Space Initiative Gets Big Budget Cuts

President Bush's new space initiative received a major setback this week when the members of a House appropriations subcommittee passed a tentative budget that would fund only a fraction of the President's new plans. The panel suggested that NASA should receive $15.1 billion next year, which is a drop of $229 million from last year (NASA was actually hoping for a 5.6% increase). Development of the new Crew Exploration Vehicle would be delayed, and funding would be cut to Project Prometheus - a new nuclear propulsion technology. This isn't a final approved budget, however, as there are many more steps for the final decision is made.