A case of bad timing

On Friday the GAO issued a report studying requirements for shuttle upgrades. At first glance the report’s language looks a little odd: it notes in the preface that the shuttle “is planned for use well into the second decade of this century and possibly beyond.” Given that the President announced last month that the shuttle […]

NEO survey bill introduced in House

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) introduced legislation this week that would authorize funding for NASA to carry out searches of near Earth objects (NEOs). The “George R. Brown Near-Earth Object Survey Act” (HR 3813) is a short bill that can be summarized in this single sentence taken directly from the bill: “The [NASA] Administrator shall plan, […]

Space tourism in The Hill

This Wednesday’s issue of the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill includes a full-page article about space tourism and the regulatory issues associated with it. What’s interesting about the article is that, in the print edition, it is included in the middle of a special section on transportation issues, alongside articles about Amtrak, a highway bill, […]

Upcoming Washington space policy events

For those of you who will be in the Washington DC area next week, there are a couple of space policy events of note to add to your calendars:

On the evening of Tuesday, February 17, the Georgetown Law Center’s Space Law Society will host a discussion titled “Mission to Mars or Mission Impossible?” The […]

Apologies for the limited posting

I’ve been wrapped up attending the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Forecast Conference in Washington yesterday and today (in a hotel sadly lacking WiFi access), so posting here has been light. It should pick up again later this week. There are several good tidbits from the conference I’ll mention here in the next few days. I’m […]

Bush backs Aldridge

The White House went on the record Tuesday in its support for Pete Aldridge, chairman of the commission reviewing the implementation of the new space policy, Reuters reports. A White House spokesperson said that the President “is supportive of Mr. Aldridge and is grateful to him for accepting this position to serve.” A couple weeks […]

Aldridge Commission at work

The President’s Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy (hereafter the “Aldridge commission”) has scheduled its first public hearing for Wednesday, but the commission is already at work. SPACE.com reported Monday that the commission was scheduled to meet Monday somewhere in Virginia for a closed-door meeting. That tidbit came from an interview with […]

O’Keefe to appear before House Science Committee

NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe is scheduled to appear before the full House Science Committee on Thursday at 10 am to discuss “the President’s proposed space exploration initiative, including its goals and potential price tag, and the impact it may have on other NASA programs.” The reference to other NASA programs will almost certainly include a […]

Space policy and the Illinois Senate race

There’s a wide-open race for the US Senate in Illinois this year as incumbent Republican Peter Fitzgerald is retiring after a single term. This has attracted over a dozen candidates but, as the Chicago Sun-Times reports Monday, many of them are in agreement in their opposition to the new Bush space policy. All seven Democrats […]

FUD Fighters

In many fields—the computing industry in particular—there is something known as FUD: fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It’s propaganda usually provided by one company, sometimes only loosely based on the facts, designed to raise doubts among a wider audience about a competing company’s product. For example, proponents of the Linux operating system often claim that they […]