Vote likely locks in Soyuz flights to ISS until 2019

Come 2018, it's almost certain U.S. astronauts will still be riding Russian rockets to the International Space Station.

A vote by a key Senate panel Wednesday all but killed any chance Congress will fully finance NASA's space shuttle replacement program by 2017 and end the agency's reliance on Soyuz rockets for access to the space station.

That vote by the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that finances the space program approved $900 million for the shuttle replacement program, known as Commercial Crew, in fiscal 2016. That's nearly $350 million less than the $1.24 billion NASA requested to meet a launch target of late 2017.

Last week, the House approved a fiscal 2016 for NASA budget that would provide $1 billion for the Commercial Crew program. It's highly unlikely the two chambers will settle on a final number that comes close to matching NASA's request, further delaying a program that's already more than a year behind its original 2016 launch date.

Failing to meet NASA's full request "would guarantee we will continue to send millions of dollars a year to Moscow instead of investing that money in United States, creating jobs and once again launching Americans from U.S. soil," NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr., wrote on his blog last month.

The Commercial Crew program is funding ventures by two private companies — Boeing and SpaceX — to develop a fleet of domestic rockets to resume ferrying astronauts to the space station. The last space shuttle flight to the orbiting lab was in July 2011.

The $900 million the Senate subcommittee approved Wednesday is part of a $51 billion appropriations bill to finance a number of federal agencies in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The bill would fund NASA at $18.3 billion, slightly less than the $18.5 billion the House has already approved.

The fight's not over. The full Senate Appropriations Committee will take up the NASA spending bill on Thursday, and the panel's top Democrat, Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski, plans to propose adding $300 million to the amount the subcommittee approved for the Commercial Crew program.

Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson implored colleagues to support Mikulski's measure.

He said falling short of NASA's full request for Commercial Crew not only would delay the first launch until possibly 2019, it would force the U.S. to continue sending money to a country it increasingly mistrusts. Nelson said that, at about $75 million a ride, the amount the U.S. would have to pay Russia to carry continue carrying U.S. astronauts to the space station into 2019 eclipses the additional money Mikulski is requesting for Commercial Crew.

"Now I know there are a bunch of senators around here that don't like the aggressiveness of (Russian President) Vladimir Putin," Nelson said on the Senate floor Wednesday. "Well this, is one way to wean ourselves from having to depend on them. We need to wake up to what's happening."

But the GOP majority in the Senate doesn't appear eager to spend more money.

"This bill funds NASA at $18.3 billion, making it possible for the agency to achieve efficient and cost-effective operations for science and exploration missions," Alabama GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, who chairs the subcommittee, said at Wednesday's hearing.

The $900 million approved Wednesday would still be more than Commercial Crew has ever received from Congress, which agreed to a record $805 million in this year's budget. The problem, NASA officials say, is that the program has been shortchanged in earlier years, requiring catch-up funds in 2016 to launch in 2017.

Contact Ledyard King at lking@gannett.com; Twitter: @ledgeking