Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for January, 2004
January 31, 2004 at 8:03 pm · Filed under Congress
The House passed on Wednesday a bill that would give NASA additional powers to hire and retain people. The NASA Work Force Flexibility Act of 2003 (HR1085 and S.610) gives NASA the ability to give better pay and other benefits to critical employees and also create a “scholarship for service” program to financial aid to college students in exchange for working at NASA after graduation. (I suspect this could be a very popular program.) The bill wasn’t terribly controversial: it passed the House on a voice vote, and the Senate approved it in November by unanimous consent.
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January 29, 2004 at 5:33 pm · Filed under Congress
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday (subscription required) that the House Science Committee will hold a hearing next week on legislation for regulations covering commercial human spaceflight—space tourism. The hearing, most likely to take place Wednesday—although there is nothing yet about on the committee’s web site—will cover legislation designed to amend existing law on commercial space policy. Although Congressman Dana Rohrabacher introduced legislation last year (HR3245) to cover some of these issues, sources say the hearing will be used to discuss a revised version of the legislation.
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January 28, 2004 at 7:53 pm · Filed under Congress
Congressman Nick Lampson (D-TX) has been named the ranking minority member of the House Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. Lampson succeeds Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), who became ranking minority member of the full committee after Texas Congressman Ralph Hall switched from the Democratic to the Republican party. Lampson, whose district includes JSC, is perhaps best known for his Space Exploration Act (HR 3057), a bill designed to set a series of exploration goals for NASA—legislation that has been largely superceded by the President’s own space initiative.
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January 28, 2004 at 7:39 pm · Filed under Congress
First it was Sen. Mukulski, now it’s the rest of the state’s Congressional representatives. The AP reports that all ten members of the state’s Congressional delegation—Mukulski, fellow senator Paul Sarbanes, and all eight House members—have signed a letter sent to NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe asking him to reconsider his decision to cancel the SM4 Hubble servicing mission. Mikulski had previously contacted O’Keefe herself, but has found support from her colleagues (remember that the Space Telescope Science Institute and NASA Goddard, where Hubble flight control is located, are both in Maryland.) The letter notes that $200 million has been spent to date on instruments that would have been installed on Hubble duing SM4, and a robotic Hubble deorbiting mission may cost an additional $300 million. “In light of these costs… as well as the several decades of funding already devoted to Hubble, a decision to cancel the Hubble program several years shy of its goal appears to make little economic sense,” the letter notes. (Of course, money will have to be spent at some point to deorbit Hubble, whether it’s by a robotic mission or installing a deorbit propulsion module on SM4.)
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January 27, 2004 at 10:43 am · Filed under Congress
The first, but certainly not the last, hearing on the president’s new space initiative is scheduled for Wednesday morning, when the full Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on “National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Future Space Mission”. The usual cast of characters will be present: besides NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe, a separate panel of witnesses will include Lou Friedman (Planetary Society), Neal Lane (former presidential science advisor and NSF director), Howard McCurdy (American Univ.), and Rick Tumlinson (Space Frontier Foundation). The hearing will be webcast live starting at 9:30 AM Eastern time.
January 27, 2004 at 10:37 am · Filed under Other
As has been widely noted, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, were in the control room at JPL during the landing of Opportunity. (We trust that controllers followed the advice of a recent Opus cartoon and made sure the governor stayed away from the controls.) Also present were former Vice-President Al Gore and former California governor and US senator Pete Wilson. One wonders if they would have been there had the Spirit landing failed, raising doubts about the success of Opportunity?
January 26, 2004 at 3:46 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
Presidential candidate John Edwards offered perhaps the strongest Democratic endorsement of Bush’s space initiative on Sunday. During an interview on CNN Late Edition (scroll about one-third the way down the page), Wolf Blitzer asked Edwards about the plan:
BLITZER: Do you support the president’s decision to send a person back to the moon and perhaps beyond, to Mars?
EDWARDS: Well, I think it makes sense. Space exploration makes sense. I think that we saw what happened during the Kennedy administration and thereafter, how it inspired lots of generations of young people to be interested in science, math, technology, which I think is important.
But the president has to be able to do two things at once. And what he’s doing is diverting attention from the problems that we have here at home.
Edwards then went on to talk about health care, and never came back to the issue of the Bush space plan before the interview ended. While not exactly a ringing endorsement, it is a stronger response than the “I support space exploration, but…” response from most other Democrats. It’s also a more coherent response than what Edwards said a week earlier on Face the Nation.
January 25, 2004 at 7:27 pm · Filed under Other
Sunday’s Albany Times-Union published an article based on a poll of people who live in the “Capital Region” of New York state. That poll showed considerable skepticism about Bush’s space initiative: 48% oppose the plan compared to 40% in favor. Moreover, 52% said that Bush was pushing this new plan primarily for political reasons; 21% said it was for scientific reasons and 17% said it was for both reasons. (The newspaper, to its credit, published the complete poll results in Excel format, including how the poll results break down based on sex, age, income, party affiliation, and religious interest.)
The poll also reveals an interesting contradiction among the public: 63% said the US should continue to send people into space, but 53% thought it was better to spend money on priorities other than space research. “The public likes the concept of manned space exploration,” said Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. “They did in the 1960s and they do now. They’re just worried about the cost.
January 24, 2004 at 5:46 pm · Filed under Other
After reading this CounterPunch.org article, you have to wonder if some people are actually hoping Spirit won’t be revived, for no reason other than blunt the president’s new space initiative…
January 24, 2004 at 9:03 am · Filed under Other
NASA’s decision last Friday to scrap the last shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope has generated its fair share of controversy, and now a degree of political attention. On Wednesday Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) sent a letter to NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe, asking him to appoint an independent panel to review his decision to cancel the servicing mission, SPACE.com reported. (While Mikulski is a staunch supporter of NASA, she has some practical interests here: Hubble is controlled by the Goddard Space Flight Center with scientific operations based out of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), both located in Maryland.) She also plans to meet Monday with the staff of STScI in Baltimore.
Even the White House has been dragged into the controversy about the decision. In a press briefing Friday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan was asked why NASA had cancelled the SM4 servicing mission. “I think NASA can probably address those matters… I think NASA can talk to you more about some of the specific details within that,” he answered, unwilling or (more likely) simply unable to provide specific information.
Hubble supporters aren’t giving up, but in an effort to come up with alternatives to keep the telescope operating they do appear to be grasping at straws. SPACE.com reported that STScI officials are looking at everything from working with Russia on a Soyuz-based servicing mission to accepting donations to pay for a servicing mission. It would seem very difficult—and thus expensive, even for Russia—to adapt a Soyuz to perform a servicing mission on a spacecraft designed to be worked on only by the shuttle. Moreover, donations by private citizens can’t be transferred into federal coffers for specific programs. Sky & Telescope does have some useful suggestions for what the public can do, including writing their members of Congress. At the very least you can also sign an online petition, although the effectiveness of such a step may be limited, at best.
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