Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama has asked his party's congressional leadership to extend NASA's authority to buy seats on the Russian Soyuz vehicle, while holding open the possibility of flying the space shuttle beyond its planned 2010 retirement date.

In a letter that offers the most detailed Obama position yet on issues facing the U.S. space agency in the runup to the November election, the Illinois senator appears to signal strong support for civil space and aeronautics spending after the Bush administration leaves office.

"The very engine of innovation for our nation, investment in research and technology, has been all but eliminated at NASA," Obama said Sept. 22 in a letter from his Senate office to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "America needs to renew its commitment to NASA and to provide sustained, stable direction with an honest budget and sufficient resources for success across all of its critical missions: human spaceflight, science, and aeronautics research."

For the near term, Obama noted that NASA is studying what it would take to keep the space shuttle fleet flying after the end of 2010, and urged congressional appropriators to "be prepared to consider increasing NASA's budget to extend safe shuttle operations beyond 2010 and to accelerate government and private-sector efforts to provide human access to low-Earth orbit."

It would cost about $3 billion a year to keep flying the shuttle, according to a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office based on data supplied by NASA. That would be comparable to current spending on shuttle operations. Obama made clear in his letter to Reid and Pelosi that he doesn't want the funds to come from money being used to develop the Ares I crew launch vehicle and Orion crew exploration vehicle intended to follow the shuttle.

"Any effort to extend the shuttle program must receive adequate funding, ensuring that progress on developing new vehicles is not further delayed by diverting funds to the shuttle," he wrote.

NASA's plans, based on Bush administration spending levels, would use Russian Soyuz capsules to deliver U.S., Canadian, European and Japanese astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) from the time the shuttle retires until Ares I and Orion are ready to do the job. However, NASA is prohibited from buying Soyuz seats for ISS operations by the Iran-North Korea-Syria Non-proliferation Act (INKSNA), and is doing so under a temporary congressional exemption that expires at the end of 2011 (Aerospace DAILY, Sept. 23).

Terming the use of Soyuz for U.S. access to the $100 billion ISS "less than optimal," Obama nonetheless calls on Congress to "extend NASA's waiver of INKSNA so we keep that option open for allowing U.S. astronauts to utilize the ISS beyond 2011."

He also asks Reid and Pelosi to "demand" that NASA keep open the option of continuing to fly shuttles after 2010, and provide funds in fiscal 2009 for one additional shuttle flight to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment to the ISS. That mission would cost $300 million - $400 million, according to NASA estimates.

"NASA helped America win the Cold War without firing a single shot by dazzling the world with our technological and moral leadership," Obama concluded. "It is time to dazzle them again."

Photo of Atlantis launch for STS-122: NASA