spacetoday.net: House committee criticizes Augustine report

Posted: Wed, Sep 16, 2009, 6:42 AM ET (1042 GMT)
Members of a House committee took aim at a report on the future of America's human spaceflight program at a hearing Tuesday and defended NASA's current program. The hearing by the House Science and Technology Committee addressed the report prepared by the Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee, chaired by Norm Augustine, who testified at the hearing. Some House members argued that Augustine's committee should have done more to examine what would be needed to keep the current Constellation program going rather than explore alternative options, claiming that Constellation is only suffering from a lack of funding, not any serious technical issues. Also defending Constellation at the hearing was former NASA administrator Mike Griffin, who testified that the key problem facing Constellation was a lack of funding that had previously been promised the program. Augustine is scheduled to testify on the same subject at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee's space subcommittee on Wednesday.