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By John Nolan, Staff Writer Updated 10:14 AM Tuesday, February 2, 2010

President Obama’s budget proposal for NASA, released Monday, Feb. 1, officially underscored former President Bush’s plan to retire the space shuttle fleet in 2010, and prompted questions about what will replace the shuttles’ capability of carrying astronauts, cargo and scientific experiments into orbit.

The president proposes to boost NASA’s overall budget to $19 billion in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, 2010, up from $18.7 billion currently. The space agency would get increases in subsequent years to get to $21 billion in 2015.

The shuttles have been the sole American means of transporting astronauts and cargoes to the international space station. Researchers from southwest Ohio, including the Air Force Institute of Technology and Miami University, have used the shuttles to send scientific experiments into orbit so they can be done under weightless conditions.

The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force is competing with the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., and Johnson Space Center, Houston, among other sites, for the right to obtain a space shuttle for permanent display after the fleet’s retirement. NASA has said it will offer the orbiter Discovery to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., leaving the orbiters Endeavour and Atlantis available for permanent display elsewhere. NASA said those shuttles will be available no earlier than July 2011, in case some shuttle flights spill over into 2011.

Members of Ohio’s congressional delegation, including U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, met on Jan. 20 with NASA’s administrator, Charles Bolden Jr., to discuss the space agency’s importance to Ohio. Its operations include the NASA Glenn Research Center at Cleveland, a key underpinning of Ohio’s aerospace industry.

Turner reminded Bolden in a letter Monday that Turner is urging NASA to assign one of the retired shuttles to the Air Force museum. The museum receives 1.3 million visitors annually and is located within 600 miles of 60 percent of the U.S. population, Turner wrote.

“The museum is the world’s largest and oldest military aviation museum and has an outstanding reputation in preserving and displaying America’s aviation history,” Turner wrote.

Meanwhile, Obama’s proposal to cancel the NASA program that was being developed to return humans to the moon by 2020 was quickly questioned by U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

Obama proposed canceling the Constellation program on which NASA says it has spent $9 billion in four years to develop rockets and spacecraft to replace the space shuttles. Instead, the White House wants to spend $6 billion to finance “space taxi” services from commercial companies. But by canceling the Constellation’s Ares I rocket, NASA would have no backup if the commercial companies couldn’t deliver and the United States would be heavily reliant on Russian Soyuz rockets for transport into orbit, Nelson said.

“If the commercial (ventures) don’t work, then we are stuck for upwards of a decade relying on the Russians, and that’s not a good position to be in,” Nelson told reporters in a conference telephone call Monday afternoon.

U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said the president’s NASA proposal lacks the details Congress needs to see.

“I am troubled by President Obama’s method of handling the proposed termination of NASA’s Constellation program,” Voinovich said. “The sheer lack of details on the administration’s plan is frustrating, and I am not satisfied that what the president is proposing to do with these funds is better than simply going forward with the Constellation program.”

Nelson and other advocates of the space program are also worried that the end of the shuttle program could mean the loss of 7,000 jobs at the Kennedy Space Center in central Florida.

Peter Orszag, the president’s budget director, said the administration wants to cancel the Constellation program to put money into developing new technologies for space travel.

“The Constellation program, which is over budget and behind schedule, was intended to do what we’ve already done, which is return a man or woman to the moon,” Orszag said. “What we’re saying is let’s redirect that towards longer-range R&D, advanced robotics, research and development, and find those new technologies that will actually allow us to go further in space and not just repeat what we’ve already done, especially in a program that is behind schedule and over budget.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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JG

I believe that you will find that the Museum is supported by donations and volunteer, not tax money

DH

DH
10:16 PM, 2/8/2010

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In your sad little mind, anyone who disagrees with you should be labeled a disgusting Liberal who's completely out of touch with the real world. I imagine that's the best part of your blogging universe. Anonymous insults. What else have you got behind your rantings and clouds of hate? Why not print & distribute bumper stickers with your insults, name and phone #. You'll quickly meet some folks who have different view. Still waiting for that "letter to the editor" with your name on it.

To: Midsteve
7:24 AM, 2/3/2010

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Plans to go back to the moon have been scrapped, and the Constellation program (which was going to replace the Space Shuttle) is also being laid to rest by the NASA budget cuts. To be fair, it takes more than a few <a rev="vote for" title="Obama spurs NASA budget 2010 changes" href="http://personalmoneystore.com/Payda... ">payday loans</a> to fund a NASA mission, but space exploration is the expansion of the sciences in perhaps the noblest of fashions.

Seth D
12:28 AM, 2/3/2010

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Isn't federal spending on museums what most of you guys consider to be pork barrel spending?

JG
7:31 PM, 2/2/2010

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I love you LIBS,you make stupid statements as though you really believe them! Great entertainment people,keep up the good work.Thanks again.

middsteve
5:03 PM, 2/2/2010

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