Originally published December 3 2005
NASA announces it cannot afford all existing programs
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
NASA has had to had to cancel or delay several programs to fund a replacement for the space shuttle. Biological research programs in space as well as research concerning future bases on the moon have been scrapped.
Nasa administrator Michael Griffin defended his agency's need to sacrifice some existing programmes to make space exploration a top priority, including a Moon landing by 2018, in testimony to United States lawmakers.
A victim of the government's runaway budget deficit, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration over the past few years has had to scrap or delay a number of scientific research programs to fund a replacement for the space shuttle - the "Crew Exploration Vehicle", or CEV.
Nasa, said Griffin, follows the tried principle of working within available budget limits, adding that it was the only way of meeting the goals of space exploration - referred to as the Vision - President George Bush set in January 2004.
Some lawmakers from the Republican majority and the Democratic opposition on the science committee were sceptical of the White House budget formula to finance its ambitious vision of space exploration.
The committee's top Democrat Bart Gordon was also doubtful: "I fear that the approach being taken by this administration to move the Vision forward over the near term may make it very difficult to sustain the initiative beyond 2008."
Rather, it's to make clear that only 21 months into the Vision, Nasa has already had to make major cuts to programmes and contemplates additional restructuring simply to have the hope of meeting the president's timetable for returning US astronauts to the Moon," Gordon added.
Griffin also reiterated that Nasa expected to resume shuttle flights in May 2006, once engineers have clearly understood what caused a chunk of insulation material to break off and fall from the Discovery's external fuel tank when it took off in July.
The Discovery flight was the first shuttle mission since the February 2003 Columbia catastrophe that killed seven astronauts on re-entry and was caused by a falling piece of insulation that gouged the protective thermal shell of the shuttle on takeoff.
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