Free Republic

A congressional panel grilled NASA chief Charlie Bolden today (July 12) on Capitol Hill, repeatedly asking him why the space agency has yet to choose a design for its next-generation heavy-lift rocket. Last year Congress gave NASA until mid-January 2011 to pick a design for the rocket, known as the Space Launch System, that will carry astronauts on deep space missions. NASA still has not made an official decision, and members of the House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space and Technology took Bolden to task. "We've waited for answers that have not come. We've pleaded for answers that have...

Member of Congress is expressing "grave concerns" over NASA's Project Prometheus nuclear rocket program. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, representing the 4th District of Georgia, is spearheading an effort to find like-minded lawmakers to question the building and deployment of "a nuclear propulsion rocket" - and to protect the public "from the potential of a catastrophic nuclear accident posed by the Prometheus Project." In a "Dear Colleague" letter dated May 5 to other members of Congress, Representative McKinney is seeking the support of Members of Congress "for shifting Federal funding from the development of nuclear propulsion systems to research and development for...