Worldandnation: Nelson a force in shuttle hearing

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Bill Nelson, the indisputable space enthusiast who as a boy watched rockets pierce the sky over his home in Rock Point, is mounting opposition to the Bush administration's proposed cuts in shuttle safety upgrades.

Overruns in labor costs and benefits have left NASA with a $218-million budget shortfall that the White House has sought to make up for by deferring some safety improvements scheduled for next year.

The agency is struggling with $4-billion in unpaid bills accrued from the international space station. President Bush has proposed a small increase to about $14.5-billion a year.

Throughout the summer, Nelson has claimed that the NASA budget could starve the shuttle program and put astronaut lives at risk. He is not the chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, but will be the behind-the-scenes director of today's hearing on shuttle safety.

Virtually every government agency expected to benefit when surpluses were fat and economic expectations were happy. Now that government receipts are dropping, the watchword again is fiscal restraint.

But some of the witnesses at today's hearing will argue for restraint in other areas. The safety improvements, they will say, cut the risk of a Challengerlike disaster in half and allow NASA to continue six flights a year. Budgetary squeezes have forced NASA to postpone two flights.

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