From: AL.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In one of its last acts before adjourning, the 112th Congress gave final approval Wednesday to a law telling policymakers in both the White House and NASA — again — that Congress is serious about wanting the new heavy-lift rocket being developed in Huntsville, Al. The measure, which includes other sections critical to future space exploration, now goes to President Obama for his signature.
Congress had been asked to extend third-party liability indemnification for commercial space launch companies and to remove a potential legal hurdle to continued use of Russian rockets as space taxis for American astronauts. The law doing both of those things is called the”Space Exploration Sustainability Act,” and it was passed Monday by the Senate and accepted without objection Wednesday by the House.
But senators led by outgoing Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, attached an amendment to the Senate version stating again that Congress expects NASA and the White House to follow through on what Hutchison called “a hard-fought congressional and administration consensus” reached in 2010. That deal passed into law in late 2010 requires NASA to pursue both commercial space development and government development of a new heavy-lift rocket and crew capsule together called the Space Launch System. The version of the sustainability law passed by the House on Wednesday includes the Senate amendment.
The new rocket is being developed at Huntsville’s Marshall Space Flight Center and its core built by…
Get the scoop on: Congress tells NASA and White House, again, that it wants Space Launch System (updated)
