WASHINGTON, D.C. – Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) today released the following statement on President Bush’s new vision for space exploration plan announced today:
“The President’s exciting speech is an indication of how attentively the Administration has been listening and how intently it has been working since the loss of the Columbia last February. The President has heeded the call from Admiral Gehman and many of us in Congress to lay out a clear mission for NASA and to restructure human space flight programs around that mission.
“We have also called for hard choices, and the President has made them – setting a termination date for the Shuttle and, in effect, the Hubble Space Telescope, and refocusing Space Station research. The President has also laid out a thoughtful, gradual, achievable set of missions that don’t require an Apollo-like crash program in terms of attitude, design or budget.
“I look forward to working with the Administration to understand more fully the costs of the new mission and its impact on the full array of NASA programs. I expect the Science Committee will lead the way in analyzing the President’s proposal and working to forge a consensus on how to revive human exploration of outer space.”
