President Obama visits NASA's Kennedy Space Center in 2010
President Obama has signed into law the 2011 budget continuing resolution, a deficit cutting compromise with the House and Senate that funds the federal government through Sept. 30 and includes $18.485 billion for NASA.
The measure, which is $239 million less for the year than the space agency received in 2010, frees NASA to pursue the human exploration goals outlined in the bi-partisan 2010 NASA Authorization Act. It does so by removing the previous administration’s Constellation program commitments.
Obama signed the Department of Defense and Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011, also known as HR. 1473, on Friday — a day after it was passed by the House and Senate. The broad outline of the terms was hammered out by the legislative and executive branches on April 8-9 in a contentious Washington process that barely averted a government shutdown.
The 2011 fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. Congress is currently addressing a 2012 fiscal year budget proposal from the White House that calls for $18.724 billion in NASA spending annually through 2016.
Under the terms of the bi-partisan authorization act, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama last year, NASA is to pursue the development of the Space Launch System, a new heavy lift rocket, and Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle, a four-person capsule based on the Constellation Program’s Orion capsule.
The authorization act calls on NASA to have the heavy lifter and capsule in operation by the end of 2016, a goal that could be difficult to achieve as funding levels throughout the federal government fall in response to legislative deficit reduction initiatives. Congress would like the SLS and MPCV capable of carrying astronauts to the International Space Station as well as future deep space destinations — in case the commercial space transportation efforts encounter delays.
In 2010, Obama called for the termination of the Constellation Program, which was to propel astronauts back to the moon by 2020 — after a White House commission determined the program was financially unsustainable.
In its place, the president proposed a NASA-funded commercial initiative intended to lower the cost of launching astronauts to the space station and other future low Earth orbit destinations.
The president called on NASA to extend operations and research aboard the space station until at least 2020 and focus future human exploration efforts on a flexible path leading to an asteroid encounter in 2025 and a mission to the moons of Mars a decade later. The ultimate goal of human exploration should be the Red Planet, Obama said.
The space agency has designated the Johnson Space Center to lead efforts to develop the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the Marshall Space Flight Center to lead the Space Launch System development and the Kennedy Space Center to lead the commercial space transportation initiative.