WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) introduced legislation March 3 that would keep NASA flying the space shuttle program two years beyond its planned 2010 retirement and require the space agency to study options for a heavy-lift launcher that could be ready to deliver U.S. astronauts to the international space station by the end of 2013 and beyond low Earth orbit by the end of 2018.

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