Posted: Thu, Mar 11, 2004, 1:42 PM ET (1842 GMT)
Two key members of Congress said Wednesday that they had yet to decide whether to support the new space initiative announced by President Bush earlier this year, saying they needed additional information. During a hearing of the House Science Committee regarding the new initiative, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), chairman of the committee, said that he was still undecided about "whether and how to undertake this program", adding that his questions about it will "only become more pressing" as the fiscal year 2005 budget process gathers steam. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), the ranking Democrat on the committee, also said he was undecided about the initiative, saying that he would not support it until convinced that the goals of the effort are "credible and responsible". Both made their remarks at a beginning of a hearing where several independent experts were invited to weigh in on the plan. One witness, Michael Griffin, a former associate administrator for exploration for NASA in the early 1990s, suggested that returning humans to the Moon could be done for $30 billion over 10 years, a fraction of the estimated cost under the proposed initiative. Others cautioned that a focus on returning to the Moon could hinder efforts to also send humans to Mars.
