Oct 20 1999
From The Space Library
President William J. Clinton signed into law the FY 2000 appropriations bill for the Department of Veterans Administration, Housing and Urban Development, and Other Agencies, which included the US$13.65 billion NASA budget. Congress had approved NASA's budget on 7 October. In keeping with the President's original request, the final appropriation included full funding for the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle program; US$80 million for Spaceliner 100, an MSFC program to find new propulsion technology; US$25 million for Shuttle upgrades; US$5 million for the National Center for Space Research and Technology, a joint venture including MSFC, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and private industry; and US$3 million to continue research into tether-guided satellites. The U.S. House of Representatives' version of the bill had cut US$900 million from NASA's funding, but the U.S. Senate had approved a budget equal to NASA's FY 1999 budget: US$13.6 billion. House Republicans had voted to eliminate funding for Triana, a controversial Earth-observing satellite first envisioned by Vice President Albert A. Gore Jr., but the House and Senate conference committee had voted on a compromise, providing for the National Academy of Sciences to review the program and forbidding NASA from launching Triana until 1 January 2001.
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