Washington DC – October 13, 1997 – The final version of the NASA FY98 budget contains protected funding for the Bantam small space booster project and the X-Rocket research programs, but not the follow-on program, SpaceCast learned last week as the U.S House of Representatives neared approval of the space agency's budget, with the Senate voting likely in the week just ahead. The final budget numbers approved by a joint conference committee are believed to be close to the administration's request, with few major changes or cuts to the dollars for the fiscal year now already nearly two weeks old.

The Bantam program received $20 million to continue design studies awarded

last fiscal year to four space businesses. Bantam aims to build and

eventually fly two $40 million prototype small launch vehicles of entirely

new design, and eventually select one for commercial development by

industry. The launcher, which can be either expendable or reusable, must

provide a ride to orbit for a small payload for under $1.5 million in total

cost, a major reduction in today's launch prices.

But one project that didn't get any money was the proposed "Future X"

advanced space transportation program, pitched as a possible dedicated "new

start" for FY98. NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin proposed Future X

earlier this year as part of NASA's ongoing advanced space transportation

research conducted out of the Marshall Spaceflight Center near Huntsville,

Ala.

While Goldin's FY98 budget had already been submitted when the project

was announced late last winter, and thus contained no new money identified

for Future X, Congressional planners were hoping to insert specific money

earmarked for the program within the space agency's space transportation

research accounts. That didn't happen, however. Even a few million would

have been enough to begin trade studies and other research aimed at

development of a new, more radical single stage space vehicle prototype

than the X-33 now under development. The X-33 project, as well as the

smaller X-34 test program, is believed to have both been fully funded in

the budget recommended by the joint House-Senate committee. Such a

committee is always formed when the House and Senate pass budget proposals

that differ, as was the case this year with the NASA dollars.

Future X is identified as a potential launch vehicle that would use

technology not now on the drawing boards to achieve operational space

launch well into the 21st century. As described earlier in the year, first

test flights in the program wouldn't begin until the X-33 system has become

operational, and a working version of the Future X craft wouldn't come on

line to space users until after the second decade of the 21st century.