House OKs Missions To Moon, Mars

Bill Also Funds Exploration Despite Administration Objections

(AP) 
A companion Senate measure approved by the Commerce, Science and Transportation panel last month would bar NASA from retiring the shuttle before a replacement vehicle is ready.

Both House and Senate bills also endorse a servicing and repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Without such a mission, the Hubble will fail when its gyroscopes and batteries wear out in the next few years, but the agency has not announced whether to let the telescope fail or whether it will undertake a costly manned repair mission.

"Congress endorses the President's Vision for Space Exploration," said Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y. "The United States will work to return to the moon by 2020, and then will move on to other destinations."

The full Senate has yet to act on the NASA measure.

Regardless of the ringing endorsement Friday, NASA must still compete with other agencies for its budget in the annual appropriations process, which moves on a separate track. That promises to make it difficult to fulfill all of the policy recommendations made by the House on Friday.

Still, there was one lone voice against the bill. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., questioned spending billions to go to Mars when "day after day ... we're told we can't do enough for housing and we can't do enough for health care."

"This is a fundamental debate the country ought to have ... about whether or not to commit these untold billions ... at the expense of other important programs," he said.