That’s the claim of a UPI article by Frank Sietzen published Monday. Sietzen writes that, according to a “senior administration source”, Bush will make an address about his new space policy in early summer, which would be his first public statement on the policy since his January 14 speech announcing it (assuming he doesn’t say anything in the interim.) The source doesn’t provide many details about what Bush would say other than that it would “reiterate Bush’s call for advanced human exploration of space.” A few other interesting items in the article:
- Bush’s speech will be timed to coincide with the release of the Aldridge Commission’s final report, which the article claims will be released in July. This is later than other reports, like this SPACE.com article published Tuesday, which cite an early June date for the report’s publication.
- A plan to reorganize NASA is still in the works and may not be done by the time the Aldridge Commission’s report is released. The reorganization will be the “most far-reaching revamping” of NASA since its creation, but it will not involve closing any field centers. A Space News article this week noted that one aspect of the reorganization will be the merging of the Earth Science and Space Science divisions within NASA, a decision bound to create some controversy in the scientific community.
- NASA is weighing whether to move up the date of the launch of Japan’s Kibo module for the ISS, concerned that further delays could prompt Japan to cancel its participation in the project and put Kibo “in a science museum.”
One caveat with the article: it relies entirely on anonymous sources, apparently within both the White House and NASA. Not knowing who those sources are, and their motivations for speaking, means that their statements should be taken with at least a grain of salt.
Any details will be mostly leaks until after the MoontoMars commission finalized report is issued on June 2 to the President. He most likely will time the speech for the 4th of July in Patriotic fashion IOM with regards to this news leak.
Dr. Foust wrote:
“the reorganization will be the merging of the Earth Science and Space Science divisions within NASA, a decision bound to create some controversy in the scientific community.”
Earth and Space Science used to be part of the same division at NASA and were separated. This would appear to be a reversal of that decision.
I do not know the details of the previous separation, or even when it took place (although I thought it was the late 1980s–does anybody have the Space News article about this and does it mention this earlier separation?). However, it was apparently done because the two subject areas are distinct and there is little cross-fertilization between them. It will be interesting to learn what is the justification for merging them. One possibility is that it will facilitate moving around R&D money.
Back in the early 90’s – all science- life, microgravity, space, and earth science were part of the mega Office of Space Science and Applications (OSSA) . Len Fiske was the last person to head this giant code before it was broken into space science, earth science, life science, and uG sciences. Life Sci and uG were brough back together as OLMSA in the late 90’s. Goldin did the slice and dice partly to get rid of Len but also to chop the science crowd into more manageable mini-fiefdoms. It also allowed each discipline to operate out from under the space science shadow which had predominated for many years.
A little tweaking on dday’s and keith’s notes:
– Life sciences–which had previously been scattered across the agency– were consolidated in the Office of Space Science/OSS in 1975.
— science and applications were recombined in 1982, into OSSA/Office of Space Science and Applications (OSSA)(OSSA as an acronym had existed previously); it included all science elements, i.e., space sciences,life sciences, Earth science, and microgravity science.
–oct ’92-to-March 93: Goldin announces then implements reorg; of OSSA into two parts: the Office of Mission to Planet Earth (OMTPE), including Earth science and applications programs, and the Office of Planetary Science and Astrophysics (later Office of Space Science—OSS) which was the real space exploration science stuff: physics, telescopes,probes, et al.
–Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications (OLMSA) was established March 93 completing the reorg.So OSSA sciences of the 80s were now spread among three program offices— traditional space science in OSS, Earth science in OMTPE, and life and microgravity sciences in OLMSA.
(You’ll remember that the ‘MTPE” name became popularized by Sally Ride’s 1987 report as a way to focus on Earth as one planet for study. In ’98, the name of MTPE Enterprise was changed to that of the Earth Science Enterprise).
Later in 93,NRC was tasked by the Senate subc. HUD/IA to review the reorg (essentially) from a space science effectiveness and management perspective; and this was the time the specifically asked NRC to assess whether it wouldn’t be better to create a separate ‘National Institute of Space Science’ on the NIH model.
NRC’s conclusion (the next year?) was that the NIH model wasn’t appropriate for space science; science space science and mission development were too directly inter-twined to separate them like that and expect efficiency to do anything but decrease (my words).
One rumor that has been floating around is the possibility of separating the earth science stuff and giving it to NOAA. I don’t think these rumors had any validity and were mostly just idle chatter. There are more reasons not to do such a thing than there are to do it, and such a major reorganization would require a lot more congressional involvement. In addition, NASA would lose that money as well.
This newly proposed reorganization, if true, indicates that NASA is going in the exact opposite direction and more deeply integrating earth science with the agency’s other missions.
Nothing is going from NASA to NOAA.
“The reorganization will be the “most far-reaching revamping” of NASA since its creation, but it will not involve closing any field centers.”
IOW, dont hope for an omelette, cause no eggs will be broken.
Would another space speech by Bush further politicize the Vision for Space Exploration in an election year?
The public would consider it inappropriate given the many issues in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Maybe it would be better for O’Keefe to deliver a keynote speech with the full support of the White House.