 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Funding threatens US return to moon by 2020: lawmaker
Washington (AFP) June 17, 2009 US ambitions of returning to the moon by 2020 and then heading to Mars risk being grounded because of "unrealistic" funds allocated to NASA, said Senator Bill Nelson, a former space shuttle astronaut, on Wednesday. "NASA simply can't do the job it's been given -- the president's goal of being on the moon by 2020," Nelson told the first public meeting of the Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee in Washington. Nelson, a senator from Florida -- home to the Kennedy Space Center -- said that for years NASA's budget has been too small for its tasks. "And that has led us to the point where we are now: with a space shuttle that's going to shut down but without the new rocket developed in time to pick up where the shuttle leaves off," Nelson said. When President Barack Obama unveiled the federal budget last month, he ordered a review of the problem-plagued, budget-busting rocket that NASA hopes will be on launch pads by 2015 to replace its shuttle fleet, due to be retired next year. The cost of the next-generation rocket has ballooned from an initial 28 billion dollars to about 44 billion due to technical troubles and cost overruns. Nelson said that Congress last year authorized six billion dollars for NASA's space exploration program in 2009, a sum "well above what the president requested" in the budget. Obama's budget proposal would leave the US space program with "a four or five year gap with no American human-rated launch system and that would expand to six, seven, possibly eight years," said Nelson. With no US means to get to the International Space Station -- in which the United States has invested 100 billion dollars, according to Nelson -- US astronauts would have to hitch a lift into space with the Russians for several years. "I don't think anybody wants us to continue in the circumstance where the only way to get to the International Space Station ... would be in a multi-year period dependent upon the Russians," Nelson said. "It's my hope that our foreign relations with the Russians are going to get better, but who knows what the geopolitics are going to be later in this decade." Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News
NASA Awards First Recovery Act Contract For Johnson RepairsHouston TX (SPX) Jun 17, 2009 Using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, NASA has awarded to DRI Commercial Corporation of Irvine, Calif., a contract to repair critical infrastructure facilities at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston that were damaged during Hurricane Ike in September 2008. The funds will be used to perform roof repairs and roof ledge replacements at Johnson. The comp ... read more |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2009 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook