will stretch out its moon land ing flights to two a year for the seven flights remaining, skipping 1972 entirely. It will postpone a planned unmanned landing on Mars by at least two years and order no more Saturn 5 rockets beyond the eight being built or nearing completion. In the manner of a man dis cussing the terminal illness of a close friend, administrator Thom as O. Paine announced the cuts Tuesday, saying he is “taking actions to redirect portions of our space program to bring NASA’s total operations in line with the budget which we will work with in fiscal 1971.” With three moon flights in the current fiscal year, NASA’s spending will be about $3.6 bil lion, down from a high of $5.25 billion in 1965 and $5,175 billion in 1966. “NASA can move forward strongly while still achieving greater economy in 1971,” Paine said. “While we will be reducing our total effort, we will not dis sipate the strong teams that sent men to explore the moon and automated spacecraft to observe the planets.” Paine pointed out the' agency already has announced closing of its Electronics Research Center in Cambridge, Mass. “We esti mate,” he added, “that the total number of Americans working in NASA programs will decline from 190,000 at the end of fiscal year 1970 to about 140,000 at the end of fiscal year 1971.” Last September, while the na tion still was flushed with the success of the Apollo 11 first landing on the moon, President Nixon received recommendations from his task group on space goals. It listed three choices, all in corporating development of the space shuttle — an airplane-like craft able to fly into space and return repeatedly — and the ad vanced space station, to house 100 persons. Two of the options envisioned landing men on Mars in the 1980s. The third left the timetable open. It was known the President favored a progressive program and the announcement was ex pected about Christmas. A budget allocation of $3.8 billion—enough to get started on the long-range goals—was thought possible for the next fiscal year. But following passage of the tax reform bill the President took soundings of the mood of the people, White House sources say, and apparently found, going to the moon for more rocks was not of high priority. As a result, there is still a chance he may cut off some moon flights. Paine indicated the new budget would provide some money for design studies for both the space shuttle and space station. But failure to include money to start buying hardware will delay that program at least by a year. It will cost about $8 billion to de velop a space shuttle—necessary to transport men and supplies to space stations. The lack of activity already has sent space workers by the hundreds looking for other jobs and the drop-off is bound to con tinue—posing grave problems to rebuilding the teams should the pace quicken again. 1HE By N( By The A Norman of the Am' paper Edi approval I report of i violence i: said the governmei the press. Isaacs' views givi the media port Mono the Natic sion. The tas AgC OnF An A& environ mr been elec of five to ernment < lems in Statpp. David Ala., won conferenc for stude: ana, Art New Mex The sti the Feder trol Adn: the confe the Inter Zoellnei Student Commissi the Collep Graduate RE Up T I 1 it C V. r / / \ c o ti er S 8-