Over at Transterrestrial Musings Rand Simberg has posted a copy of an email going around about a significant—and potentially very detrimental—change to HR 3752 being contemplated by staffers in the Senate. I don’t have any time to comment on this now (I have to catch a flight), but I will note that even if the Senate manages to pass this (certainly not a given), it would still have to be reconciled with the House version, which does not contain the damaging language.
Are we sure we want to delay this further? If it goes back to conference and house and Tim Delay can fix it.
it’s a lot easier to fix it than to kill it and make a new bill.
DeLay seems a little preoccupied right now. (See your newspaper.)
Even if DeLay could fix it, why would he? He’s the congressman from JSC, not the congressman from alt-space.
Do we know who is the one that added the damaging language? I do see this as something that can protect NASA and keep the shuttle running beyond 2010/2011 (2011 is now the late estimate of the CEV flying)
Are you saying that you want the shuttle to fly past ’11 or are you saying that someone with a vested interest in that put the changes in?
I’m saying its possible that someone with a vested intrest in keeping the shuttle flying put it in. I hope its not the case, but one should always hope for the best and prepare for the worse.
As the other friday story said, it is most likely due to an unkowledgable staffer error. At least I hope so.