McCaul Grills NASA On Future Of Constellation Jobs

Press Release

Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX 10) received no assurances from NASA that jobs in the Houston area would be safe if the Obama administration carries out its plans to cut funding to the Constellation program. The President's budget calls for shifting NASA's responsibilities toward climate change and weather observation, and away from human space flight.

"What are we to tell our constituents? What are we to tell people at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, Clear Lake, people you know so well?" Rep. McCaul asked NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr. during today's budget hearing on the Science and Technology Committee. "What impact is this going to have on them?"

"We are going to do everything in our power to make sure the programs that develop from this budget that we are able to develop from the interface money that we're gonna have, we're gonna enable them to do the type of work that they do," Bolden responded.

"I wish I could give you definitive programs that we are going to have now but we are two or three weeks after the rollout of the budget and we have not had those types of answers," Bolden continued. "I promise you that within months we'll put some meat on the bones, if you will. Because I realize there's a lack of detail and that's disturbing to everyone. It's disquieting and discomforting to me. We're gonna get some answers."

President Obama's plan to gut NASA's Constellation program, the next phase of human space flight, lengthens the time that America will be out of the space business once the Shuttle program ends this year, wastes $9 billion that taxpayers have already invested, and ultimately could cost thousands of jobs.

Congressman McCaul, who serves on the Space Subcommittee, believes it makes no sense to throw away a plan backed by 50 years of NASA experience and institutional knowledge in favor of startup operations that will not propel Americans back into space any cheaper or faster than the Constellation program.

"Commercial space developers I do not believe are at the point where they can take over this program," McCaul told Bolden.

"I'm concerned about the human space flight mission being completely cut out of this budget, the Constellation program going away and an increase in funding toward something I don't consider a core mission of NASA and that is climate change and weather observation," McCaul said.

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