Much of the discussion about the rumored new human spaceflight initiative has focused on the cost of such a program and Congress’s willingness to fund it. But is that the major near-term issue? Maybe not, an unnamed aide to a Republican Senator tells Reuters. Saying it was “unlikely” that Congress would fund such a program, the aide added that “the president doesn’t have to get this through Congress this year. He just needs to put it on the table as part of the agenda for his second term… The president is now looking for centrist supporters who may be enthralled by big ideas. This has much less to do about legislative reality on Capitol Hill this year than it has to do with political reality in 2004.” Indeed, the rumored increase in NASA’s budget for FY05—$800 million—is pretty small in the grander scheme of things. Still, the money, or rather the willingness to spend the money, will become an issue down the road for either Bush or his successor when the project, and its budget, ramps up.
