The price of keeping Space Station in orbit is three times NASA's estimates, according to the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress.

The GAO claims that NASA is underestimating station operations costs by $2.5 billion per year and that NASA's cost estimates of $1.3 billion per year don't include such costs as shuttle flights and communications expenses.

NASA has resisted including shuttle launches in the Space Station costs estimates, and disputes the GAO's estimate of $435 million per shuttle flight.

In 1984, Congress approved construction of a Space Station NASA said would cost $8 billion. By 1993, however, NASA had already spent $11.4 billion according to the GAO. That same year, the Clinton Administration brought the Russians in as key partners on the project claiming that joint development would save $4 billion and 2 years.

Since then, the program's price tag has skyrocketed. The total estimated cost for the Space Station now stands at around $100 billion to build and operate for 10 years.

Some of the cost overruns are the result of delays tied to Russia's problems in finishing its portion of the work. The total cost of dealing with the Russian delays is $1.2 billion, according to the GAO. Some observers estimate more. It is now expected that the Space Station will not be completed until 2004.

Each delay adds exponentially to the already astronomical costs. The GAO noted in a 1998 report that “… assuming NASA would continue to spend at the rate assumed in its current estimate for fiscal year 2003, the program would incur additional costs of more than $100 million for every month of schedule slippage.”

Action is needed to protect taxpayers from Space Station waste (and protect the rest of NASA's solid programs from being crowded out by the out-of -control station spending). Here's a list:

    * Reduce Russia's role in the station to the absolute minimum. Alternatively, end Russia's involvement and find alternative joint projects to keep their rocket scientists busy.

    * Give American taxpayers all the facts about the true cost of the station, and stop hiding station costs in other accounts.

    * Ask NASA and station prime contractor Boeing to make firm, enforceable commitments about cost and schedule that include severe penalties (including canceling the program) for further delays. 

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