In declaring the difficulties with the NASA budget, which will result to NASA not being capable to meet its 2014 moon goals, NASA administrator Michael Griffin pointed out that other countries would continue to travel humans and cargo into space while Americans were grounded. "For the United States not to be among them is considered to a tragedy," he said. NASA will decelerate the first manned flight of the new spacecraft designed to take humans back to the moon because of budget restraints, the agency's boss declared.

The spaceship, called the Orion, won't fly until early 2015, four to six months later than planned, said NASA administrator, Michael Griffin. "We simply do not have the money available" to fly in 2014 as originally planned, he also added.

The delay is the prove of a $545 million difference between President Bush's request for the agency this year and the money Congress regards in a spending bill Bush signed this month. Lawmakers gave the space agency the same total of money it received in 2006.

"The net result of the diminish will be a four- to six-month delay of the Orion group vehicle," Griffin told the Senate Commerce Committee's space subcommittee. That's more time the U.S. will go without any manned spaceflight capability, the space travel is slated for retirement in 2010. It will fly 13 or 14 more missions to complete the International Space Station and conserve the Hubble space telescope.

Griffin said the breach between the shuttle's retirement and Orion's performance raises practical and strategic concerns. "When you don't fly for four or more years, people become rancid, facilities demean. It's not a good thing," he said. "Our human spaceflight expertise will be depleted to a reliable extent."

Griffin also pointed out that other countries would continue to fly humans and cargo into space while Americans were not be able to rise up to that level yet. "For the United States not to be among them is considered to a tragic moment," he said. "The U.S. will be in a displace of gaining crew and cargo services from other countries." The Orion is the ship designed to carry astronauts to the moon and later to Mars. Bush declared the new manned space program in 2004, the year after the shuttle Columbia accident that killed seven astronauts. Bush called for a return to the moon by 2020.

Griffin said he wasn't looking to that deadline just yet. "I'm not worried about the moon right now. I'm worried about replacing the shuttle," he said.

Five of the crew members who flew aboard space shuttle Discovery last December were accredited by senators at the hearing. Missing was pilot William Oefelein, who was hasn't made a public appearance since the arrest of astronaut Lisa Nowak earlier this month on charges she tried to kidnap and kill a woman she regarded as her rival for Oefelein's affections.

"Clearly, she has major problems and undeniable we failed as an institution to recognize that she was very troubled," Griffin said when asked about Nowak. "I don't think one incident should ever be allowed to make a statement for a total group of people, and certainly not for our astronauts."