Sen. Bill Nelson said today he would support a transition to commercial launches of NASA astronauts while continuing development of government vehicles that could serve as backups.
"I am proposing that we take a 'walk before you run' approach to commercial crew services," Nelson wrote in a letter to Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.
In the two-page letter, Nelson, D-Fla., who chairs the Senate subcommittee that oversees NASA policy, outlined his priorities for what he said would be a bi-partisan NASA authorization act for 2011. Mikulski's appropriations committee would set funding levels for the agency.
Nelson said his proposals would broadly support President Obama's plans for NASA, which would cancel the Constellation program that is developing the Ares I rocket and Orion spacecraft for moon missions.
But Nelson suggests what appears to be an attempt at compromise with Constellation supporters who have attacked Obama's proposals as ceding leadership in human spaceflight.
Nelson wants to begin by next year the development of a heavy-lift rocket for exploration that could also provide backup access to the space station.
The administration has said it would settle on a heavy-lift design no later than 2015, while beginning research and development of first-stage and in-space propulsion technologies with $559 million next year. It has agreed to continue development of a scaled back Orion spacecraft to serve, at a minimum, as a station escape vehicle. Overall, NASA's budget would increase by $6 billion over five years.
Nelson does not suggest funding levels or cite specific vehicles for development, but says the authorization act will ask NASA to "leverage the workforce, contracts, assets, and capabilities of the Shuttle, Ares I, and Orion efforts."
He also said he would require NASA to complete "a number of studies, assessments, and milestones" to ensure that commercial crew capabilities are developed in a responsible manner, with astronaut safety as a "core component."
Nelson wants a third shuttle mission added to the two NASA currently has scheduled before the program is retired. If funded, NASA would fly the station resupply mission next June.
In a statement, Mikulski said she appreciated Nelson's "thoughtful" letter. "It offers an alternative framework for NASA's human space flight program that could snap us out of the 'stagnant quo,'" she said.
Space news and analysis from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral 
13 comments:
Another Obama sucker who wants to destroy the manned space program as wells as the jobs and welfare of thousands of Space Coast workers!
I'm amazed this guy keeps getting elected. He talks out of both sides of his mouth better than anyone. It pissed me off when he kept avoiding questions by Todd during the last shuttle launch coverage. Does he really think we buy the double-talk with that gleeming smile of his?
Nelson, its time for you to go home for good, you are doing a terrible job in Washington
At least some of you are finally figuring out Nelson is self serving moron...I figured that out in 1984 when I worked a fundraiser to feed the starving in Somolia at Fox Lake Park....he showed up just long enough to talk a big game and get his picture taken serving a hotdog. He left ASAP.
Nelson is an embarrassment. But then again, so are most of the IAMAW sheep from United Space Alliance who voted for him and obama.
Retire Senator Nelson, not the Space Shuttle!
I hear they will begin disposing of the T-38 aircrafts and
the astronaut corp will be reduced to 30 astronauts (or paid passengers on the Soyuz).
Obama and Nelsen are destroying NASA!!
NASA will become like another government do-nothing agency like the EPA.
I am voting Republican !!!! The Democrats are only puppets of Obama.
John F. Kennedy must be rolling over in his grave on seeing what his party did to NASA.
Complete the Ares booster for manned space flight. The government already spent $12 billion. Why spend $1 billion in termination fees for the Ares Program.
All of these clowns are out to destroy Our Space Program, Our State, and Our Country. Congress talks big but is toothless. Our country deserves better.
Umm if the Ares I booster cost NOTHING to complete development of (instead of the actual 10s of billions), it's still insanely expensive on a per flight basis. Delta IV, Atlas, and Falcon are all already developed and are almost an order of magnitude cheaper per flight.
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so... the "stellar expensive" ($200 billion R&D) Constellation program has been deleted...
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the Direct.LOBBY's rockets [ http://bit.ly/bh0YeY ] has been definitely IGNORED...
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and, now, NASA suggests/wants to develop a new shuttle-derived HLV rocket:
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http://nasawatch.com/archives/2010/06/shuttle-derived.html
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that is EXACTLY the SAME concept of the shuttle-derived FAST-SLV that I've proposed over FOUR YEARS AGO (and in ALL these 4 years!) on my website [ http://bit.ly/9cbsFB ] and on (several hundreds!!!) threads, posts and comments on space and science forums and blogs, worldwide!!!
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please note, that, this "new" NASA proposal (in its inline version) isn't "similar" to my FAST-SLV concept but E-X-A-C-T-L-Y THE SAME of MY four-years-old idea!!!
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FOUR YEARS LOST (AND $9 BILLION BURNED) FOR NOTHING... :[
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What a shame. Here we are at the end of the shuttle program and the government is fumbling around trying to figure out where our space program goes next. Given the severe national budget deficits, a new health care program that is still being defined, an ecological disaster in the Gulf that was more or less ignorded by the feds for weeks, etc., with this kind of "leadership", who needs enemies. Vote them all out in November 2010 and 2012!
A compromise must be agreed upon AT ONCE to prevent a disastrous and permanent loss of manned U.S. spaceflight.
Complete Ares I/Orion so the country can have relatively safe, relatively cheap and relatively routine post-shuttle access to space for generations to come -- an American Soyuz system if you will -- using just SOME of the money saved by the end of shuttle and Constellation. Every space state representative (and a majority of their colleagues in the House and Senate)can understand and vote for that.
This way, you keep most of the space workers across the country on the job, prevent the total meltdown of the central Florida economy, keep the lights on at KSC and preserve LC 39 as the home of future INTERNATIONAL deep space exploration (Moon base, Mars, asteroid or whatever). The rest will take care of itself...
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