House Passes NASA Bill

The House overwhelmingly passed legislation to reauthorize programs at NASA through 2009. The one-year directive (H.R. 6063) is designed to guide the agency without tying the hands of the next Administration. The bill authorizes more than $19 billion for the agency to support programs in science, aeronautics, exploration, education, and space operations. It includes an additional $1 billion to speed up the development of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle, which will replace the aging space shuttles. With respect to the International Space Station, the bill directs NASA to include two contingency missions in the shuttle's flight manifest and to add a mission to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which will measure charged particles in cosmic rays.