Lawmakers Question NASA Funding for SLS-Orion, Planetary Science

摘要

In a preview of a budget hearing scheduled for April 25, NASA's lead appropriator in the U.S. Senate raised concerns about the reduced level of funding the agency requested in 2014 for planetary science, the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket and its companion Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. "I'll be very blunt: With Sen. Shelby as my vice chairman, we can't cut Orion and SLS," Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said April 15 at a luncheon hosted by the Maryland Space Business Roundtable in Greenbelt, Md. "That's the political reality."