Brownback and NEOs

Earlier this week the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee held a hearing on the potential dangers posed by near Earth objects (NEOs). I wasn’t able to attend the hearing, but I did listen to (most of) the audio-only webcast of the hearing. It seemed like a very straightforward discussion of NEOs, including search efforts and […]

Keeping up with the Halls of Congress

On Tuesday the GAO published a report (primarily a set of briefing slides) on problems it has had trying to audit NASA’s spending on the ISS and shuttle programs. The report included a cover letter that the GAO addressed to the leadership of the relevant House and Senate committees, and included these lines:

The Honorable […]

Congressional support growing for space initiative?

A UPI article by Frank Sietzen reports that there is modest but growing support for the new space initiative in Congress. The article says that Sean O’Keefe met recently with a group of conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats in the House and managed to win them over to the plan, at least to the point where […]

A few notes from the STA breakfast

Tuesday morning I attended a breakfast meeting of the Space Transportation Association with Craig Steidle, the NASA associate administrator for exploration systems, as the featured speaker. Steidle’s presentation was very similar to past ones he has given (he has used essentially the same set of slides a number of times, like these released in associated […]

Space exploration, immigration reform, and gay marriage

Those are topics you normally don’t associate with one another, but a front-page article in Monday’s Washington Post has found a common thread: all are subjects of highly-publicized Bush Administration initiatives (in favor of or against) that have since languished in Congress because of a perceived lack of a concerted follow-through by the White House:

[…]

Senate hearing on NEOs

The Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday afternoon at 2:30pm about near Earth objects (NEOs). This may be one of the most detailed examinations of the topic by Congress in quite some time: the hearing will feature six witnesses split into two panels. The first will include Wayne Van Citters, […]

More on Weiner’s asteroid bill

A follow up to yesterday’s note about new asteroid search legislation:

A bit of searching turned up this New York Daily News article from last Friday, the day after Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) announced he plans to introduce legislation to provide funding for asteroid searches. The article has a few new details, such as the […]

Brazilian space policy

Yes, that’s a phrase you don’t hear every day. The Associated Press reports that top officials of the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) are asking the government to either fund the agency to the tune of $200 million over the next two years or abandon a program to develop an indigenous launch vehicle. That vehicle, the […]

Rep. Weiner and asteroid searches

An article Thursday in the Times Ledger family of neighborhood newspapers that serve the New York City borough of Queens reports that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) has introduced legislation to provide additional funding for near Earth asteroid searches:

A Queens congressman made a move in the House of Representatives last Thursday to stop Armageddon.

U.S. […]

Are you go for Mars?

That’s the question asked this week by the Coalition for Space Exploration, which has been running ads on SPACE.com that link to this form. It asks readers to “register your support for the nation’s Vision for Space Exploration” by filing out the contact information (name, postal address, email address) that will be apparently forwarded to […]