The announcement last week by the Obama Administration that it seeks to extend the life of the International Space Station to at least 2024, which already has the support of a number of members of Congress, received the support of another key member earlier this week. Speaking at the AIAA SciTech 2014 conference Monday outside Washington, Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA), ranking member of the commerce, justice, and science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, also backed the planned extension. “I support the continuation of the International Space Station up through 2024, and I hope that our international partners will join with us in this effort,” he said in a plenary address at the conference. He also expressed continued backing of NASA’s commercial cargo and crew programs to support ISS operations.
On Thursday, President Obama signed into law HR 667, legislation that renames NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center after Neil Armstrong. The bill, introduced in the House and passed there last February, was approved in the Senate by unanimous consent last week. In a statement late Thursday, NASA said that a timeline to implement the name change is being developed, but did not give an estimated date for completing that effort, nor the cost to replace signage, documentation, and other items affected by the name change.
Sorry, Jeff for the off-topic post … Rand Simberg has a guest column in this morning’s Florida Today:
“Government Should Butt Out of Space Race”
The extension of the ISS is good news for the commercial space sector as it gives them a destination for 4-6 years. So is Rep. Farrah’s support for ISS’s extension. All good news.
The Congressman’s concerns about support by our other ISS partners for such an extension is well founded, given the struggle in 2010 that was winning their support for extending ISS to 2020. Anyone know how Holdren’s meeting with ISS partner reps last week went?