A House-Senate conference committee met Thursday afternoon and approved a final version of the NASA authorization bill (using the Senate bill number, S.1281) which will go to the full House and Senate for approval, perhaps by the end of the year. While the conference report has not been published online yet, some details of the bill, as noted in press releases by the House Science Committee (via SpaceRef), House Science Committee Democratic Membership, and the office of Rep. Ken Calvert, include:
- Endorsement of the Vision for Space Exploration;
- Designation of the US segment of the ISS as a “national laboratory”;
- Creation of a series of cost control and notification procedures modeled on the Nunn-McCurdy controls for DOD programs;
- Authorization for larger Centennial Challenges prizes;
- Prohibition of any layoffs of NASA personnel before March 2007.
