More Government Squabbling Over Money to NASA
With so many pans in the fire, NASA may again be in trouble with Congress and the White House over its missions. One hand says this, the other hand says that, and NASA is caught in the middle—again and again. With governmental money and control the essential issue of the problem, another developing governmental battle has the power to impact areas in NASA . They can phase out its space shuttle operations, or phasing out international cooperation on space projects.
With this in mind, maybe everyone should open their eyes and take a good look at the “back-and-forth” by our government—in addition to asking the questions of “why gladly pay Russia to transport our space agency to the ISS, yet refuse to pay for the extension of the shuttle mission by putting our own money into our own space agency” and “why deliberately ruin international cooperation between so many countries that has been such a success in the building of the ISS”? I guess I would like to know who is actually running the show in our country, because it sure isn’t someone who has the best interests of the United States at heart.
For those who want to read the latest authorization act, go to NASA Authorization Act of 2008 [H.R. 6063] and read it yourself, whether it passes or not– the first authorization since 2005 for NASA. Don’t take my word, or someone else’s for that matter. Get your own opinion about things. The plan is to set goals for NASA, along with preferred spending levels—which is fine along with separate act an appropriation act, which will specify actual spending limits.
Approved by the House Committee on Science and Technology, it is pending before the full House, causing lots of Congress concern over the gap in US human spaceflight under the bush Budget. Unfortunately the OBM office opposes any extra spending and the mandated projects, not wanting NASA to use the ISS after 2016, wanting them to “start talking with other countries on ’space traffic management’ regarding launches and landings of spacecraft - since the provision “directly infringes upon the President’s authority to conduct foreign affairs”.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Public Relations, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
