Obama Gets Another Kick in the Teeth, From Apollo Astronauts and Senate Appropriators

In a matter of minutes on Wednesday morning, the Senate Subcommittee on Appropriations with oversight over the NASA budget, approved, with only minor changes, the authorization bill passed by the full Senate Commerce Committee on July 15. That bill emasculates President Obama's "privatization" of space exploration, adds a Space Shuttle flight to protect the workforce, and reinstates most of the Constellation program the White House has tried to kill since February.

Subcommittee chair Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), and ranking Member Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) had received a letter from Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong, Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell, and Apollo 17 Commander Gene Cernan, urging the Committee to "continue that progress" that was made in the July 15 Senate authorization bill.

The astronauts quote from President Kennedy: "The exploration of space ... is one of the great adventures of all time. Our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all, and become the world's leading space-faring nation."

The letter congratulates the Senate Commerce Committee, for its bill which "does much to maintain President Kennedy's vision and align the agency with its original charter...." It commends the House Science & Technology Committee authorization bill, which will be voted on by the full Committee Thursday, July 22, as it "reflects the Committee's belief of those plan components necessary to assure a worthy national space and aeronautics program." The astronauts state that "each of these pending bills represent tremendous progress relative to our concerns expressed earlier to the Congress...." They end: "We commend all those who worked so diligently on these bills and thank you for your valuable personal leadership."

The letter was released on the 41st anniversary of humanity's first step on to the lunar surface, by Neil Armstrong.

In unusually speedy action, the full Senate Appropriations Committee will vote on the bill passed by the subcommittee, also Thursday, July 22. This will complete Committee action in both houses of Congress. Assuming these bills pass in both houses, a conference committee will have to work out the differences. The goal is to have NASA's budget authorized and appropriated before fiscal year 2011 begins on October 1. Then, even if there is a continuing resolution for the rest of the federal government, NASA would have set goals and funding, and the Obama plan would be history.