Nelson, Griffin to discuss added flights

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson will meet Tuesday with NASA Administrator Mike Griffin to discuss the feasibility of continuing shuttle flights beyond the scheduled end of the program in 2010 and the future of the space station.

The Bush administration had proposed a five-year gap during which the U.S. would rely on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for access the $100 billion International Space Station. However, the Russian invasion of the country of Georgia soured many lawmakers on paying hundreds of millions of dollars to the former Cold War adversary.

"We finally got a dose of reality," said Nelson, D-Orlando, speaking about Griffin's comments earlier this week that NASA would examine all options, including shuttle life extension. "We're going to suffer for it because we may not have access to our own space station."

You can read the details in the full story from Saturday's newspaper by clicking here.