Senate lawmakers expressed cautious support for the Administration's new space exploration vision during a hearing Jan. 28, tempering their enthusiasm with questions about the plan's fiscal viability.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transpor-tation, said that while the president's vision has given NASA "a new focus and clear objectives," he is concerned about agency's strategy for realizing the vision. The "one constant" among NASA's high-profile projects is that they always cost more than expected, he said.

"I am very curious to hear how [NASA] Administrator O'Keefe thinks we can implement the president's proposal with the very limited resources that have been proposed," McCain said. "Needless to say, the $12 billion that the administration had suggested be spent over the next five years falls far, far short of what might be required to actually return to the moon and reach for Mars and beyond."

The president's space exploration vision calls for the development of a new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), which NASA will work on under the title, "Project Constellation." The CEV would make its first unmanned flight around 2008, its first crewed flight around 2014, then begin taking astronauts to the moon between 2015 and 2020.

Under the president's budget plan, to be unveiled Feb. 2, NASA would receive an additional $1 billion in new money over the next five years and reprogram $11 billion in existing funds within the agency to begin work on achieving the new vision (DAILY, Jan. 15).

"We must acknowledge that space exploration, particularly manned exploration, is costly ... I think the American public is justifiably apprehensive about starting another major space initiative for fear that they will learn later that it will require far more sacrifice, or taxpayer dollars, than originally discussed or estimated," McCain said.

Given the current federal budget deficit, sending human beings rather than robotic explorers may be difficult to justify, according to Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.).

"I'm not unalterably opposed to space exploration," he said. "But the question is, can we afford to do this, and is it really necessary?"

Testifying before the committee, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said that in some cases, having human beings on a mission can reduce the pre-flight development cost. A person could accomplish all the work of the Mars Exploration Rovers, which are scheduled to spend at least three months surveying Mars, in a single day, he said.

NASA has performed a cost-benefit analysis of the advantages of human space flight, which should be released in three weeks, O'Keefe said.

Shuttle and CEV

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) questioned the administration's commitment to the vision, given the modest increases proposed to NASA's budget and the omission of any mention of the plan in the president's recent State of the Union address.

Nelson also questioned the timeline of the plan, which would leave a gap between the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010 and the first crewed missions of the CEV. During this gap, the U.S. would have to rely on Russia to transport its astronauts to low-Earth orbit. Nelson suggested to O'Keefe that NASA find a way to create an "overlap" between the shuttle and the CEV that would eliminate the gap.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) said he thinks the president's strategy of reprogramming the bulk of the funding needed for the vision over the next five years, with modest increases, is a prudent one.