Bush to Propose Budget Increase for NASA $470 million
Reuters
Sunday, February 2, 2003; 7:22 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush will propose a nearly $470 million boost in NASA's budget for fiscal 2004, an administration official said on Sunday, promising investigators would look into whether past cutbacks played any part in the space shuttle Columbia disaster.
The disaster has prompted calls for increased spending to upgrade the aging shuttle fleet and develop a new space plane. Columbia broke up over Texas on Saturday, killing all seven astronauts aboard, just 16 minutes before it was due to land in Florida.
While NASA's budget has been reduced over the past decade, a senior administration official said Bush would boost funding for the space agency by almost $470 million to $15.47 billion in his fiscal 2004 budget.
The budget, which will be released on Monday, does not include costs associated with Saturday's disaster.
The administration official would not give a breakdown of NASA's budget, so it was unclear if it would include additional money for the shuttle program or safety upgrades.
NASA's total budget for 2003 was $15 billion, a slight increase from the previous year.
The space shuttle program was budgeted at $3.208 billion for 2003, $75 million less than in 2002.
Asked if additional money for NASA would be needed, the official said: "A large increase has been planned. A large increase will be proposed and we will continue to work with Congress to determine what the right amounts should be."
The official said it was too soon to say whether the disaster was in any way connected to past cutbacks in the shuttle program.
"It is not clear to anybody what impact, if any impact, there was as a result of funding. This very well may have nothing to do with any funding concerns," the official said. "All of these, though, must be reviewed as part of the overall investigation."
Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, told CNN the administration had been delaying safety upgrades on the space shuttle.
"That is inexcusable," said Nelson, who once flew on the shuttle.
"Although that delay and those upgrades, I don't think, has any connection with yesterday's tragedy. Ironically, out of this tragedy we will now probably see the safety upgrades sped up," Nelson added. |
