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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.
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