Former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin says the U.S. House of Representatives should reject a compromise on NASA's future expected to come up for a vote Wednesday."After considerable reflection," Griffin told The Huntsville Times Tuesday, "I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that NASA and the nation's space program would be best served if the House were to vote against the Senate authorization bill in its present form."
What irks Griffin is that the Senate plan kills the troubled Constellation moon program of his tenure as the federal space agency administrator and calls on NASA to spend $11 billion over three years on a new government spacecraft capable of reaching an asteroid by the end of this decade. It also budgets about $1.6 billion during that time to help commercial companies build rockets capable of taking astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station.
The House is due to take up the Senate version of the NASA authorization bill on Wednesday. Initial signs are that the vote could be very close.
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