BUSH WANTS MORE FOR SPACE FLIGHTS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 25, 1992                   TAG: 9201250212
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
BUSH WANTS MORE FOR SPACE FLIGHTS
Affirming his commitment to manned space exploration, President Bush said Friday that his new budget would significantly boost funding for Space Station Freedom and other programs intended to help send astronauts back to the moon, to Mars and beyond.
Bush called for spending $2.25 billion on the orbiting space station, an increase of 11 percent, and said that he would triple funding, to $250 million, for development of a new, more powerful launch system for rockets.
The president also said he would include $80 million in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration budget for design work on a new aerospace plane intended to fly from a runway into Earth orbit. And he called for funds for two unmanned satellite missions to complete the mapping of the moon in anticipation of building a manned base there in the 21st century.
The proposals for the new launch system and the aerospace plane had been announced before, but had not received significant congressional support. Last year, for example, Congress slashed NASA's appropriation for the aerospace plane to only $5 million.
Nevertheless, Bush said, "I'm asking Americans to make a farsighted commitment, one that looks dozens of years and millions of miles beyond the recession and the other things that tend to preoccupy us today."
The president made the remarks to 100 youngsters who are members of the Young Astronauts Council, an organization set up by the White House in 1984 to promote space education.
The space station announcement, part of a campaign to build interest in Bush's State of the Union address Tuesday, came as White House officials said that the president was considering a plan to set a deadline, with a duration of perhaps 100 days, for Congress to act on his economic proposals.
Such a move would have no binding effect. Congress has historically paid little heed to such posturing. But the deadline would let Bush align himself with those in a hurry for economic action and provide a political weapon.
A senior White House official cautioned that Bush might stop short of confrontation and describe the deadline as a goal.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB