Posted: Tue, Jun 10, 2014, 7:41 AM ET (1141 GMT)
The US House of Representatives approved, by a nearly unanimous vote, a new NASA authorization bill that would place restrictions on NASA's plans to develop its Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM). The NASA Authorization Act of 2014, HR 4412, passed the House on a 401-2 vote after a brief discussion on the House floor Monday afternoon. The bill authorizes funding for the current fiscal year and also includes a number of policy provisions. Those provisions include a restriction on spending money on the ARM concept and searches for smaller asteroids that would be targets for the mission, requiring NASA to develop instead a report detailing the budget and schedule for the mission and what technologies developed for it could be used for future human missions to the Moon and Mars. The bill would also require NASA to developed a detailed exploration roadmap, outlining missions leading up to humans on Mars. The bill goes on to the Senate.

Related Links:

•  The Hill article
•  GulfLive.com article
•  McClatchy Newspapers article