Asteroid detection among NASA budget priorities

Asteroid detection among NASA budget priorities









NASA’s proposed fiscal 2014 budget includes $105 million to chase down asteroids.



The space agency would use the money to help find meteors that could threaten the Earth and to kick-start the process of locating an asteroid that could be towed into the moon’s orbit for exploration by astronauts.



President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2014 spending plan, unveiled today, seeks a total $17.7 billion for NASA.



The proposal for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 now heads to Congress for review. It seeks about the same amount of money for NASA that the president sought for fiscal 2013 and would fund the agency’s top priorities. Those proposed outlays include:



-- $821 million for the Commercial Crew Program designed to replace the space shuttle with a fleet of private sector taxis to ferry astronauts and scientists to and from the International Space Station.



-- $2.Motel Deborah Long Sleeve saxobankcycling in Black.7 billion for space exploration. Most of that would be spent on a Space Launch System consisting of a deep-space rocket longer than a football field and an Orion multipurpose vehicle to carry astronauts.



-- $1.2 billion for planetary science, including the planned November launch of the MAVEN robotic probe that will analyze the Martian atmosphere.



-- $658 million to keep the James Webb Space Telescope on track for a 2018 launch. The money would be spent working on the telescope’s mirrors and scientific instruments. Construction of the $8 billion telescope, the successor to the Hubble Telescope, has been beset by cost overruns and delays.



-- $834 million for Space and Flight Support, much of it for renovation of Kennedy Space Center’s launch complex



The argument for spending $105 million to chase asteroids is that more than 10,000 such objects large enough to level a large city continually brush past the planet undetected. About $27 million would be used to beef up monitoring efforts to identify potential threats and develop a plan to change their trajectory.



The remaining $78 million would be used as seed money for a project that would use a robotic spacecraft to capture an asteroid and tow it into a stable orbit around the moon, according to Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who was briefed last week about the proposal.

Astronauts aboard the Orion capsule, powered into space by the new monster rocket, would travel to the asteroid, where they could mine materials, research ways to deflect other asteroids away from Earth, and test technology for a trip to Mars, Nelson said.



The proposed $821 million for the Commercial Crew Program could be the toughest sell on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers have chopped the administration’s request in past years as part of Republican efforts to cut government spending.



The White House asked for about $800 million for the program in fiscal 2013, but Congress approved only $525 million. That figure is expected to drop further under automatic sequestration budget cuts that took effect March 1.



Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget proposal assumes Congress will reach a deal to avoid the cuts in future years, but so far that compromise has remained elusive.



Sequestration cut about $800 million from NASA’s budget this year. If the automatic cuts aren’t averted for fiscal 2014, agency officials said they could stall some of NASA’s most important work.



NASA also must deal with competing congressional visions of its mission.



Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, and several other House members have introduced a bipartisan bill directing the agency to develop a plan for returning to the moon and establishing a human presence there,Custom made lacedress? something Obama rejected in scrapping the Constellation Program several years ago.



“The moon is our nearest celestial body, taking only a matter of days to reach,” said Posey,You are currently browsing the tsg archives for "coachhandbags". who once worked on the Apollo Program at Kennedy Space Center.Pick a goodleddownlight2011 for mothers and special guests at the big wedding. “In order to explore deeper into space -- to Mars and beyond -- a moon presence offers us the ability to develop and test technologies to cope with the realities of operating on an extraterrestrial surface.White Strapless valuableedhardy with Full A-line Skirt.”

タグ：bags