Congress boosts NASA's human space flight budget

The lure of the cosmos trumped budget concerns as Congress increased NASA funding for next-generation manned spacecraft and a new space telescope in the 2012 appropriations bill for six agencies.

The bill boosted funding for NASA's new Orion multipurpose crew vehicle space capsule from the $190 million requested by the agency to $1.2 billion, and it allocated $1.80 billion for the new Space Launch System for the Orion, $60 million above the request. NASA plans to use Orion to carry four astronauts on deep space missions and up to six to the International Space Station.

Lockheed Martin Corp. won an $8 billion contract to develop Orion in August 2006.

Congress budgeted $529.6 million for NASA's new James Webb Space Telescope, $155.9 million above the agency's request. The new telescope will feature a 6.5-meter mirror, more than double the size of the 2.4-meter mirror in the aging Hubble Space Telescope that it will replace.

The bill cut NASA's requested $7.8 billion budget by $924 million, with much of those savings coming from the end of space shuttle operations.