Back to the spaceflight showdown

[n2doc]

Alan Boyle writes: NASA's future is back on the front burner on Capitol Hill, with House Democrats floating what they call a compromise version of a bill laying out how the space agency should spend its money over the next three years.

It turns out, however, that the proposal was not drawn up with the cooperation of the Senate — which has already passed its own version of the NASA authorization bill. And the folks in favor of space commercialization are strongly urging the full House to go with the Senate's version instead. The showdown could play out as early as Friday.

The latest revisions in the House proposal — laid out today by Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., and described by Space News — calls for spending $1.2 billion over the next three years on commercial space taxis such as the Boeing CST-100 or the SpaceX Dragon. That's more than the $464 million the House version originally called for, but still less than the $1.6 million proposed in the Senate version.

The bill's most vocal opponents say the money isn't the only reason why the House version should be thrown out, even in its amended form. They say the House version creates so much red tape that commercial launch providers will be hard-pressed to deliver what NASA is going to need when the space shuttle fleet retires next year.

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http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/09/23/5166919-back-to-the-spaceflight-showdown