NASA has said it will ground the shuttle fleet after Discovery returns to Earth, in a bid to fix recurrent problems with the foam insulation. It could take months to get a new flight ready.

But repairing the insulation problem would not satisfy some congressional critics, who say the recent travails underscore the need to trim - or even end - human space travel.

"It is a very bad idea for the United States government to spend tens of billions of dollars to send people to Mars and to the moon," Democratic Representative Barney Frank told AFP.

NASA's problems with the shuttle come as Congress considers a successor for the aging shuttle fleet and looks ahead to making a major financial investment in reaching Mars.

One of the most outspoken critics in a Congress filled with stalwart supporters, Frank has steadfastly maintained that manned space flight is not worth the cost.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration says it wants to retire the shuttle by 2010, but Franks and others in Congress want earlier action. "The time has come to let the space station go," he said.

"Let's not spend another tens of billions of dollars. Travel to Mars comes at the expense of health care, social security" and numerous other social programs on Earth, said Frank.

Costs associated with the US space program are likely to rise significantly in coming years: President George W. Bush has outlined an ambitious space program including travel to Mars.

Last month the House of Representatives overwhelmingly endorsed that vision, approving the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 by a vote of 383 to 15. The bill seeks to return humans to the moon by 2020 and to expand unmanned space flight.

But that was before the shuttle lost foam insulation during liftoff on July 26. A similar problem doomed the Columbia space shuttle in 2003, which disintegrated as it reentered Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

Another lawmaker with doubts, House Republican Dana Rohrabacher, said in a recent newspaper interview that there could be a move in Congress to retire the shuttle early if the fleet is grounded for a long time.

"You can't have big money to go to the moon and Mars if you're spending four billion dollars a year maintaining the shuttle fleet and you only fly once," Rohrbacher told the Orlando Sentinel newspaper.

"There will be no money to go anywhere else."

He added that the problems on the most recent mission could affect what Congress is willing to spend on the future program.

"You can have only so much faith in people who have all the money and time and still don't do the job," Rohrbacher said.

"That big plume of flame coming out of it, those are thousand dollar bills being burned," he said.

Some lawmakers hope to retire the shuttle and wait for the next generation "Crew Exploration Vehicle" to resume manned space flight.

Others want the shuttle to keep flying until the replacement vehicle is ready to go.

"I think NASA is now going to accelerate the replacement vehicle so that it's ready by 2010," Democratic Senator Bill Nelson predicted last week.

"We'll fly until the end of this decade, and then hand off with a new vehicle," the former astronaut said on Fox News Sunday.

Despite the eroding support, Congress remains filled with unabashed NASA followers like Nelson.

"The space program needs to continue to build and complete the international space station so that it can be used as the experimental laboratory that we designed it for," he said.

"At the same time, we ought to get about the business of developing a replacement vehicle for the space shuttle. But you can't make that happen overnight," he said.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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