(D-Tenn.) said in a statement after the
committee cleared the bill.
The House authorization bill also calls
for the National Academies to develop a
prioritized list of Earth science and climate
measurements that should be collected
and archived through space-based means.
EXCEPT FOR the commercial development projects, Congress’ bills largely
mirror aspects of Obama’s NASA budget,
including nearly $5 billion in funding for
science programs, says Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George
Washington University. Both the House
and Senate versions call for an additional
space shuttle flight and extend ISS to 2020.
“The House bill, which puts more emphasis on government-led efforts, is less
supportive of commercial crew until commercial cargo services are demonstrated,”
says Pace, who worked at NASA for seven
years during the George W. Bush Administration. The House “still preserves funding
for technology work but doesn’t depend
on it for the success of the government-led
program,” he says.
The proposed level of funding, however,
is of concern to some space industry insiders. They contend that the amount of
money Congress is debating for development of commercial spacecraft and crew
is woefully short of what’s needed to reach
the lofty and expensive goals.
“The original Obama budget wasn’t
even close to being enough,” says Douglas
O. Stanley, a principal research engineer
at Georgia Institute of Technology and a
former NASA manager. Because the Obama
Administration and some key House members support the Senate bill, “things are
going to coalesce around the Senate bill,
which is not that much different from the
House bill,” he says.
Within the House, some Democrats
from the space-industry-heavy states of
California, Florida, and Texas agree that
the committee-approved measure falls
short in setting funding levels. As a result,
they blocked the authorization bill from
coming to a vote in the full House before
it began its August recess. Now lawmak-
ers will have just three weeks after they
reconvene on Sept. 13 to pass an authori-
zation and appropriation bill before the
end of the fiscal year. Complicating this
picture will be the fact that congressional
members will be eyeing the November
elections.
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
2010 John C. Bailar, Jr. Medal & Lectureship
The Department of Chemistry
at the University of Illinois
congratulates
Professor Robert H. Grubbs
on being chosen the
2010 John C. Bailar, Jr. Medalist.
Photo courtesy of Caltech
The lectures will be presented at 8 p.m. on September 20,
and at 4 p.m. on September 21, 2010 on the campus of the
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Supported by the John & Florence Bailar Fund
