AIA Asks Bush, Kerry to Back Increased NASA Funding
(Source: Aviation Week's Aerospace Daily and Defense Report, Kathy
Gambrell, July 8, 2004;
http://www.aviationnow.com)
The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) has sent letters to President
Bush and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), asking them to support increased
funding for NASA in fiscal year 2005 and beyond.
"We just wanted to remind both candidates that this part of the
aerospace industry is enormously important to us. It's enormously
important to the American people and we need to make sure that NASA is
adequately funded to meet this important need of the future," said AIA
President and CEO John W. Douglass.
NASA is seeking $16.2 billion for 2005, an $866 million increase over
the agency's 2004 budget. Of that increase, $374 million has been
earmarked for safety improvements to the shuttle fleet.
Douglass said that while Bush released his overall vision for the space
program earlier in the year (DAILY, Jan. 15), the AIA wanted to
encourage him to continue his sustained support for the agency.
"Your administration's proposed increase for FY '05, $866 million, will
advance the critical work of safely returning the shuttle to flight,
completing assembly of the International Space Station, and rekindling
robotic and human programs for exploration activities beyond low-Earth
orbit," said the AIA's letter to Bush.
Bush has proposed an ambitious space exploration initiative that would
return the space shuttle to flight but retire the vehicle from service
in 2010. It calls for NASA to develop a new Crew Exploration Vehicle,
return humans to the moon by as early as 2015 and then take them on to
Mars.
Douglass said it is important that the United States remain competitive
with other countries. In the 1960s, the only nations with access to
space were the United States and the Soviet Union, Douglass said. In
that decade, the United States accounted for 60-70 percent of the space
launches, with the Soviet Union averaging about roughly 20 percent. The
number of U.S. space launches has dropped to roughly 25 percent overall,
Douglass said, while the number from Europe has increased sharply.
European challenge
"Europe has a plan for the future, and we think that Europe is also
challenging us very heavily in commercial aviation, which means NASA has
got to pay attention to its aeronautics budget, and not just aeronautics
to support the space program, but aeronautics to support commercial and
civil aviation and even military aviation here in the United States,"
Douglass said.
Kerry has not been as supportive of Bush's plan. Kerry's campaign has
said that the Massachusetts senator would either maintain or expand
funding for NASA if he wins the White House, but does not support Bush's
exploration program (Daily, May 4). Douglass said he wants to hear
Kerry's proposals for the aerospace agency.
"Kerry has said he supports a very robust NASA budget and a strong space
program, but he has been a little bit critical of Bush's program. So
we're saying to Kerry, if you don't like what the president has
proposed, what's your proposal? We urged him to put some meat on the
bones on his views," Douglass said.
In his letter to Kerry, Douglass wrote that "America's space industry
must be able to rely on a stable, long-term vision during the tenures of
future administrations that continue the space legacy initiated by
President Kennedy's moon program."
Kerry has voted both for and against NASA spending. As a member of the
Senate, he voted against an amendment in 1993 to cut the space station's
budget by $1.4 billion to reduce the federal deficit. In 1994, Kerry
called for killing the space station and the National Aerospace Plane
Program, and in 1995, he voted to cut $1.8 billion in funding from
NASA's Human Space Flight Program.
Douglass said he did not place much stock in a presidential candidate's
senatorial voting record because senators often have other priorities to
consider when deciding what issues to support. That, he said, can result
in senators casting conflicting votes from session to session.
