Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Deputy NASA chief urges House to support bill

NASA's Deputy Administrator Lori Garver urged lawmakers to support a bill coming up for a vote today that would give NASA a new direction.

"We feel that this bill takes in the very best parts of the administration's proposal," Garver told the congressional Aerospace Caucus today.

The U.S. House is expected to vote on a NASA authorization bill, already approved by the Senate. The bill would transition to the development of a commercial crew taxi service to the space station instead of relying on a NASA-built rocket.

It also would add one more shuttle flight and accelerate the development of a heavy-lift rocket for exploration. And it would extend space station operations to 2020 and fund improvements to Kennedy Space Center's launch infrastructure.

The bill will be the sixth of six bills to be considered under the suspension of the rules, which means no amendments can be added. But to pass, it requires a two-thirds majority vote.

Some House lawmakers have criticized the bill for its reliance on commercial crew services and questioned whether there is adequate funding to speed up development of heavy-lift.

Garver said passing the bill today would give NASA workers some clarity.

"We believe that passage of this bill will really provide a lot of clarity so that the workforce, as we go forward, can realize that there is this amazing future and support," Garver said.

It's still unclear exactly when the bill will come up on the House floor, although that's supposed to happen later today.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't wait for them to shut it down so people like you will see how much it means to this area. I can only hope that karma treats you the same way you are treating them.....

Anonymous said...

What's funny is Lori Garver is Obama's right hand woman, appointed by him to be Bolden's deputy. That would be like Rahm Emmanuel going against Obama. Is Florida Today that ignorant or do they just know so much that isn't so?

Rick said...

How long before she "retires" needing to "spend more time with her family"?

Anonymous said...

"you will find that all ksc workers are a bunch of lazy fools. I say shut it down!"

Couldn't pass the civil service test to get a job at NASA?

Anonymous said...

Lori Garver is right on target. She's trying to keep Congress from forcing NASA to waste money on more SRBs.

Mike Griffin and George Bush shut down the Shuttle and destroyed the tooling so it couldn't be extended. They spent over $10 billion on "Apollo on Steroids" and could not get it to work, even though the technology is from the 60's. But the KSC workers are mostly knee-jerk Republicans who didn't complain until Obama was elected. Now they blame him.

Anonymous said...

Lori Garver should resign. She is destroying U.S. manned space flight and causing 30,000 people to become unemployed.

Anonymous said...

Well all you pitifully stupid NASA nay Sayers who are upset because you could not get a space job due to not being able to pass the drug testing....the House just passed the bill. Now make sure you get all the grass clippings of my driveway when you come to cut my grass!

Anonymous said...

I am a shamed of Pres. Obama, Pres. Bush, the Democrats and Republicans for destroying NASA and giving China the #1 position for manned space exploration. Pres. Obama could have reversed the course and continued the Space Shuttle program. He did not!

Anonymous said...

Restarting the space shuttle isn't a matter of tooling. It's a matter of renegotiating all the contracts that were cancelled when Bush ended the program. It's a money issue. Bush was right that the US space program needed to grow. The fundamental problem is that we flew the shuttle for almost three decades on budgets that had no allowances for what was coming next. Were we to fly the same vehicles for ever? You can't do that. The replacement that NASA offered could have worked, but the testing should have started a decade ago. Now we play catch up. Much of the country doesn't realize what the space program means to US technological superiority, nor do they care what it means to Brevard County.

Graham (from england ). said...

Anonymous 11.20pm Thats very well put i agree with a good bit of what you've said there.

Anonymous said...

Ms. Rubber Stamp

Anonymous said...

Michael Griffin - the former NASA Administrator asked yesterday that Congress vote against this bill. He gave many good reasons but unfortunately if they didn't pass this bill so many more people would be impacted in a negative way. It is a sad day to see so many people leaving, so many wonderful hard working incredibly talented teammates and friends. It's just sad and we are all devastated but life must go on and good will come.