Sen. Bob Bennett promises fight to save Ares rocket

PROMONTORY — Despite having just six months left in office, Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, promised more than 100 employees of ATK Space Systems on Wednesday that he would fight to maintain federal funding for one of the company's products.

ATK produces rocket motors for the space shuttle's boosters and still has secured funding for contracts for ground tests of the Ares rocket motors and for a flight test of the rocket's abort motor.

The Ares rocket is part of the Constellation program, which was started under President George W. Bush and sought to return U.S. astronauts to the moon. Funding for Constellation has been re-appropriated in President Obama's budget proposal for fiscal 2011, which begins in October. That re-appropriation effectively cancels the Constellation program.

The proposed budget is awaiting approval from Congress, but representatives and senators from states heavily involved in the space program — California, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas and Utah — are crying foul at a plan they say doesn't seem to have been well thought out.

"I am going to continue to do everything I can over the next several months to save Constellation and Ares," Bennett told employees, according to a press release from his office.

Bennett said he is requesting continued federal funding for Constellation through the Appropriations Committee.

— Joseph M. Dougherty