Alan Stern has confirmed the decision made by the Senate's space
subcommittee to try to rescue the Pluto 2004 mission: "The Senate bill will
(in present form) fund an Outer Planets Program line, make PKB [Pluto/Kuiper
Belt] its first mission, ask NASA to consider competing Europa Orbiter the
same way, and set aside money to begin PKB at the start of Fiscal Year 2002.
I do not know when the full Senate Appropriations Committee will take this
up, nor when the House-Senate conference will be... My gut feeling is that
the only thing standing between us and a funded PKB project now is the
House-Senate conference. What an amazing 9 months it's been since Pluto
Express' cancellation." He also reports that the Solar System Exploration
Subcommittee -- which was meeting in Washington when the news came -- broke
into applause.
Judging from a note on NASA Watch, this was -- as I suspected -- largely the
work of Sen. Mikulski, who lambasted NASA for allowing "overrun after
overrun after overrun" on the Space Station at the expense of NASA's other
spending, as a result of "a culture of overindulgence". Th:e Senate
subcommittee also placed much sharper borders on the additional amount of
funding allowed for the Station than the House has done. (More details on
that shortly.)
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