NASA Recruits Private Firms to Lease Space Shuttle Launch Pads
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
By: Judith Smelser

January 25, 2011 | WMFE As the push continues for private industry to take over some of the U.S. government's traditional role in spaceflight, NASA is reaching out to commercial firms that may want to use some of the most iconic facilities at Florida's Kennedy Space Center when the space shuttle program ends later this year.

The space agency put out a formal request on Monday for businesses to express their interest in using two shuttle launch pads, the shuttle landing strip, and the massive Vehicle Assembly Building, where space shuttles are linked up with their external fuel tanks.  There is one caveat to NASA’s announcement – the agency says it reserves the right to remove facilities from the list in the future if it needs to.

Meanwhile, a standoff between NASA and one of its biggest supporters on Capitol Hill shows no signs of letting up.

Speaking after an event at Orlando’s Tiger Bay Club on Monday, U.S. Senator Bill Nelson was not backing down from his position that the space agency must build a new heavy-lift rocket by 2016, with no more than the roughly $11 billion Congress has budgeted for it.

Earlier this month, NASA sent a report to Congress saying the rocket project was unfeasible without more time or money, but Senator Nelson remained unsympathetic.

“What NASA needs to do is re-invent itself so that it’s more creative, more efficient,” he said, “and quit complaining and griping and get out there and figure out how to do it.  That’s the law.”

Nelson and Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison wrote a letter to NASA’s administrator earlier this month, emphasizing that the rocket program is a Congressional mandate.