NASA Congressional Activities Today
House Science & Technology Subcommittee on Space Markup: NASA Authorization Act of 2014
9:00 am EDT Live webcast
H.R. 4412
Sec. 701 Asteroid Retrieval Mission: “Consistent with the policy stated in section 201(b), the Administrator may not fund the development of an asteroid retrieval mission to send a robotic spacecraft to a near-Eaerth asteroid for rendezvous, retrieval, and redicrection of that asteroid to lunar orbity for exploration by astronauts.”
However a compromise amendment to HR 4412 by Amendment by Rep. Edwards and Palazzo does not include this provision.
Hearing: From Here to Mars, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Science and Space
10:00 am EDT live webcast
Gerst had good reasons for the asteroid mission. Money. No money to develop a deep space vehicle. So they can’t go use a crew to pick up an asteroid. They want to build a Mars lander not a Moon lander. NASA plans to go to Mars sounds good to me. It will take the time they say to build, develop and test. If anyone wants to direct NASA to land on the Moon, then come up with the money. Don’t take it from the planned Mars mission. Use the money to hire a commercial firm. Just ask for bids. NASA says they don’t want to mess with it. So let GSA handle it. They can hire a firm to get the bids. They will recommend whom to give the contract to and will monitor how they perform. They should be hired now, so they can put out a request for information. Would not cost much in next years budget to find how much it would cost to go to the Moon. Shotwell sounded dubious about putting her engineers on it, but they can hire more people and they could make a profit to use on their Mars program.