NASA’s future to be discussed this week

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will discuss NASA this week as the agency winds down its space shuttle program.

Just days after one of three retiring space shuttles returned from its final flight, the committee will hold a hearing titled “Realizing NASA's Potential: Programmatic Challenges in the 21st Century.”

Earlier this year, Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) criticized NASA for a report showing there had been waste and abuse in the agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

“Government-supported scientific research and innovation is one of the keys to our country’s future economic growth. We can’t afford to lose any of our precious research and development dollars to waste, fraud or abuse,” Rockefeller said in January.

Generally, however, the senior Mountain State senator has been supportive of the space program.

Also this week, House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) will travel to his home state to conduct a congressional field hearing on the federal transportation bill known as the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). LaHood said this week that the most recent temporary extension of the bill, the seventh, would be the last.

“We stabilized the trust fund through Sept. 30 when we passed the seventh extension, but I'm here to tell you that there won't be an eighth," Mica said during a speech at the National Association of Counties legislative conference in Washington.

"That's no way to conduct business relating to what you all need to know - what the federal government is going to be doing and what the federal government is going to be funding."

Mica will be in Maitland, Fla., and he’ll be joined by Volusia County, Fla. County Commission Chairman Frank Bruno, Florida Transportation Builders Association President Bob Burleson and officials from companies interested in building high-speed rail in the U.S.

Outside the capital city, officials in the city of Chicago will begin accepting bids for construction work on a new runway at O’Hare International Airport, currently the third busiest airport in the world. The runway, known as 10C-28C, is part of the O'Hare Modernization Program started in 2008 under outgoing Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

The plan called for two new runways, the expansion of an existing runway and construction of a new terminal. It is anticipated to cost $3.4 billion.