Here is some very bad news regarding the NASA budget, the cuts recommended by the Appropriations Committee have been approved by the full House (St. Petersburg Times - House easily passes huge spending bill):
A must-pass bill covering about one-sixth of the federal budget swept through the House on Wednesday. A sizable chunk of Republicans joined virtually all Democrats in approving spending increases for education, veterans and the AIDS battle in Africa. [...] The White House has signaled that President Bush would sign the bill despite cuts to his requests for NASA, foreign aid and communities affected by the latest round of military base closings.
Thanks to Space Politics for the link to that news report, it's a great source for beltway news. I can't think anything optimistic to say about this situation except to hope that maybe the Senate would not approve it for some reason and the NASA funding could be saved in conference when they try to reconcile the two bills. Given the current political environment I don't see that happening, but we can hope.
Ah this is very disturbing. In a way I feel very sorry for NASA.
They layout a plan to enable humanity to explore the cosmos, yet they receive inadequate funds to get us there.
Perhaps we have to wait until 2008 in order to get things going again.
Posted by: Darnell Clayton | February 02, 2007 at 03:46 PM