Lawmaker Says He'll Try to End Questioned NASA Spending

Press Release

Spurred by a watchdog's findings that NASA is wasting $215 million and maybe more on a rocket the Bush administration ordered, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is filing legislation to prevent the space agency from squandering money he says should be spent on projects for the future.

Nelson released a draft of the legislation today. It will be filed when Congress returns from recess later this month. Also Thursday, the Florida Democrat and other lawmakers were coauthoring a letter challenging a recent NASA report that says the agency can't develop a new rocket on its current budget.

The $215 million came to light in a letter Nelson and other lawmakers received Thursday afternoon. In it, an inspector general at NASA focused on money the space agency is spending on what's called Constellation. [ Click here to read the inspector general's letter. ]

Constellation was the name for the rocket and space capsule wanted by President George W. Bush. A provision in existing federal law requires NASA to keep working on the Bush administration's plans for space travel although the plans have been abandoned by the Obama administration. "Given that every dime counts in our space program right now, we can't afford to be wasting money," said Nelson.

Nelson's legislation would strike from law a provision reportedly inserted by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) that forbids NASA from cancelling contracts to build the rocket and space capsule that were part of the Constellation program.

President Obama last year canceled Constellation, after he signed legislation authored by Nelson and others in Congress that directed NASA to shift course and build a new heavy-lift rocket based on the space shuttle and previous technology.

Initially the president had wanted to end Constellation and delay the immediate testing and development by NASA of a new heavy-lift rocket while putting a greater emphasis on commercial space ventures. Fearing that would render uncertain the future of deep-space exploration, Nelson and others in Congress enacted a different plan that supports more commercial ventures but also requires NASA to build a new rocket by 2016.

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