Exercising his new line-item veto powers, President Bill Clinton trimmed $144 million from a defense appropriations bill on October 14, including funding for a military spaceplane and the Clementine II mission.
     Cut by Clinton's veto pen was $10 million in funding for research leading to a military spaceplane. Clinton vetoed funding for the project because, according to Office of Management and Budget director Frank Raines, "this does not meet a Department of Defense requirement."
     Also cut was $30 million for the Clementine Asteroid Intercept Technology Demonstrator mission, commonly called Clementine II. The proposed mission would have used a "mothership" in Earth orbit that would have fired microsatellites to impact three asteroids passing near the Earth during a two-year period.
     While the mission was designed to test satellite systems that could be used in anti-missile systems, no current plans for a missile defense system use space-based weapons, according to Bob Bell, the National Security Council senior director for defense policy and arms control.
     "Proponents of the program in Congress claim benefits for asteroid research," Bell said, "but this is the Defense budget, not the NASA budget." Bell also noted such the proposed mission had not been submitted for review to see if it complies with the ABM Treaty.
     The vetoes came after a review of 750 items, totaling $4.2 billion, added to the 1998 defense appropriations bill not requested by Clinton. The vetoes are not expected to gain much attention in Congress because other items studied, including new aircraft to be built in the district of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and a destroyer to be built in the hometown of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS), were not cut.

A conference committee October 6 approved a 1998 budget for NASA that cuts funding for the agency slightly from 1997 but leaves major programs intact, although conferees added catches to space station funding.
     Conferees approved a $13.65 billion budget for NASA for fiscal year 1998, which started October 1. The amount is a 1.1% increase from the $13.5 billion the House and Senate approved earlier this year, but still less than the $13.71 billion budget NASA had in 1997.
     The International Space Station was budgeted for $2.35 billion in 1998, up from $2.2 billion in 1997. However, only $1.5 billion can be spent before the end of March, 1998. The remaining money will be released only after NASA submits budget projects and other reports regarding the status of the station. The budget also prevents NASA from shifting money from other parts of the agency to fund the space station.
     Overall, funding for human spaceflight, which includes the space station and the space shuttle, dropped 3 percent from 1997 levels, while funding for science and aeronautics increased 4.3 percent from 1997.

Plans for the assembly of the International Space Station remain on schedule, with the first elements to be launched next summer, while a new nation joins the project.
     NASA reported October 1 that the construction of modules and other equipment for the station is on schedule, including the Russian-built Service Module, whose problems have delayed the assembly of the station by at least eight months.
     "All of the partners reported they were on schedule with their contributions to the station," station program manager Randy Brinkley said. "In September, during a General Designer's Review for the third element, the Russian Service Module, we were reassured by the Russian Space Agency that they can meet the scheduled launch date of December 1998."
     Under the current plan, the first two elements of the station, the Russian-built Functional Cargo Block and the American Node 1, will be launched next June and July, respectively. The Service Module will be launched next December, and the first three-person crew will occupy the station in early 1999. Assembly of the station will be completed in 2003.
     On October 14, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and Brazilian Space Agency President Luiz Gylvan Meira signed an agreement that will bring the South American nation into the space station project.
     Under the agreement, Brazil will supply several pieces of equipment to the station to enable experiments to be performed there. Brazil will provide equipment for mounting experiments to the exterior of the station as well as miscellaneous equipment for Earth-observing experiments and logistics.
     In return, Brazil will gain access to the space station facilities for its own experiments, and NASA will provide the nation with the opportunity to fly one astronaut to the station.