CU's Terzian appeals to Congress for higher Space Grant program funding

By David Brand

An appeal to Congress to raise fiscal 2003 funding for NASA's National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program was made April 16 in Washington, D.C., by Yervant Terzian, a Cornell astronomy professor and director of the program in New York state.

Yervant Terzian, the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences at Cornell, urges increased funding for NASA's Space Grant program -- which he directs in New York state -- before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Veterans Administration, Housing and Urban Development, April 16. Max Taylor

Terzian noted that the 2003 federal budget recommendation of $19.1 million for the program, which operates in every state plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, was a reduction from the $28 million requested by the Space Grant program and below fiscal 2002 funding of $24.1 million. The reduced appropriation, he noted, would set back the program to funding levels that had lasted for several years before fiscal 2002.

Testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Veterans Administration, Housing and Urban Development and independent agencies, Terzian reminded representatives that every year the consortia that make up the Space Grant program award more than 2,200 scholarships and fellowships to students. "These are the students who will fill the high technology jobs in NASA and the aerospace industry in the years ahead and hopefully lead our nation to new horizons," said Terzian, who is the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences at Cornell.

The NASA Space Grant program was created by Congress in 1987 and now has almost 800 affiliates, including 513 colleges and universities, 69 businesses and industries, 41 state and local entities and 169 other entities, such as museums and libraries. Terzian, who has been director of the Cornell-based New York Space Grant Consortium for eight years, said that in testifying he was representing all of the nation's Space Grant directors.

In appealing to the subcommittee for an appropriation of $28 million, the amount specified in the last NASA authorization bill covering fiscal 2001 and 2002, Terzian noted that the funding must support an award of $475,000 a year to only half the states. The remainder receive only $220,000 a year. "Obviously, most states are working and hoping to get to the $475,000 level. New York is one of the most populated states and the competition within the state for funding is severe," he said.

The Space Program, he noted, is conducting a competition to raise four or five additional states to the higher funding level, and it hopes to increase funding to another five or six states. "The Space Grant directors sought the additional funding and the focus on work-force development because we believe that it is so important to attract, educate and retain young Americans in high technology jobs," he said.

Improved funding for the Space Grant program also would allow the start of a nationwide effort to develop a network of student-built-and-operated satellite programs. "This year's proposal focuses on scientific experiments which can be conducted throughout the U.S. and which will help students develop practical, work-oriented skills by designing, building, launching and operating missions of growing complexity," Terzian said.

He told the committee members: "We who participate in the Space Grant program believe that it has a strong base of accomplishments and that it reaches students and faculty in a way that no other program does. For a relatively small amount of federal funding, coupled with leveraged resources, Space Grant is contributing to the development of students, teachers and professionals educated and trained to help maintain the United States' premier position in science and technology."