International Space Station Has Broad Support
In the United States
09/08/99
The U.S. House of Representatives has rejected the annual
effort to kill NASA's involvement in the international
space station project. Returning from their summer recess,
the House voted 298-121 to defeat an attempt by Reps. Tim
Roemer, D-Ind., and Mark Sanford, R-S.C., to eliminate the
space station, one of NASA's highest profile programs.
A spending bill being debated in the House would provide
$2.4 billion next year for the station, whose first two
components are already orbiting the Earth. Construction
is expected to take five years.
Roemer, who has been trying to terminate the program since
1992, cited its cost overruns and pressures its price tag
put on the rest of the federal budget. One congressional
estimate for building and maintaining the station over its
lifetime is nearly $100 billion. But with space station
contracts spread among many congressional districts,
the program has broad support in Congress.
The station funds were included in a $92 billion measure
financing veterans, housing, science and environmental
programs for fiscal 2000, which begins Oct. 1st, 1999.
U.S. and Russian Astronauts to Train