By Emelie Rutherford
Lawmakers are pressing NASA to follow new human-spaceflight plans spelled out in a policy bill while the space agency’s budget-setting legislation is stalled in Congress.
The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee plans to hold a Dec. 1 hearing on implementing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2010, which President Barack Obama signed into law on Oct. 11.
Even though the law dismantles the Constellation program, former President George W. Bush’s program to send astronauts back to the moon, existing contracts cannot be terminated and new programs cannot start until that a fiscal year 2011 NASA appropriations bill is signed into law. Current contracts, thus, remain in place for Constellation, for which Lockheed Martin [LMT] has been developing the Orion capsule and firms including ATK [ATK] and Boeing [BA] have worked on the Ares I rocket.
The new NASA policy act, which authorizes $58.4 billion in spending from FY ’11 through FY ’13, is intended to help develop a commercial space transportation industry to carry crew to low-Earth orbit. The law supports immediate development of a heavy-lift rocket that replaces plans for Constellation’s Ares V.
Lawmakers have not approved NASA appropriations legislation for FY ’11, which began Oct. 1, and are likely to including funding for the agency in an omnibus appropriations bill covering all of the federal government.
Sen. Bill Nelson (Fla.), chair of the Senate Commerce Space and Science subcommittee, has said he wants to hear from NASA Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth Robinson if NASA will comply with the new law, which includes the new plans for the heavy-lift rocket.
Nelson and lawmakers including Utah Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett have expressed concern that the space agency is not heeding the law.
Some on Capitol Hill are concerned that if the NASA spending bill is not passed until the next congressional session in January, spending-wary Republicans who will have greater clout in Congress could object to Obama’s plan to increase FY ’11 NASA funding by roughly $300 million.
The Senate Commerce Committee initially scheduled the upcoming NASA hearing for Nov. 18, but rescheduled it to Dec. 1. However, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver still met on Nov. 18 with Utah lawmakers who want NASA to begin implementing the new law. ATK in northern Utah could build solid-rocket motors for the new heavy-lift rocket.
“NASA has signaled an interest recently in possibly circumventing the law,” Hatch said after the meeting. “My purpose in calling this meeting was to explain in no uncertain terms the Utah congressional delegation’s interest in ensuring that Utah’s solid rocket motor industry is protected.”
Hatch said that even though NASA officials said they would follow the authorization law, “some of their answers reaffirmed my suspicions that we need to keep a very close watch on the agency.”
Bishop said the meeting confirmed to him “that we are in a long-term fight over the future of NASA’s manned space flight program,” and charged NASA officials “continue to slow- walk the plans required by the NASA Reauthorization Act.”
“I remain very concerned that NASA continues to delay the transition from Constellation systems toward the new heavy-lift program while they needlessly explore private start-up technologies that remain unproven, require more money and are unfit for human-rated space travel,” Bishop argued.
Earlier this month, NASA awarded contracts to 13 companies for studying concepts for a heavy-lift rocket.