New bill would redirect NASA back to the Moon

Just days after NASA admininstrator Charles Bolden said that a NASA-led human return to the Moon would not take place “probably in my lifetime,” a group of mostly Republican members of the House introduced a bill that would require NASA to do just that, and within a decade.

The “RE-asserting American Leadership in Space Act,” aka “REAL Space Act” (HR 1446) was introduced this week by Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) with eight co-sponsors, all Republicans except for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX). Most of the bill outlines the various benefits of space exploration and general and returning to the Moon in particular, including technological, economic, and even military (“Space is the world’s ultimate high ground, returning to the Moon and reinvigorating our human space flight program is a matter of national security,” it states.). Only at the end does it offer specific policy direction:

…the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shall plan to return to the Moon by 2022 and develop a sustained human presence on the Moon, in order to promote exploration, commerce, science, and United States preeminence in space as a stepping stone for the future exploration of Mars and other destinations. The budget requests and expenditures of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shall be consistent with achieving this goal.

“Last year, the National Research Council committee charged with reviewing NASA’s strategic direction found that there was no support within NASA or from our international partners for the administration’s proposed asteroid mission,” Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), one of the bill’s co-sponsors and chairman of the appropriations subcommittee whose jurisdiction includes NASA, said in a press release about the bill. “However, there is broad support for NASA to lead a return to the Moon. So the U.S. can either lead that effort, or another country will step up and lead that effort in our absence—which would be very unfortunate.”

The bill has been referred to the House Science Committee, on which Posey serves. (He introduced a similar bill in the last Congress, but it did not leave committee.) Typically legislation like this doesn’t pass as a standalone bill, but could serve as a way of laying out members’ views as Congress takes up a broader NASA reauthorization bill later this year. However, previous indications from Congressional staff, including during a panel session at last week’s Space Studies Board meeting in Washington, have been that they don’t anticipate major changes in policy in the new authorization bill—and this would certainly qualify as a major change.

The release announcing the bill’s introduction came out the same day as NASA unveiled its 2014 budget proposal, which includes funding to begin work on a mission to retrieve a small near Earth asteroid. Posey, ironically, has indicated some interest in such a mission. “I’m intrigued by the concept,” he told the Orlando Sentinel earlier this week. “I think it has merit to it.”