Washington » A group of House members says it makes more sense for NASA to slow the development of a new space shuttle rather than kill the program.
In a letter sent Thursday, 15 House members -- including Utah Republican Reps. Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz -- asked NASA's top administrator to develop a plan to continue the Constellation program using only the money already set aside by President Barack Obama. They want a response within 30 days.
"We can still go forward with Constellation without necessarily having a significant increase in the amount of money that was there," Bishop said.
The letter is the latest attempt to block Obama's plan to cut funding to the Constellation program. The president plans to shift the $3.5 billion to the International Space Station and other scientific research. In place of Constellation, NASA would support private companies that are trying to develop a space vehicle to ferry U.S. astronauts to the space station. Under Obama's plan, NASA would have no ongoing attempt to return humans to the moon or beyond, though the president has announced plans for an April 15 space conference in Florida to discuss NASA's future.
Constellation, which President George W. Bush created in 2005 to develop a new manned space vehicle, has cost more than originally anticipated and has run into production delays. The White House argued the program "was not clearly aimed at meeting today's national priorities."
The Obama administration also disagrees with Bishop that Constellation can continue without increased funding. In the budget, the administration cites a previous blue panel study that found Constellation wouldn't be able to land on the moon until the 2030s and to do so, the government would have to abandon the International Space Station in 2016.
Bishop called Obama's cut "naïve" and argues that it will not only cede American space superiority to Russia, India and China, but it will hurt national security.
"The kinds of people and the kinds of jobs that build a rocket to put a man on the moon, are the same kinds of jobs and the same kinds of people who build missiles to defend this country," he said.
Like the other House members who signed the letter, most of whom are Republicans, Bishop discounts private space vehicles as "unproven."
He said the Constellation cuts would eliminate thousands of jobs at companies already working on the project, including hundreds in his district. ATK is developing the Ares rocket in northern Utah, which would launch the new vehicle out of Earth's orbit.
