Obama Suggests $2 Billion In New Funding for NASA

Garver acknowledged that Obama's positions on NASA have evolved since the primaries, but she said McCain's NASA advocacy has changed as well.

Although McCain has said continued U.S. space superiority is essential, he has also said that as president he would freeze all discretionary spending -- and NASA, with a budget of about $17.5 billion, is generally considered in that category. McCain has spoken in mostly general terms about NASA.

In an earlier interview, McCain campaign spokesman Taylor Griffin said the candidate firmly supports building a new generation of U.S. spacecraft and would fund the program as needed. He also said McCain would conduct "an overall review early in the administration of where NASA's money is spent to determine an appropriate plan of action."

Obama's campaign said the additional NASA funds would be paid for by rolling back congressional earmarks to what they were in 1994, and by using the newly formed advisory council to potentially re-allocate space funding.

Among the more expensive proposals is Obama's plan to flying an additional shuttle mission to bring a $1.5 billion particle detector to the station. NASA dropped plans to ferry up the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer after the Columbia disaster, even though the instrument is one of the most expensive ever built and was funded by a group of international governments and universities.

Under current NASA plans, the last shuttle mission will fly in summer of 2010, and the three-spacecraft fleet will be retired after that. The aging shuttles are expensive to maintain and operate, and under current budgets NASA will not have funds to build the new Constellation spacecraft unless the shuttle is grounded.

The Constellation won't be ready until 2015 at the earliest, however, creating the five-year gap when the United States will be largely dependent on Russian Soyuz transportation. NASA and the Russian space agency have worked closely and generally well together in recent years, but many are concerned that Russian military actions in Georgia will change that relationship.