GSC Update

*Buget battles in Congress aren't looking well for NASA. The entire space agency budget is less than 1% of the U.S. expenses per year. Even still, NASA has plenty of enemies in the Senate and the House. Grassroots advocacy groups like the National Space Sociey help educate and persuade Congress to approve badly needed money for several of NASA's programs, most importantly fixing the Space Shuttle for it's return to flight and continuing to work on the International Space Station. Republicans such as Dana Rohrabacher and John McCain help fight for money for NASA, although the latter admits the issue will have to wait for Congress to reconvene in September.

*Two teams have announced intentions to launch and compete for the Ansari X-Prize in late September and early October. Scaled Composites (whose already famous entry, "SpaceShipOne," launched earlier last month) and the Canadian da Vinci Project (entering with a balloon-lifted rocket, "Wild Fire") must sucessfully and safely launch a pilot and two passenger weight to an altitude of 62 miles and repeat the feat in two weeks. The winner takes home $10 million dollars and a trophy. The competition ends in 2005. The X-Prize is one way aerospace pioneers (like Burt Rutan and Brian Feeney, repective leaders of SC and CdVP) are lowering the cost to enter earth orbit and develop new space technologies.

As always, source materials found on Space.com