Friday, 10 May 1991 Washington, DC
1. BRILLIANT PEBBLES ZEROED OUT, B-2 CUT BY HOUSE ARMED
SERVICES
Committee on Wednesday. SDI's $1.6B Pebbles, "the cornerstone of
space-based defense," according to the Washington Post, lost on a
party-line vote. Amendments, mainly to cut more from SDI, are
expected before the House votes in two weeks. The lopsided vote
to halt production of the $864M B-2 "stealth" bomber is expected
to be approved by the full House. The Senate will consider the
programs by mid-summer. According to Howard Wolpe (D-MI), the
votes reflect Congress's skepticism of big, high-tech projects.
2. TEXAS DELEGATION DEFENDS SSC/DOE AGAINST GAO IN WOLPE
HEARING.
Citing the budget agreement and the importance of cost-effective
management, the chairman of the House Science, Space and Tech-
nology's long dormant investigations subcommittee called in the
General Accounting Office and DOE officials to testify on the
SSC. In a press briefing, Wolpe raised concerns that the SSC
could be built on schedule for the $8.2B cost; known costs, such
as spare parts and establishment of a new laboratory, would
easily bring the price tag above $9B--and lack of foreign money
to over $10B. Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who last week defended
the space station (WN 3 May 1991), now
worries that this year's $.6B increase in the estimated federal
share of the SSC is "on the road to a bottomless pit." This GAO
testimony produced no new cost estimate, however, but focussed on
"concerns about developing and producing magnets." Joe Barton
(R-TX) and Ralph Hall (D-TX) helped DOE officials allay these
concerns. After five hours of questioning and presentation of 13
pieces of DOE "evidence," the hearing reached what Wolpe declared
to be an impasse, the only agreement being that foreign money was
unlikely to appear soon. SSC overhead charges for receptions, a
trendy Capitol Hill topic, were also scrutinized by the members.
3. SSC DETECTORS MUST DESCOPE AND L* MANAGEMENT WILL
CHANGE,
wrote SSC Director Roy Schwitters in a 3 May memo. After new
reviews estimated costs for each detector in excess of $700M
(compared to the total US $550M detector budget), the director
concluded, "SDC and L* cannot be accommodated within expected
funds." The memo states that "L* will not be supported," but
representatives from all L* institutions were invited to discuss
a detector complementary to the SDC. According to our sources
this means the 2nd detector will survive, but L* spokesman Sam
Ting will not. No schedule delay is mentioned--but we can guess.
4. ASTRONOMERS START GRASS ROOTS CAMPAIGN TO SAVE SPACE
SCIENCE.
An urgent "call for letters" from the Director of
the American Astronomical Society announces that in the next two
weeks the HUD/VA/IA Appropriations Subcommittee must cut at least
$700M from NASA. The space station has trimmed down to
congressional specifications with no room to spare. These cuts
will therefore force a clear choice between the space station and
space science.
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