House Passes NASA Authorization Bill

simonbp writes "The US House of Representatives has just passed the Senate version of the FY2011 NASA Authorization Act. This bill is a compromise between Obama's proposed budget and earlier House bills. It cancels Ares I in favor of commercially-operated crew transportation to ISS, adds technology development funds, and keeps a version of Orion and a new heavy-lift 'Space Launch System' to both be operational by 2016. The timing of this bill was crucial to keeping key NASA personnel and contractors from being laid off."

Comments

Re:NASA is dead

[drinkypoo]

I know that it's virtually impossible to shrink a government entity, but that is what I believe is needed. Unfortunately, the people which need to be removed most are managers, and they are the hardest kind to extricate from any bureaucracy. Let NASA get back to doing or at least enabling actual science. Let scientists decide what that science shall be and let the managers figure out how to sell it to the public.

Eliminating NASA would be a gigantic mistake. We need to be figuring out how to exploit the resources of space, hopefully with an eye to utilizing less of the resources here on the planet, not so much for fear of running out but because we can't seem to do it without awful secondary effects. We all have our pet NASA project that we'd like to see continued, I want them to continue advancing space elevator technology as I consider it to be so far the only really viable way of moving substantial mass in and out of the gravity well cleanly and safely. I think we would all like to see asteroid detection improved. Realistically, an agency is necessary for keeping our interest in such research moving through changes of administration. Ideally, it would be more consistently budgeted to assist with this...

Re:Great

[ArcherB]

That's a significant amount of money and the two wars as well as the tax cut have put this country into ruin.

Damn! You on on a roll! Tax cuts INCREASED government receipts, not decreased them. I understand that when you think one dimensionally this makes no sense, but look up "Laffer Curve" as to a possible explanation as to what really happened.

BECAUSE WE WERE DEFICIT SPENDING. It was not at all affordable.

And we're DEFICIT SPENDING MORE now. So suddenly, with 4x the deficit spending it's suddenly not affordable?

If you can't pay for something without going deeply into debt you can't afford it.

Hey! We agree on something. So tell me, why are still railing on Bush and not saying a word about the 4x increase in deficit spending AND NASA cuts?

I pity you if you believe that.

I pity anyone who will take the ill informed word of The Daily Kos or Democrat Underground over the word of someone who was there simply because it fit neatly into their preconceived notion of reality.

Re:Budget or 'plan'?

[mlong]

I have very little support for NASA nowadays. They get some new goal, spend millions/billions on a project, cancel it, and have nothing to show for it. And they repeat this cycle over and over and over. Congress and presidents have certainly contributed to that too.