Space Politics

The bad news is that the Senate did not take up HR 5382 before adjourning after midnight Saturday. HobbySpace reports that while the bill was track to be handled by the Senate Saturday night, a hold was placed on the bill, although it’s not clear whether this was a simple administrative maneuver or if a […]

I was watching C-SPAN this morning (ok, I had C-SPAN on while doing other things), which broadcast a floor debate on the omnibus budget bill. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) threw this in during his comments on the bill:

They [budget negotiators] did give into the Administration and there’s money to go to Mars. And, maybe, […]

The AP reports that final negotiations over the FY2005 budget may have resulted in some extra money for NASA. According to the report, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay won an extra $300 million for the space agency—part of an increase in the across-the-board cuts on other non-defense and non-homeland security programs from 0.75 to 0.83 […]

Space News [subscription required] reported late Wednesday that House and Senate budget negotiators have agreed to give NASA $15.9 billion in FY2005. That amount is less than the $16.2 billion that President Bush originally requested, as well as the $16.4 billion the Senate Appropriations Committee proposed (a figure that includes $800 million in emergency funding), […]

The last couple of days have been a roller coaster, to put it mildly. On Tuesday, as reported here, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said publicly that HR 3752 was not dead and, in fact, a final deal was likely by the end of the day Wednesday. However, things apparently took a turn for the worse later […]