DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND CERTAIN OTHER INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1977 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1976 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., in room 1318, Everett McKinley Dirksen Office Building, Hon. William Proxmire (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Proxmire and Fong. NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES C. FLETCHER, ADMINISTRATOR ACCOMPANIED BY: DR. GEORGE M. LOW, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR ELMER S. GROO, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR CENTER WILLIAM E. LILLY, COMPTROLLER JOHN F. YARDLEY, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR SPACE DR. ALAN M. LOVELACE, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR CHARLES M. MATHEWS, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR AP- DR. NOEL W. HINNERS, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR GERALD J. MOSSINGHOFF, ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL FOR GERALD M. TRUSZYNSKI, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR ARNOLD M. FRUTKIN, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR INTER- RAYMOND L. KLINE, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR IN- ADMIRAL KENNETH L. WOODFIN, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR PROCUREMENT DR. HARRIETT G. JENKINS, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR DR. JOSEPH P. ALLEN, ASSISTANT LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS (257) ADMINISTRATOR FOR BUDGET REQUEST Senator PROXMIRE. The subcommittee will come to order. The Subcommittee on HUD and Independent Agencies today will take testimony from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on the subject of their fiscal year 1977 budget request. Dr. Fletcher, in lieu of the traditional opening statement about your budget request, this year I would like to set out some aspects of your program that have been most troubling to me so that we can discuss them in greater detail later today and tomorrow. First, the Space Shuttle program. The General Accounting Office has just finished its annual staff report on the shuttle. As with last year's report, there are a number of extremely troubling aspects brought forth by this analysis. In a restrained way the GAO is telling Congress something. They are saying, "Watch out, there are storm signals in this program. They are saying that the current development plan is introducing risks that could result in increased costs, schedule delays and performance degradations. They say you have a $1.1 billion cost growth problem on your hands right now. They question the economic assumptions you have made in the various mission models. They say you have understated Shuttle costs and hidden them in other accounts. They point to various environmental problems. All in all, this is a damaging report from my perspective. Now I have praised NĂSĂ management in the past and rightfully so. You do a good job and deserve commendation. But the Space Shuttle is a different question since it is the financial and technical heart of your program. Therefore, I get the feeling that you defend this program with such vigor that it clouds your analysis of potential problems. These issues are brought forth by the GAO as protection to the American taxpayer, not just scientists or NASA employees but the taxpayer in Madison or Milwaukee or Butte, Mont. Second, I am interested in your views on resurrecting the American SST. Within the last several months, it seems NASA employees have been pushing the SST concept. Perhaps in the Concorde decision you see an opportunity to open the door to an American SST. I don't know. But I want to pursue your actions and statements on this subject in some detail. PREPARED STATEMENT AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Dr. Fletcher, the subcommittee welcomes you this morning, and Dr. Low and Mr. Lilly as well. Please proceed with your remarks. If you could keep your opening remarks to 10 or 15 minutes, we would have a longer period for discussion of the major issues of the day. Your full statement will be printed in the record. [The statement and biography follow:] Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: We appreciate the opportunity to be here today to begin your hearings on NASA's FY 1977 budget estimates. With me at the table are Dr. George Low, Deputy Administrator, and Mr. William Lilly, the NASA Comptroller. Also, as indicated on the witness list provided, we have here the senior NASA officials in charge of each of our principal program areas to respond to your questions on their parts of the budget. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I propose to submit my entire statement for the record and cover orally only some of the most important parts of it and then have Dr. Low cover informally, with a few slides, the other highlights of our FY 1977 program. As shown in the attached table, NASA's FY 1977 budget estimates total $3,697 million, compared to appropriations totalling $3,555 million for FY 1976 (including a pending supplemental amount for civil service pay raises of $20 million). The President's FY 1977 Budget document also includes a projected total estimate for NASA of $3,700 million for FY 1978, in accordance with the requirements of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. This estimate for FY 1978 is essentially identical with the total requested for FY 1977, but does not include allowances for inflation beyond FY 1977. For FY 1977, the NASA budget shows an apparent increase over FY 1976 of $142 million, or 4%. This increase, however, is less than the anticipated rate of wage and price increases due to inflation, so actually there will be, in overall terms, a reduction, we estimate, of about 6% in effort and employment on NASA work in FY 1977 compared to FY 1976. I should also point out that the total NASA FY 1977 budget estimates now before you are about $200 million below the comparable FY 1977 figures, adjusted for inflation, submitted to Congress last year in the President's FY 1976 Budget. Thus, you can see that NASA's budget planning for FY 1977 was sharply impacted by the constraints the President has placed on the total Federal budget for FY 1977. It means that we in NASA have had to reduce ongoing space and aeronautics activities yet another time and defer important work we had hoped to undertake in FY 1977. As reflected in the President's budget, the principal deferrals that have been necessary include: First, a one-year delay in initiating production Second, we have had to postpone, for consideration in next year's budget, starting the development of the Space Telescope. As you know, this project has о been under discussion and study for several years and We have been very mindful of the need to make every Third, we have had to defer also for consideration I might mention at this point that even before the Fourth, we have had to defer once again, for consider- Even though severely constrained, the FY 1977 NASA budget. will permit us to proceed, on a restricted basis, with most of our ongoing space and aeronautics programs. In addition, in contrast to FY 1976, this year's budget fortunately does contain |