SAN FRANCISCO — As the congressional hearing season on U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget gets under way in earnest, lawmakers continue to hammer NASA for what they say is its noncompliance with the law that directs the space agency to field a government-owned crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket by 2016.

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Debra Werner is a correspondent for SpaceNews based in San Francisco. Debra earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree in Journalism from Northwestern University. She is a recipient...