Digital Brainwaves

Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL15) had a column yesterday on TheHill.com regarding NASA’s “greatest regret and greatest concern” — needing to rely on Russia for access to the International Space Station during the estimated five-year time frame between the retirement of the Space Shuttle program and the start of its successors, Project Constellation and the Orion spacecraft. His proposal involves flying the shuttle as is for an additional three years, and accelerating the design and creation of Constellation, but, sadly, the plan hasn’t met with much success in the House:

Some have criticized my plan citing the fact they believe the Shuttle is a “flawed” vehicle and must be retired. But if the Shuttle is so inherently dangerous why are we still flying it today? The Shuttle won’t be any more dangerous to fly in 2013 than it is in 2010. The bottom line is – NASA is flying the Shuttle because it is worth the calculated risk. NASA currently recertifies the Shuttle’s safety each time it flies.

Sadly, Congress was set to act on the gap but, Speaker Pelosi dealt two significant blows to NASA - making more challenging our ability to address this problem. In January 2007, Speaker Pelosi shepherded an omnibus bill through the Congress cutting $570 million from the Constellation program. Then late last year House Democrats stripped $1 billion from the Senate approved NASA budget. $1.5 billion would have been a strong down payment toward closing the gap. Pelosi said no.

Give it a read.