America’s space act is about to lift-off to a spectacular new future, Bill Nelson and Kay Bailey Hutchison “If we are to move forward, we must avoid a false competition between our long-range space exploration goals – the moon, Mars and beyond – and commercialized ferrying of cargo and crew members to the space station. In fact, both programs are essential.Assisting development of commercial space capabilities will eliminate America’s reliance […]

Sen. Hutchison challenges NASA spending on commercial spacecraft, Houston Chronicle “I’m frankly floored as you know from our conversation that it would be so blatant to take it right out of Orion and (the space launch system) and put it into commercial crew rather than trying to accomplish the joint goals that we have of putting forward both and making sure that we didn’t take away from the timetables for […]

Images: Moving Around in Weightlessness in “2001” and 2012 “With little experience in weightlessness inside a large spacecraft, the experts consulted by Stanley Kubrick in the 1960s felt that space travelers would need to be anchored to something in order to move around. While this is often true for some chores (including the use of Velcro), astronauts will often just fly or float from one point to another.” Keith’s note: […]

NASA’s New Space Launch System Announced – Destination TBD, SpaceRef “Sen. Kay Baily Hutchison said in a press conference a few hours earlier that the exisiting Constellation and shuttle contracts will be changed within a week or so. When asked about this Gerstenmaier said that will not happen that fast. He said that NASA’s intent is to have an Industry day for the private sector around 29 September. A formal […]

Senators, NASA To Hold Press Conference Today on NASA Announcement “U.S. Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison, Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and Bill Nelson, Chairman of Science and Space Subcommittee, along with Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator, and other members of Congress, will hold a press conference today to discuss the NASA announcement on the future of our space program. WHO: NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Members […]

Sen. Hutchison, Sen. Nelson Issue Statement on Campaign to Undermine America’s Manned Space Program “Rather than announce these results and move forward with development, the administration’s budget office has kept the independent cost report under wraps. Instead, a wildly inflated set of NASA cost numbers was invented, based on an imaginary “acceleration” of SLS development. Under these contrived numbers, which were leaked in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, development costs were […]

Florida senators dispute Sen. Richard Shelby’s criticism of spending at Kennedy Space Center, Huntsville Times “Florida’s senators share the frustration. So do Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and more than a few House representatives. They’ve all pressed NASA and the White House this year to get started on SLS. But the Shelby/Sessions letter went further and accused NASA of wrongly shifting some $341 million to Kennedy Space Center in […]

Sen. Hutchison: Failure of Russian Resupply Mission Underscores Need to Sustain America’s Leadership in Space “The Assessment conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton makes clear that the cost projections provided by NASA for review are reasonable point estimates for budget planning in the near-term 3-5 year budget horizon. In other words, there is no cost-estimate-related basis for continuing to delay the commitment to proceed with the SLS development plans that were […]

Sen. Hutchison Calls on NASA to Announce SLS Design Immediately – Don’t Allow Layoffs to Occur Next Week “Today NASA is scheduled to formally receive the independent cost assessment for the Space Launch System (SLS) that was requested by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). I expect this independent assessment will confirm what myself and the NASA technical staff have known for many months – that the SLS plan […]

Senator Hutchison Calls for Immediate Action on Space Launch System “No one questions the need to ensure the best understanding of program costs. We do that every year on an ongoing basis with every major NASA program, as we set spending levels in our annual budget. There is simply no need to defer announcing the vehicle design decision while awaiting yet another cost review. “To do so only increases the […]