Space News reported late this morning that a vote on the NASA authorization bill by the full House now appears unlikely before the August recess. While individual lobbying may have helped play a role, other factors also contributed, including a letter by 13 House members from California–all Democrats–to science committee chairman Rep. Bart Gordon that […]
It’s not a guarantee that action on the bill is delayed, but HR 5781, the NASA authorization bill, does not appear on the House floor schedule for Friday as distributed by the office of the House Majority Leader. Several bills are up for consideration under suspension of the rules, some of which were postponed from […]
As the House took up legislation other than the NASA authorization bill Thursday, others spoke out against plans to rush the bill through the House under suspension of the rules. Late Thursday The Planetary Society called for a more extensive debate about the bill: “The future of the space program is too important to rush […]
This morning SpaceX sent out a message to those subscribed to the company’s email updates asking for help to block the NASA authorization legislation the House is set to consider as soon as this week. The key portion of the email, signed by “–Elon–“:
Your Help Urgently Needed to Save the Future of Human […]
Space News reported late yesterday that the House may vote on the NASA authorization bill as soon as Thursday. That would indicate a bit of a shift from Tuesday, when one member indicated it was unlikely the House would take up the bill this week. Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX), who attended a Space Transportation Association […]
Earlier this week the House approved the Senate version of an FY10 supplemental appropriations bill that includes a provision regarding NASA. That provision, which the Senate added in May, requires that FY10 Constellation funds “shall be available to fund continued performance of Constellation contracts, and performance of such Constellation contracts may not be terminated for […]
Senate appropriators have already taken a position on NASA funding with an appropriations bill that cleared the committee last Thursday. House appropriators, though, declined to take a stand on NASA’s human spaceflight program last month, deciding to defer to authorizers. Now that the House Science and Technology Committee has approved its own authorization bill, different […]
Meteorologically speaking, this is a good weekend to get away from Washington, DC: Saturday’s high temperature is forecast to be over 100 with a heat index approaching 110. The heat’s also been turned up recently for commercial space advocates in Washington, who have seen Congressional committees slash the White House’s budget proposals for commercial crew […]
The House Science and Technology Committee approved on Thursday its version of a NASA authorization bill, HR 5781. The approval came after a long markup that considered over 30 amendments, adopting 23 of them (listed here). Among the most significant amendments were those that authorize an additional shuttle flight and also reduce the scope of […]
On Thursday the full Senate Appropriations Committee approved a Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill, just a day after the CJS subcommittee marked up the bill in a brief session. The text of the legislation is not yet available but the summary of the legislation released by the committee included this discussion of the NASA […]