Surprise NASA move may force shutdown of Constellation program

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — In a surprise move, NASA has told the major contractors working on its troubled Constellation moon rocket program that they are in violation of federal spending rules — and must immediately cut back work by almost $1 billion to get into compliance.

As many as 5,000 jobs from Utah to Florida could be lost over the next month.

The biggest loser could be Utah employer Alliant Techsystems Inc., or ATK, which is building the first stage of the Ares I rocket — Constellation's centerpiece that was supposed to take astronauts to the International Space Station and ultimately the moon.

When at full production, there are just over 4,000 employees at ATK's facility in Promontory, Box Elder County, where the main Ares rocket was built and tested.

"We have not received any direction from NASA to change or stop our performance on the ares contract," ATK spokeswoman Trina Patterson said Thursday night.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and congressmen from other states that could be hard hit, accuse the administration of using the federal spending rules to undermine a congressional prohibition — passed last year — that blocks NASA from holding back any contract payments for Constellation in this fiscal year.

"This latest attempt by the administration to force an early termination of the Constellation program is nothing more than a disingenuous legal maneuver to circumvent statutory language that was put in place to prevent this very type of action," Bishop said. "Hurting our national defense capabilities and industrial base are examples of the long-term collateral damage that will come as a result of this administration's destructive and dangerous political agenda."

The effect of the directive, which went out to contractors earlier this week and which Congress was told about on Wednesday, may accomplish something that President Barack Obama has sought since February: killing Constellation's system of rockets, capsules and lunar landers that has already cost at least $9 billion to date.

The decision caps a bitter, three-month behind-the-scenes battle between aerospace giants and NASA managers over who is responsible for covering the costs of dismantling the Constellation program. The fight has dragged in members of Congress and the White House — and has dramatically raised the stakes in the struggle over the future of the country's human spaceflight program.

At issue is the federal Anti-Deficiency Act that requires all federal contractors to set aside a portion of their payments to cover costs in case the project is ever canceled.