Aviation Week & Space Technology, 12/19/2005, page 15
Edited by David Bond
NASA overseers in the House and Senate want the Bush administration to finish the International Space Station, including European and Japanese modules. The Fiscal 2006 NASA authorization conference report, adopted and headed for final passage last week, calls for full funding of the 19 space shuttle flights needed to complete the ISS and service the Hubble Space Telescope one more time. With the White House looking to trim the shuttle manifest to recover the estimated $3-5-billion shortfall it contains (AW&ST Nov. 7, p. 40), a bipartisan group of House members, some of them on the conference committee, wrote President Bush urging him to stay the course on ISS in the Fiscal 2007 budget, due out in February. They warn that NASA's international partners "are currently deciding whether to stick with the U.S. or join the Chinese space effort."