The choice to reduce science spending by $2 billion over the next five years is a last resort, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin told concerned members of Congress on Thursday.
But it’s a necessary sacrifice to make sure the shuttles can safely fly enough missions to finish building the International Space Station before retirement in 2010, he said. The space agency delayed or canceled science projects only after making equally painful cuts — about $1.5 billion worth — to early work on new rockets, spaceships and other technology necessary to send astronauts back to the moon. One result of those cuts: the proposed shuttle replacement, called the Crew Exploration Vehicle, may not be ready to fly astronauts until 2013 or 2014 rather than two years earlier as Griffin once hoped.