IN CASE YOU MISSED IT – Houston
Chronicle
NASA’s
Constellation gets big boost in Senate
“Backers of NASA’s
Constellation program scored a significant victory Thursday by winning the
Senate Appropriations Committee’s support to block the Obama administration
from terminating any part of the $108 billion back-to-the-moon program before
October. The maneuver was pushed by Sen.
Kay Bailey Hutchison of Dallas and proposed by Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah.” May 14, 2010
Houston Chronicle — NASA’s Constellation gets
big boost in SenateOrder keeping it alive is
added to must-pass bill funding the war
By STEWART M. POWELL
WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON — Backers
of NASA’s Constellation program scored a significant victory Thursday by
winning the Senate Appropriations Committee’s support to block the Obama
administration from terminating any part of the $108 billion back-to-the-moon
program before October.
And they did it by
piggy-backing the restriction onto a must-pass wartime supplemental budget
package involving combat dollars for Afghanistan.
Up until Thursday,
the battle over NASA has largely been a political war of words — and this is
the first time that a congressional committee has responded directly to
President Barack Obama’s NASA proposal since February, when the president
declared the Constellation program should be shelved.
The maneuver was
pushed by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Dallas and proposed by Sen. Robert
Bennett, R-Utah.
By including the
language in a $58.8 billion budget supplemental to underwrite the costs of
combat, Hutchison and her allies virtually assured that the restriction will be
adopted by the full Senate and House and signed by Obama — because the costs of
the Afghanistan war must be funded.
The language
declares that NASA funds “shall be available to fund continued performance of
Constellation contracts, and performance of such Constellation contracts may
not be terminated for convenience by the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration in Fiscal Year 2010.”
Unanimous approval
The amendment sailed
through unanimously.
“The
administration’s proposals have not been approved by Congress and probably will
not be, and it was premature for them to begin terminating procedures,” added
Hutchison, a member of the 30-member panel.
“In the supplemental
bill, we were able to stop the administration from terminating contracts for
work on the Constellation program,” she added.
Until now,
Houston-area lawmakers have relied on a public relations campaign to save the
moon program — or at least extend the life of the space shuttle — through
letter writing and lobbying to build support in Congress. The Constellation
program is managed by Houston’s Johnson Space Center, home of NASA mission
control for manned operations.
“This is the strongest
indication yet that Congress is still not convinced that the president’s
proposed change of direction to cancel Constellation is the direction that the
nation should take if we want to maintain American leadership in human
spaceflight,’ said Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land. “This action in the Senate
will galvanize the House.”
Culberson has a bill
The spending package
could be the only major budget measure to clear Congress before the mid-term
congressional elections in November.
Rep. John Culberson,
R-Houston is pushing a similar effort in the House Appropriations Committee to
“help save America’s manned space program.”
“I will continue to
use every resource at my disposal to ensure that America maintains its
competitive edge in space,” he said.
Obama wants to kill
the program and shift the money to extending the life of the International
Space Station, fostering a fledgling commercial spacecraft industry and putting
greater emphasis on earth science missions.
Congress members
have been diligently questioning space agency officials about the future of
contractors and employees currently working on Constellation projects. In a
hearing just this week, NASA administrator Charles Bolden was grilled
repeatedly about alleged efforts by NASA to begin terminating or adjusting
contracts with aerospace firms working on the Constellation program.
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