Senate panel finds money for telescope

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- A U.S. Senate panel has proposed giving a NASA space telescope project a reprieve after a House Appropriations Committee vote this summer to cancel it.

A spending bill approved Wednesday by the Senate Appropriations commerce, justice, and science subcommittee would give the James Webb Space Telescope $150 million more than the Obama administration had asked for the over-budget program, SpaceNews.com reported.

The project, which was tagged for cancellation in the $16.8 billion NASA spending bill the House committee approved in July, would receive a total of $530 million next year under the Senate's version.

The spending bill will go next to the full Senate Appropriations Committee, led by telescope ally Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.

Maryland is home to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, which is managing the telescope program, and if it launches would be operated by the same Baltimore lab that manages the Hubble Space Telescope.

The competing House and Senate spending bills concerning the space telescope's future must be reconciled before any NASA budget reaches the president's desk.