Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is assigned to lead control over the future of the U.S. space program. The assignment of a new leader of the Senate’s space subcommittee brings new projects for resolving NASA’s dramatic issues.

The main problem comes from the contradiction between President Bush’s initiative for human exploration of the moon and Mars and the budget deficiency. In spite of the fact that the NASA’s provision increased over the last year to 16.5 billion, it is not enough for maintaining all the research programs. This moon-and-Mars plan "may not be a worthless boondoggle", but some researchers are calling it the scientific equivalent of "extreme sports", Donald Kennedy, editor of the current issue of the Science journal, said.

For example, the last 10-year report by astrophysicists, in 2002, stated that shuttle astronauts would be sent to the Hubble Space Telescope to replace batteries and gyroscopes and to add new instruments, two of which are being built. Under the presidential space program, it doesn’t seem possible now.

Some officials expect Hutchison to be a new “champion on the Hill”. But the ambitions of the new champion can add fuel to the budget fire.