Your July 13 editorial, ”Keeping dreams of space alive,” was right on target in pointing out that the space station Freedom has come to symbolize the ”seduction of space,” ”. . . that great adventure in the minds of many.”
As chairman of the House Budget Committee task force on defense, foreign policy and space, I held a hearing recently on the budgetary consequences of
”big science” projects such as the space station and the Superconducting Supercollider. The hearing made it clear that funding these projects may very well come at the expense of other compelling science needs that provide a far stronger contribution to the maintenance of America`s scientific base and our international economic competitiveness.
Under President Bush`s budget proposal, spending on large research and development projects increased by 29 percent over 1991 levels, and would consume an increasing share of the domestic discretionary spending during the first half of the 1990s.
The president`s proposed increases for the space station and
Supercollider represent 50 percent of all his proposed increases for domestic discre-tionary spending in 1994. If we include NASA`s earth observing system, these three largest projects represent 90 percent of the president`s request for domestic discretionary spending growth in 1994. These increases stand in sharp contrast to the $3.6 billion in federal spending reductions in 1994 imposed by last year`s budget agreement.
In these times of severe budgetary constraints, Congress must invest scarce federal research and development dollars wisely and in a way that will ensure the U.S. gets the greatest possible return for those dollars.
