NASA Spending Bill Posied for President's Desk with Ares-1 and Ares-V Ongoing

Ending a filbuster on $447 billion in federal spending bills on a 60-34 US Senate vote, the six bundled spending measures which include NASA's budget, are expcted to clear the Senate Sunday and place the measure on President Barack Obama's Oval Office desk for final signature for the coming year.

The House and Senate have agreed to provide NASA with $18.7 billion in 2010, $942 million more than in 2009. Human spaceflight projects would receive $3.8 billion in 2010. The passed measure includes a statement for the NASA budget that targets Project Constellation for preservation by stating: "any program termination or elimination or the creation of any new program, project or activity" must be apporved by the Congress.

Project Constellation includes the development of the Ares I rocket and Orion spacecraft to transport astronauts, as well as the Ares V heavy-lift launch vehicle needed by the federal space agency to conduct planned lunar and/or asteroid human exploration.

This week, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said President Obama wants the agency to embrace “more international cooperation” after the space-shuttle era ends in 2010 and hinted that its Constellation moon-rocket program could see major changes. “We are going to be fighting and fussing over the coming year,” Bolden said. "We are not going to do the same kind of things we’ve always done.”

“We are going to reach out to what I call nontraditional partners. And I can say that with confidence because the president has told me to do that,” said Bolden. “There are not a lot of things I can tell you with certainty. But I can tell you, he said, ‘Do that.’ “ Bolden said that Obama told him to use NASA as a way to reach out to new partners, including China, one of only three countries that have launched astronauts into space.

According to insiders, the White House is looking at four options, each of which would scrap Ares I, dramatically revise Constellation and start new programs allowing commercial space companies to carry humans to the space station. Perhaps all would be blocked by the latest move by Congress.

“They are at an impasse,” space historian Roger Launius of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum told The Orlando Sentinel. “And unless the White House levels enough pressure, Congress could prevail.” IF the Congress previals the Ares-V and Ares-1 would continue as the NASA human space program of record.