The resurrected debate about the direction of the U.S. human spaceflight program moved to Capitol Hill April 3 where members of the House subcommittee that authorizes NASA spending levels seemed sharply divided on the issue themselves. The debate over how NASA is carrying out U.S. President George W. Bush's Vision for Space Exploration reached Congress two months after a panel of 50 scientists, astronauts, engineers, policy analysts and industry executives met for two days at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., to discuss their concern over NASA's budget priorities. The group agreed with the vision Bush introduced in 2004 to return to the Moon and eventually explore Mars, said former U.S. astronaut Kathryn Thornton, an organizer of the Stanford meeting and co-chair of the group.
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