Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for January, 2004
January 24, 2004 at 8:43 am · Filed under NASA
In the last few days some details have emerged about what NASA’s FY05 budget—scheduled to be released on February 2—will look like. NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe told reporters this week that the agency will get $16.2 billion in ‘05, an increase in line with what the President announced this week. He didn’t, however, offer details about what programs would see more—or less—funding in the budget for 05.
O’Keefe, though, has offered more details about the longer term. About $6 billion of the $11 billion that will be transferred from other programs to the new exploration initiative will come from the Orbital Space Plane and Next Generation Launch Technology programs, which will be killed off as a result. Since the Crew Exploration Vehicle development programs is much slower paced than what OSP was planned, this means that there won’t be an ISS “lifeboat” other than Soyuz for about 10 years instead of 4-6, and develop of RLV technologies within NASA will also grind to a halt. (Although the X-37 program will continue at least through the drop test phase according to the New York Times.) However, the agency plans to maintain unmanned space exploration as much as possible, according to MSNBC, conducting “robotic exploration across the solar system for scientific purposes and to support human exploration.” We shall see…
January 22, 2004 at 5:45 pm · Filed under White House
Both Reuters and the San Francisco Chronicle report that one possibility why President Bush left his new space initiative out of the State of the Union address Tuesday is because of conservative opposition to expensive projects. “Critics said the mere mention of the program would have drawn groans from some members of both parties,” write the SFChron’s Zachary Coile.
This could be an interesting development. The Reuters article cites conservatives who claim that the omission is “a sign… that he [Bush] may be having second thoughts.” That seems unlikely, given that the program will cost NASA only an additional $1 billion beyond what was already planned for the agency through 2009 (the final year of a 2nd Bush term). Even afterwards, according to NASA documents, NASA’s budget would raisely largely at the same pace as inflation through 2020. The lack of a single price, though, has annoyed some. “There’s no other program of this magnitude that Congress has ever endorsed where they didn’t have at least an estimate for the price tag,” former Congressman Dick Zimmer, a Republican, told Knight Ridder. What sort of pressure this puts on NASA and the administration remains to be seen.
January 22, 2004 at 4:53 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
“Mars Rover Opportunity Drops Presidential Bid, Endorses Dean.” A satirical article with a few good laughs, particularly in the last paragraph.
January 21, 2004 at 10:15 am · Filed under White House
President Bush elected not to mention his new space initiative in last night’s State of the Union address. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, given that he dedicated a whole speech to the topic less than a week earlier. Nonetheless, it seems like the Democrats were expecting some mention of the plan in the address: in the Democratic response, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle notes, “The president spoke of great goals, and America should never hesitate to push the boundaries of exploration. But neither should we shrink from the great goal of creating a more perfect union here at home.”
January 20, 2004 at 3:50 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
What Dick Gephardt thinks about Bush’s space initiative has now largely become irrelevant, after a poor showing in Iowa. He still does have the final year of his term in Congress, and could reappear this summer as a possible running mate to whomever wins the nomination, so don’t completely ignore his views, just don’t count on hearing any more details.
January 19, 2004 at 1:05 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Another Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John Edwards, was on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday. Host Bob Schieffer asked Edwards what he thought of returning to the Moon. Edwards’ response, according to the official transcript:
Well, I think–I think–I think going to the moon is–is great. The gr–the real issue is what are we doing to address the problems that people face here every day in their lives?
I didn’t watch the show so I don’t know if the transcript accurately represents his hesitation and uncertainty, or if the transcriber was very precisely recording all the minor pauses and missteps that any person on TV makes.
January 19, 2004 at 12:54 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dick Gephardt was on Meet the Press Sunday, where host Tim Russert asked him if the country could afford both Gephardt’s health care plan as well as human missions to the Moon and Mars. Gephardt’s response was not surprising, for those who followed his previous statements on the issue…
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January 18, 2004 at 3:21 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
In preparation for my Space Review article about the positions of the Democratic presidential candidates on space, I contacted, but did not hear from, the Wesley Clark campaign. Much to my surprise, I did get an email from them Sunday morning. However, it was clear that the campaign hadn’t read my message asking for their positions on space issues…
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January 17, 2004 at 8:35 pm · Filed under White House
A new poll conducted for CBS News and the New York Times suggests that a large fraction of the American public shows little interest, if not is outright opposed, to the new Bush space initiative. A few items from the poll results (go to pages 33 and 34 for the space-related questions):
- 40 percent think the US is spending too much on space, the highest figure in four such polls dating back to 1998;
- 48 percent favor a human mission to Mars, and 47 percent oppose it (a similar figure to a recent AP poll, and lower than in past polls)
- 58 percent think it is not worth “the costs and the risks” to build a permanent base on the Moon.
These results suggest that the Administration and NASA have an uphill battle to sell this plan.
January 17, 2004 at 8:09 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman took some time Saturday to reiterate past statements that he would rather spend money on new initiatives to develop cures for major diseases than on a new space initiative, the AP reported:
“That’s where I’m going to spend my money—here on Earth, rather than spend a trillion to put a colony on the moon and send somebody to Mars,” Lieberman said.
Here’s a challenge to Lieberman and any other candidate or pundit who uses the magic “trillion-dollar” figure: back it up with facts. Now that NASA’s budget figures show a much more modest funding profile, it’s up to those who still claim that the effort will cost a trillion dollars to prove it. They may well be right—NASA is not known for doing major human spaceflight programs under budget—but simply repeating a figure that is as fantastical as it sounds does nothing for their credibility.
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