Senate committee urges NASA to accelerate space program transformation

New York Times : Earlier this week, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation grilled White House and NASA officials on what some of its members perceive is reluctance on the part of the space agency to implement the congressional version of President Obama’s plan for space exploration in the post-shuttle era. In the original White House plan, Constellation, the program for taking astronauts back to the Moon, was cancelled outright. In Congress’s plan, which is now law, Constellation’s crew capsule survives; Constellation’s launcher is to be replaced by a future vehicle that should be ready for liftoff by 2016. As Kenneth Chang of the New York Times reports, the senators repeatedly sought reassurances that NASA would indeed heed the law and not try to evade or delay its provisions.