41.   Even with two European space agencies participating, the price tag would run into the billions.

42.   Except for encouraging rhetoric, the space agency has written off lunar exploration and support for space tourism.

43.   For awhile, the reasonable guess that we are not alone in the vastness of the cosmos took the space agency to center ring of the media circus.

44.   For several years, the space agency had been developing plans for Earth-orbiting laboratories and trips to the Moon.

45.   Goldin said that every agency in the government was facing streamlining or reductions because of budget constraints, and that the space agency had done its part.

46.   Goldin says he wants to move the space agency out of the business of owning and operating rockets and make it strictly a research and development entity.

47.   Goldin said he hopes the two space agencies can strike a formal agreement by late this year that will not require an exchange of cash.

48.   Hall produced correspondence from both the European and Canadian space agencies protesting the scale-back and claiming that NASA could not act unilaterally on the reforms.

49.   He said Bush is committed to the space program but wants the space agency to be held accountable for its spending.

50.   He said the space agency plans to develop a leaky fuel propellant rocket system that is not useful for intercontinental ballistic missiles, which typically employ a solid propellant.