Senate Committee Votes To Keep Shuttles Flying

The Senate Budget Committee passed a spending plan Thursday that would keep NASA's shuttle fleet operating through 2011 and eliminate a fixed retirement date that could create "dangerous scheduling pressures" like those that led to the 1986 Challenger and 2003 Columbia disasters.

A provision in the committee's version of the Fiscal Year 2010 budget would provide NASA with an additional $2.5 billion to fly shuttle missions in 2011 while fully funding the development of next-generation Ares rockets and Orion spacecraft that will replace NASA's three-orbiter shuttle fleet.

NASA now is facing a 2010 deadline to launch nine remaining shuttle missions -- eight to complete the assembly and outfitting of the International Space Station and one to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA has been flying about three shuttle missions per year since 2005 -- the year the fleet returned to service after the Columbia accident. Investigators in both the Columbia and Challenger disasters said schedule pressure contributed to the accidents.

"This decision today in the Senate sends a strong signal that the shuttle should not be retired on a date-certain -- but only when the space station can be safely completed," said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, who requested the spending provision.

NASA is "not going to be able to fly nine missions in a year-and-a-half, nor should they," Nelson said.

The inclusion of the spending provision in the Senate Budget Committee's version of the 2010 budget is an initial -- but still major -- legislative hurdle. The budget still must be passed by the full Senate and the House, and it must be signed into law by President Obama.

"This is just the first step in a lot of steps," said Nelson, a Melbourne native who flew on Columbia as a payload specialist on a flight that landed 10 days before the Challenger explosion killed seven astronauts and stunned the nation. "But today was the first major step."

ABOUT THE IMAGE: Click to enlarge and save the Associated Press image of shuttle Discovery blasting off March 15 on a mission to the International Space Station. You can also click the enlarged image to get an even bigger view. Discovery and its crew are due to land at Kennedy Space Center at 1:38 p.m. Saturday.