A taxpayer watchdog group with a history of opposing space projects blasted an Alabama senator for trying to keep the Constellation program alive.
The Washington-based Citizens Against Government Waste awarded Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.,its "porker of the month" award for co-sponsoring an amendment that would force NASA to keep spending money on Constellation.
The Obama administration has called for cancellation of the $9 billion program, which would take astronauts back to the moon by 2020.
Shelby and Utah Sen. Bob Bennett last month inserted their Constellation language into an emergency spending bill for funding military operations in Afghanistan.
Sen. Shelbys actions just perpetuate the notion that politicians in Washington are living on a completely different planet, CAGW president Tom Schatz said in a statement.
But Florida officials, led by U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, have lobbied for Constellation to continue while they cast doubt on the White House's vision for future space exploration.
The real waste is canceling a program thats near completion after investing $9 billion into it," Posey said.
"If Constellation is killed, the president plans to outsource American space jobs to Russia to the tune of more than a billion dollars thats taxpayer money spent there, in Russia, and not here, the congressman said.
Facing the double whammy of scrapping Constellation and retiring the space shuttle, Florida stands to lose some 15,000 space-related jobs. Obama has pledged to soften the economic blow, but has yet to spell out a definitive plan for the state's Space Coast.
Without specific initiatives to maintain heavy-launch capability, Posey says Obama and NASA risk creating an "eternal gap" in U.S. space exploration as well as national security.
I think our investment in human space flight has produced many tangible benefits for our national security, our technological advancements and economic competitiveness, said Posey, a former Kennedy Space Center worker.
Critics of the CAGW called the group's analysis "deeply flawed" and indicative of the organization's historic bias against space programs.
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
