Earlier this week, by the overwhelming margin of 409 to 15, the House of Representatives approved the NASA Authorization Act of 2008. This legislation not only authorizes a substantial increase to the space agency's budget, including an additional $1 billion to accelerate the development of the Orion spacecraft and Ares I rocket, but calls for an extra Shuttle flight to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station.
The massive majority this bill received is a clear indication that the House of Representatives continues to strongly support the long-range plan for NASA to return astronauts to the Moon and then prepare a human expedition to Mars. Even Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), who has been the most public foe of human spaceflight in Congress, voted to approve the measure.
On the other side of the Capitol Building, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), has repeated her call for an additional $1 billion for NASA's budget. Senator Milkulski, one of the strongest defenders of space exploration in Congress, has attempted to achieve this regularly in recent years. These funds would reimburse the space agency for the costs of returning the Space Shuttle to flight after the Columbia disaster, and would serve the same purpose as the additional $1 billion called for by the House legislation- allowing NASA to accelerate the development of the Orion and Ares.
Between the scheduled retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2010 and the scheduled first flight of Orion in 2015, the United States will lack the ability to launch astronauts into space. Therefore, during this time gap, we will be dependent upon the goodwill of Russia to send astroanuts to the International Space Station. By accelerating the development of the Orion and Ares, we can reduce this time gap from five years to three years.
These two events show that there is strong bi-partisan support in both the House and Senate for a strong American space program. It has been a good week for space exploration in our nation's capital, but many challenges remain ahead. In order to ensure that progress continues to be made, we must ensure that congressional supporters of space exploration are returned to Congress in this year's elections. Stay tuned for the announcements of candidate endorsements from the Committee for the Advocacy of Space Exploration.
