Overall research and development accounts for $4.4 billion of the NASA budget request, up 33 percent from this year’s $3.3 billion. The largest share is the $967 million sought for the space station, which received $392 million this year. Other features of the NASA budget request were an increase from $52 million to $84 million for NASA’s participation in the transatmospheric research for the hypersonic aerospace plane project, and a five-fold increase, from $20 million to $102 mil

WASHINGTON—In an attempt to revive a disheartened space science community, NASA has teamed up with other federal research agencies to design a series of small, inexpensive experiments to be carried by the space shuttle during construction of the proposed space station in the first half of the next decade. The program is expected to run on a timetable more in harmony with the academic career of a typical graduate student than the extended period needed to launch a major scientific experimen

WASHINGTON—The hiatus in U.S. unmanned planetary missions, caused by the explosion 13 months ago of the Space Shuttle Challenger, has made it possible for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena to take on a new role as manager for a portion of the agency's troubled space station program. The loss of Challenger has delayed for several years planned missions to Venus, Mars, Jupiter and explorations of the sun that will be carried out by the Laboratory, which is operated by the Ca

WASHINGTON—With the Space Station leading the way, NASA has requested a 16 percent increase in its research and development activities as part of a $9.5 billion budget for next year. R&D would rise from $3.1 billion this year to $3.6 billion under the proposal for fiscal year 1988. The fastest growing program within that category is the Space Station, projected to grow from $420 million this year to $767 million in the new budget. That increase, however, may draw fire from a Congress worri

WASHINGTON—Smaller payloads, alternative boosters and suborbital flights are making it possible for space scientists to carry out their experiments in the aftermath of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger one year ago this month. NASA's billion-dollar budget for space science survived relatively unscathed for the current year, and officials are hopeful that the same will be true for fiscal 1988. But flight time, not money, is the biggest immediate problem for scientists, acknowled