$10.5-Billion Space Lab Supported by Clinton : Aerospace: McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach welcomes word that he’ll ask Congress for funds.

WASHINGTON —  To the relief of the aerospace industry, President Clinton announced Thursday that he will ask Congress to spend $10.5 billion over the next five years to build a simpler, slimmed down orbiting space laboratory that will incorporate much of the work already done on the controversial space station Freedom.

“We need to stay first in science and technology, we need to stay first in space,” Clinton told reporters at a Thursday evening news conference. “I think it would be a mistake to scrap all the work we’ve done.”

The news was especially welcome in Orange County, home to McDonnell Douglas Aerospace in Huntington Beach, one of the project’s three prime contractors. The company holds space station contracts valued at more than $4 billion, and has 3,000 employees working on the program, about 1,000 of those in Orange County.

“We are very pleased and very encouraged,” said McDonnell Douglas spokesman Thomas E. Williams. “We have completed a great deal of work on the Freedom design . . . and we believe we will continue to be very much involved in this important program.”

Faced with a burgeoning budget deficit, Clinton last February ordered the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to develop plans to cut the five-year cost of the space station program from its estimate of $14.4 billion to a maximum of $9 billion.

When the cheapest NASA alternative failed to meet that goal, some in Congress predicted that the President would scrap the program altogether. But Clinton decided to proceed.

“There is no doubt that we are facing difficult budget decisions,” Clinton said in a statement released by the White House. “However, we cannot retreat from our obligation to invest in our future.”

The space station program, Clinton said, “will yield benefits in medical research, aerospace and other critical technology areas.” And, he said, it represents “a model of peaceful international cooperation.”

The Canadian, Japanese and European space agencies have committed $8 billion to the program and were deeply concerned about the United States’ apparently wavering commitment to the project.

Despite Clinton’s announcement, the space station program still faces considerable opposition in Congress. Critics contend that the nation can ill afford the program in tough economic times and that its scientific mission has been hopelessly compromised by constant cost-cutting. Both opponents and supporters predicted that a House vote on the space station next week is likely to be close.

Development and construction costs for the new station would total about $25 billion, including more than $9 billion already spent on the program. It would be ready to accommodate a crew of four astronauts permanently by the year 2001.

Even as Clinton praised the space station’s potential, he called for a major shake-up of NASA’s program management. Specifically, Clinton endorsed an expert panel’s call for a 30% reduction in space station managers employed by NASA and private contractors.

The panel also said that NASA should designate a single prime contractor to oversee the project, instead of the three it now has under contract. “We are going to redesign NASA at the same time we redesign the space station,” Clinton said.

That effort could significantly affect the value of McDonnell Douglas’ space station work. The Times has learned that the Huntington Beach company already has presented a proposal to NASA under which it would assume the responsibility of a single prime contractor.

Under its current contract, McDonnell Douglas is responsible for building the aluminum spar, known as the “truss,” that will form the backbone of the space station. Pressurized cylinders in which astronauts will live and work will be attached to the spar, along with three sets of large solar arrays that will provide the station’s electric power.

In addition, McDonnell Douglas is responsible for the space station’s navigation and propulsion systems, which are to be simplified under the Clinton plan. The truss--and much of McDonnell Douglas’ work--would have been eliminated under a more radical redesign proposal that Clinton rejected.

In a related development, the President, in a letter to the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said that he will fight for continued funding of the $8.3-billion atom smasher in Texas, known as the super-conducting super collider. Both the space station and the super collider have become prime targets for congressional budget cutters.

“Abandoning the (super collider) at this point would signal that the United States is compromising its position of leadership in basic science--a position unquestioned for generations,” Clinton said in the letter to Rep. William H. Natcher (D-Ky.).

Clinton’s decision to push ahead with the space station was immediately hailed by congressional supporters and NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin.

“I am thrilled,” Goldin said. “The President committed to a scaled-down version of the space station that is efficient in the use of people, efficient in the utilization of resources but that turns back real, meaningful science to the people of America and the world. This is going to be a knowledge engine for future generations.”

Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, said that Clinton’s action “preserves good science, saves money, maintains programatic and political continuity, and . . . will honor our international commitments.”

The news was also welcome at the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell International in Canoga Park, which holds a space station contract.

Congressional critics vowed to continue their efforts to kill the program, which has survived a series of votes in Congress since it was first announced by then President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

“We believe the prospects for killing the space station are better now than they have ever been,” Rep. Dick Zimmer (R-N.J.) said at a Thursday press conference.

Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.), another leader of the opposition, added: “We are now going into the fifth and sixth redesigns (of the space station), and we’re not getting more science, we’re getting less.”

The first critical test of the redesigned station’s congressional support will come Tuesday, when the House is scheduled to vote on legislation that sets NASA spending limits. The bill would authorize spending of about $2.1 billion a year for the next six years on the space station and related science programs. Brown, who authored the bill, predicted that the vote will be close.

At a briefing Thursday, senior White House officials said that Clinton has directed NASA to develop a new design for the space station that will blend the best qualities of two of the three lower-cost options developed by NASA during the last three months.

Times staff writer Dean Takahashi contributed to this story.