Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.) urged Congress to drop the Sept. 30, 2010, retirement deadline for the space shuttle fleet.
She also asked for $2.5 billion funding for NASA to keep flying shuttles into 2011.
Kosmas sent her request in a letter to chairs and ranking members on the House and Senate budget committees.
That deadline extension would help lessen problems with looming layoffs of space shuttle workers in Florida, home to the Kennedy Space Center where shuttles are launched, and other areas, she stated. With unemployment in Florida and other states soaring, this is no time to be adding to unemployment rolls, she asserted.
Having the option to slip the retirement deadline is crucial, since only 12 percent of shuttle missions launch on time, she wrote.
A more relaxed pace in shuttle launches also would bolster safety for shuttle crews, she added.
Further, that extension of the deadline would provide time to launch the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a $1.5 billion international experiment, to the space station for operation, so it doesn’t sit uselessly on the ground, she urged.