Commercial Space Advocates Demand NASA Budget Boost

WASHINGTON — Dozens of space exploration advocates sent Congress an open letter Tuesday supporting President Obama's plan to develop commercial spaceflight and calling for even greater funding for NASA.

Obama's budget proposal has roiled Congress because he proposed ending NASA's Constellation program, aimed at returning people to the moon.

He would scrap NASA's Ares rocket, which also could have delivered astronauts to the International Space Station, and instead wants to shift responsibility for launching astronauts to the station to the private sector. Obama proposed adding an extra $6 billion to NASA's budget to help do that.

The reliance on commercial rockets has stirred up opposition from space heavyweights such as Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, and John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, who have called it premature.

More than 50 space officials, from industry leaders to former astronauts, argued back Tuesday.

"We specifically wish to express our concern that the commercial crew to space station program is sometimes seen as optional or too risky to America's future in space, but nothing could be further from the truth," they wrote.

The letter urged lawmakers to keep the $6 billion increase that Obama proposed for commercial spaceflight ? and to "accelerate the pace and funding of NASA's human space exploration projects beyond Earth orbit."

"These twin pillars of human spaceflight are each crucial to the long-term health of our nation's space program," the letter read.

Signatories include Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, and former astronauts such as Owen Garriott and Jim Voss.

Former NASA officials on the letter include Jim Kennedy, former director of Kennedy Space Center, and Scott Hubbard, former director of NASA Ames Research Center in California.

Separately, the company that merged the Atlas and Delta rocket families also joined the advocacy group that supports Obama's commercial spaceflight plan, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

NASA's budget remains uncertain.

As lawmakers squabble over Obama's shift from the Ares rocket to commercial rockets, key leaders have questioned whether the space agency deserves the $6 billion increase that Obama proposed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. John Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat who heads the Senate science committee, have each questioned the funding boost when weighed against other domestic spending priorities.

The budget debate will likely remain unresolved for months, as lawmakers struggle first with how much to spend overall in this election year's budget and then decide how much each agency should receive. Committee votes on policy could begin in late June.

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