How to land on Mars? Don’t ask NASA—the Senate just cut its test program

Senator Barbara Mikulski has worked hard to ensure funding for Goddard Space Flight Center. (credit: NASA)

The US Senate talks a good game about sending humans to Mars. The group holds itself up as the protector of NASA and a champion for the space organization's grand exploration aims. For example, as part of this spring's appropriations process, the chairman of the Senate subcommittee with oversight of NASA's budget chided Charlie Bolden, the space agency's administrator, when his budget request didn't amply fund exploration.

"Mr. Administrator, you have traveled around the country in recent months touting NASA’s strong support for the SLS and Orion missions, when in reality this budget will effectively delay any advancement in a NASA-led human mission to Mars, or anywhere at all," Sen. Richard Shelby, a Republican senator from Alabama, told Bolden during a hearing in March.

Shelby was upset with Bolden because the president's budget request did not seek a stratospheric level of funding for the Space Launch System rocket, which is being designed at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. And if there were any doubt about his parochial intent, consider Shelby's own position statement on NASA: "The ability of NASA to achieve our goals for further space exploration has always been and always will be through Marshall Space Flight Center."

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments