NASA Bill Unanimously Clears Senate, But Not With Universally Rave Reviews

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed S.3729, the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, and a space group urged the House to follow suit before Oct. 1.

With the new fiscal year about to begin, space industry businesses and individual space workers cant afford more months of ongoing uncertainty -- they need to know what future to plan for," Commercial Spaceflight Federation President Bretton Alexandersaid.

Bretton said, "A protracted stalemate over the NASA authorization bill would likely cause continued layoffs and would make it more difficult for commercial companies to ramp up hiring.

"The only way to avoid months of limbo for NASA is for a prompt resolution by Congress before the new fiscal year begins."

But Rep. Bill Posey cautioned that haste could make waste, stating that none of the legislation pending on Capitol Hill provides the right answer.

Sadly, the presidents proposal, the House bill and the Senate bill all fall short of the presidents promise to close the gap and keep America first in space," said Posey, whose district partially includes the Kennedy Space Center.

"Each of these three options leaves the U.S. space program with no domestic access to the International Space Station for an undetermined number of years.

"For the nation that won the space race and has benefited economically from that leadership, this is an unfortunate step backward.