America’s space agency seems to be in a right old state at the moment. NASA was already on the back foot after President Obama announced the cancellation of its planned replacement for the Space Shuttle (which should normally be prefixed with the word ‘aging’ or ‘antiquated’). Now it seems to be putting out mixed messages about using private companies to get American’s into space instead.

Obama’s administration wants to give up the government-developed Constellation programme and instead spend $6 billion to stimulate the development of commercial rockets.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal said it had seen an internal memo which featured NASA’s head honcho Charles Bolden asking to see “what a potential compromise might look like” to head off criticism from Congress about the use of private space firms. In the memo, Michael Coats, director of the Johnson Space Center, said Bolden “agreed to let us set up a ‘Plan B’ team” to look at alternatives (Space News has a copy of the whole memo).

But yesterday a statement from Bolden said, “I’m open to hearing ideas from any member of the NASA team, but I did not ask anybody for an alternative to the President’s plan and budget.”

Many of those in Congress – and many outside it – would certainly like to see America’s space access continue under the government’s full control.

WAFF news reports that “a frank discussion” was had between Bolden and Senator Richard Shelby yesterday and it adds that “many in Congress don’t even see a vision for the space agency if there is no government owned and operated human space flight program”. Another Congressman, Robert Aderholt, said he was “extremely pleased” to hear about the Plan B. [Hat tip: NASA Watch.]

Image: Bolden / NASA/Bill Ingalls