Bush Signs NASA Authorization

For the second time in three years, the United States legislative and executive branches of government have agreed to authorize a multi-billion dollar NASA program that returns humans to the moon but there remains a wait for the money.

President Bush signed into law an act authorizing an additional space shuttle flight and accelerated development of the new Ares-Orion spacecraft. The meassure enables an additional $1 billion to accelerate work on the Orion/Ares moonship, which is not scheduled for an inaugural manned flight until 2015.

In addition the new law sets the stage for funding for nine shuttle missions to the space station and it extends the agency's involvement in the space station until 2020 while urging NASA to do an additional shuttle mission to launch the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a $1.6 billion-observatory that would be attached to the outside of the orbiting space station.

As the 2008 election campaign comes to a close, it will be up to either Barack Obama or John McCain to determine national space policy through presidential leadership in the next four years.