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President Obama signs space program agenda into law

By (Breaking Legal News)

President Obama signed legislation Monday that authorizes $19 billion for NASA in fiscal 2011, funding an additional shuttle flight, accelerating development of a new heavy lift rocket for deep space exploration and pressing ahead with plans to use commercial spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The budget cancels the Bush administration's Constellation moon program, but endorses development of a manned spacecraft for deep space exploration similar to the Orion capsule envisioned for the scrapped moon missions. It also calls for development of new technologies, continued robotic exploration and a major upgrade to the launch infrastructure at the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

"We now have a way forward for NASA," said Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who flew aboard the shuttle Columbia in 1986 and who played a key role in winning approval for a modified version of the president's original budget request. "Now with the signing of this legislation into law, NASA has a blueprint, NASA has a roadmap.

"The goal is not the moon," he said. "We were there 40 years ago. The goal is Mars by a flexible path. The president has stated that goal ... and this legislation which he is signing into law will now set us on that course."

Nelson made the comments during a NASA teleconference with reporters before the president signed the legislation. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden made an opening statement but as has become standard practice, he took no questions and left the briefing in the hands of his deputy, Lori Garver.

In a written statement, Bolden said the agency will "foster a growing commercial space transportation industry that will allow NASA ... to start work on a heavy-lift architecture to take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit and to develop a multi-purpose crew vehicle for use with our new space launch systems."

"We have been given a new path in space that will enable our country to develop greater capabilities, transforming the state of the art in aerospace technologies," he said. "We will continue to maintain and expand vital partnerships around the world. It will help us retool for the industries and jobs of the future that will be vital for long-term economic growth and national security.

Full post as published by Breaking Legal News on October 11, 2010 (boomark / email).