Will the U.S. lose the future space race?
Since Congress failed to pass the appropriation bill that covers NASA, the agency's budget is frozen at 2006 levels though Sept. 30. So it will be stuck at $16.3 billion and about $520 million short of President Bush's request as part of his vision for exploration of the moon and Mars.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has a choice on whether to lay off workers, gut science programs, or delay the development of spacecraft Orion to return astronauts to the moon.
Orion is intended to replace the aging space shuttle fleet and carry astronauts to the international space station, the moon and beyond. The spacecraft, being developed by Houston's Johnson Space Center, is scheduled for launch by 2014, four years after the planned retirement of the nation's three remaining space shuttles.
This four-year gap is worrisome to lawmakers and space fans. It is possible that domestic politics and foreign factors may threaten to expand that gap.
NASA was expecting to see a $1 billion increase in their 2007 budget. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, working last year with Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., tried to add $1 billion to NASA's 2007 budget. They hoped the money would shore up all of the agency's programs, help NASA recover from the 2003 Columbia shuttle tragedy and repair damage to space facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi caused by Hurricane Katrina.
But after their amendment was approved by an appropriations subcommittee, it collapsed when the GOP-controlled Congress passed only two of the 11 federal spending bills for fiscal 2007 — those for the military and homeland security.
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The concern is if the United States falters in the manned space race, it will leave a vacuum for other spacefaring nations to take over.
Should the space program go private? Or should private industry get involved in the space effort? Or maybe NASA should start issuing space licenses to companies that want to develop and implement space exploratory programs?
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