🚀 go-pugleaf

Jeff Vincent
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                      2 p.m. EDT
                                                    April 5, 1989

N89-29

NOTE TO EDITORS:

OUTGOING NASA HEAD FOCUSES ON BUDGET, SPACE STATION ISSUES

     In his final speech as NASA Administrator, Dr. James 
C. Fletcher today called Space Station Freedom "a tempting 
target" for budget-cutters and warned that significant reductions 
in the program would have dire consequences for the nation's 
future in space.

     "It's time this fact is understood," Dr. Fletcher said at 
the Fifth National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo.  
"If cut significantly, Space Station Freedom will be cancelled 
and we will deliver a clear message to our children and the rest 
of the world:  The United States intends to leave the business of 
space exploration to others."  The symposium is sponsored by the 
U.S. Space Foundation.

     Fletcher acknowledged he's been accused of "crying wolf" 
about NASA budget cuts.  But "when the wolf is at the door, as it 
has been for the last three years," he said, "it's prudent to 
sound an alarm."

     Reflecting on his service as NASA administrator, Fletcher 
said he would be "returning to private life with the deep 
satisfaction of having participated in a truly extraordinary 
reversal of our national fortunes."  He was named to the position 
-- his second appointment as head of NASA -- 4 months after the 
Challenger accident.

     "We have weathered severe setbacks.  Chastened by the hard 
lessons of crisis, we have recovered and returned to the task 
ahead," he said.  "Today, NASA is a strong and flexible 
instrument of national policy, an instrument I confidently hand 
over to my successor."