NASA FY 2010 Budget Briefings, May 7

The far-flung space community will be waiting impatiently, with snippets flying every which way, over the next 24 hours, as details as to the Obama administration's desire with regard to NASA and, in particular, the future of American manned space exploration. In February, the administration's preliminary outline called for $18.7 billion in spending for the space agency for the federal fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1, 2009. Congress has already heard testimony from acting administrator Chris Scolese, who will lead off a series of NASA Directorate briefings beginning Thursday afternoon, May 7, at 2:30 pm.

Already announced is the administration's intention to order a full review of the Ares 1 project, and recent reconfigurations of the Orion Crew Exploratotion Vehicle, a natural successor in configuration, if not in curcuitry, to the Apollo command and service module configuration, whose basic design first began testing in 1961.

NASA Acting Administrator Chris Scolese will brief the a news conference at NASA Headquarters, in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium, 300 E St., S.W., in Washington. He will be joined by NASA Comptroller David Schurr.

The news conference will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's Internet homepage. Reporters at NASA Headquarters will be able to ask questions.

To watch the budget news conference on the Internet, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

After the overview briefing on NASA's fiscal year 2010 budget, the associate administrators of the mission directorates each will hold a teleconference to discuss the budget's impact on their specific area. The teleconference schedule:

Thursday (all times U.S. Eastern):
*4 p.m. -- Exploration Systems
*5 p.m. -- Science
*6 p.m. -- Space Operations

On Friday, May 8
9 a.m. -- Aeronautics

Each teleconference is scheduled to last 50 minutes. Live audio of the budget teleconferences will stream online at:http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

The NASA budget and supporting information will be available at 1:30p.m., May 7, at: http://www.nasa.gov/budget