shuttles could continue to fly

shuttles could continue to fly

WASHINGTON - A KEY Senate panel approved Thursday a 2011 budget proposal for the US space agency Nasa that would extend the space shuttle program in a compromise from the Obama administration's demands.

Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee unanimously approved the legislation, after months of debate and criticism.

The powerful Senate Budget Committee must still approve the bill before sending it to the full chamber for a vote.

Although the plan maintains the White House's 19-billion-dollar (S$26 billion) request for Nasa funding for the fiscal year that begins on Oct 1, it adds another shuttle mission in 2011 to the two already scheduled for November and February.

The US space shuttles are set to be being retired early next year, after President Barack Obama opted not to fund a successor program, opting instead to encourage private spacecraft development. Nasa will then depend on Russia to fly astronauts to the International Space Station orbiting outpost until a new private or US government spacecraft becomes available.

The Senate committee's bill ordered Nasa to begin working on a heavy-lift rocket immediately, rather than in 2015, as proposed by Obama. 'Nasa is an agency in transition. We've had to take a clear, hard look at what we want from our space agency in the years and decades to come,' Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller, who chairs the Senate panel, said in a statement. -- AFP

Congressional legislators in Florida are mounting a campaign to extend space shuttle operations to 2015, adding two flights each year. U.S. Rep. Suzanne Kosmas said a bipartisan plan is in the works, which would require adding another $200 million to the NASA budget for 2010 and between $1.5 – $2 billion a year starting in the 2011-12 budget year. "We're not going to do anything that's not safe," Kosmas was quoted in Florida Today, adding that securing the funding would be difficult in tight budget times, but "we're going to go for it," she said.

At Kennedy Space Center early Monday morning after Endeavour returned home safely following the STS-130 mission, space shuttle program managers confirmed that while the shuttles are in good shape to continue flying, extending the program is not the direction their teams have been headed.

"From a technical, engineering standpoint, there would be nothing stopping the vehicles from being able to fly," said space shuttle integration manager Mike Moses. "They have a lot of life in them. We talk about the risks and hazards of flying, and that's a two edged sword. Anytime you're launching into space is a risky proposition, but this is a vehicle that we understand its risks very well, and we've learned how to work around the pieces that can cause us problems – the foam from Columbia is a good example. We've come a long way, if you look at the performance of the external tank since then, we have put a set of controls in place that have been paying off and really driving our risk numbers down."