As the space shuttle Columbia streaks around the planet during its fourth successful flight, scientists and engineers at the nearby Center for Astrophysics (CFA) are anxiously looking several years into the future, when the reusable spacecraft is expected to operate for scientific purposes.

Although another smooth ascension by the shuttle this week indicates a giant step forward for American technology, experts at the CFA say that nation's current commitment to space science remains unclear.

Virtually all funds for the space program now go to mechanical development of the shuttle and experimentation with military missions. Little has been done so far to prepare for potential space science applications.

Inadequate Funding Cited

Experts at the local research center which is jointly managed by Harvard and the Smithsonian Institute, say that the heralded shuttle offers great promise for future research, but they add that existing support for these efforts is inadequate.

One CFA project is currently scheduled for a 1984 shuttle launch, and three others are more tentative. The architects of these highly technical devices say that without a renewed national commitment to space research, the United States may lose its pre-eminence in this field of exploration, a source of national prestige since the early 1960s.

"I don't think our national policy for space science is any more clear than our foreign policy," says Paul Gorenstein, lecturer on Astronomy and a designer of one of the tentative shuttle experiments. "It's possible that the international leadership might pass to Europe."

Richard S. Taylor, the manager of another pending shuttle project, says. "I don't think we'll get back to the so-called good old days of the 1960s, when there seemed to be more money than could be used."

For the last several years, all national development in space technology has revolved around the shuttle, designed to carry cargo and passengers in addition to scientific equipment.

Exploration of planets and comets has been delayed for at least the near future, causing concern among those who conduct more abstract basic research.

Despite plans for a revolutionary space telescope to be mounted on the-shuttle and talk of a permanent space station to serve as another landing-base and research center. CFA scientists say they anticipate a further shrinking of pure space science research opportunities.

International Activity

Gorenstein says that planned experiments in Japan and West Germany in the area of x-ray astronomy will occur several years before his project, known as the Large Area Modular Array of Reflectors (LAMAR).

Although LAMAR is the most advanced x-ray astronomy effort now scheduled in the United States, Gorenstein adds that it would probably not leave the earth's atmosphere on a space shuttle until 1986 or 1987--several years after the next batch of major x-ray experiments abroad.

Gorenstein's LAMAR, and two other CFA experiments, have been out "in limbo", according to one scientist. Funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) since late 1979, these projects have progressed slowly in recent years.