Senate confirms ex-astronaut Bolden to head NASA
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FILE -- In this July 8, 2009 file photo provided by NASA, retired astronaut Maj. Gen. Charles Bolden, then nominee as the administrator of NASA, testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Senate Wednesday confirmed Bolden as administrator of NASA. (AP Photo/Bill Ingalls, NASA, File) (Bill Ingalls - AP)
President George W. Bush set in motion a plan to retire the space shuttle fleet at the end of next year and return astronauts to the moon and then head out to Mars in a series of rockets and capsules that borrows heavily from the 1960s Apollo program. The shuttle's replacement won't be ready until at least 2015, so for five years the only way Americans will be able to get in space is by hitching a ride on a Russian space capsule. And some of NASA's biggest science programs are over budget.
Bolden, a native of Columbia, S.C., will be only the second astronaut to run NASA in its 50-year history. Vice Adm. Richard Truly was the first.
In 2002, Bush unsuccessfully tried to appoint Bolden as the space agency's deputy administrator. The Pentagon said it needed to keep Bolden, who was a Marine major general at the time and a pilot who flew more than 100 sorties in Vietnam.
Bolden was the pilot of the shuttle flight that launched the Hubble Space Telescope into Earth orbit in 1990.
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