NASA budget plan saves telescope, cuts space taxis

HOUSTON, Nov. 17 -- A compromise spending plan for

NASA preserves the over-budget replacement for the Hubble Space

Telescope and halves President Barack Obama's request for money

to spur development of commercial space taxis, officials said.

Overall, the U.S. space agency would receive $17.8 billion

for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 - $924 million less than

the White House requested and $684 million less than it

received this year.

The compromise, approved by a House and Senate conference

committee, is part of a "minibus" appropriations bill that also

includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

and the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial

Space Transportation. The full House is expected to consider

the bill on Wednesday.

The spending plan, which was posted on a Congressional

website on Tuesday, authorizes $3.8 billion for human space

exploration programs, including $1.9 billion for a proposed

heavy-lift rocket and $1.2 billion for a deep space capsule to

fly astronauts to the moon, asteroids and other destinations in

the inner solar system as a follow-on program to the

International Space Station.

A House bid to cancel NASA's over-budget James Webb Space

Telescope, a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, was

scuttled, though the compromise bill caps spending on the

program at $8 billion.

Overall, NASA's science programs would receive $5.1

billion, about $155 million more than its 2011 budget. About

$530 million of that amount would go toward the Webb

telescope.

NASA has said it would delay other science programs to keep

the telescope on track for launch in 2018.

The bill cuts Obama's request for $850 million to speed up

development of commercial passenger spaceships to $406

million.

"We're always appreciative of whatever dollars the

appropriators appropriate to us," Kathy Nado, a manager at NASA

headquarters, said at the American Astronautical Society

meeting in Houston. "Whatever dollars they give us we will be

able to effectively spend."

The agency is currently funding space taxi development work

at Boeing and three privately held companies - Space

Exploration Technologies, Sierra Nevada Corp and Blue Origin.

It had hoped for enough money to keep at least two and possibly

three teams working on spaceships that could ferry astronauts

to the space station, a $100 billion laboratory that flies

about 240 miles (386 km) above Earth.

Since the space shuttle program ended this summer, the

United States has been dependent on Russia to fly crews to the

station, at a cost of more than $50 million per person. NASA

had hoped for a U.S. alternative by 2016.

Nado declined to say how the shortfall would affect NASA's

spending on space taxis.

The bill adds $470 million to NASA's budget to cover costs

of terminating a pension fund for workers who were employed by

prime shuttle contractor United Space Alliance, a joint venture

of Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp Published by HT Syndication with permission from South Asian Media Network. For any query with respect to this article or any other content requirement, please contact Editor at [email protected]