NASA’s human spaceflight budget request was recently cut from $4 billion to $3.3 billion

by the House Appropriations Committee, and Florida congressmen are not pleased.

President Obama’s budget request was down-sized by the committee’s commerce, justice, science subcommittee in what the subcommittee chair Alan Mollohan described as a “time-out” until the Augustine panel reaches its conclusions.

Florida congresspersons Suzanne Kosmas and Bill Posey have written a letter to the committee expressing their concern, in particular for the workforce that is gearing up to provide us with space rockets. “I appreciate the desire to wait for recommendations from the Augustine Panel, but cutting funds in the meantime sends the wrong message and increases the risk of losing a professional workforce that may not be easily reassembled for future programs,” says Kosmas. (Press release). The letter says that tens of thousands of jobs are at risk.

eWeek.com runs the news of the move by the committee under the headline “Lawmakers slash NASA’s manned space flight budget”. We will have to wait and see how much more back and forth there is until the Augustine panel report, and the budget is finally set.

Image: NASA