Greg Ganske: “I commend my colleague from Indiana for his persistence on this amendment. We have had this debate a lot. Before I came…”

“I commend my colleague from Indiana for his persistence on this amendment. We have had this debate a lot. Before I came to Congress in 1995, a few years before that, there was a huge debate on this, and the space station only stayed in existence by, I think it was about a one-vote margin. It was very, very close. At that time, opponents to the space station pointed out basically what has happened, and that is that we have had these tremendous cost overruns. The science was questionable. We are now down to a module that will hold three people. It takes two-and-a-half people to keep the thing running, so that leaves about 10 hours a week for somebody to do science in the space station. We are looking at Russia not having kept its commitments. Cost overruns. This amendment would cap the space station funding at $25 billion for construction costs and $17 billion for related launch costs. It would not cancel the space station funding for fiscal year 2002, but the space station is expected to be $4 billion over budget by 2006. That puts it substantially over the $25 billion budget cap imposed in the fiscal year 2001 NASA authorization act. NASA has proposed cutting scientific research to pay for the construction cost overruns. I think it is time for this body to realize that we are just not getting the benefit for the cost.”