Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for July, 2004
July 30, 2004 at 6:13 pm · Filed under Congress
Lost in all the discussion this week about that whole, well, bunnysuit thing, was this Space News article about renewed efforts to get funding for NASA’s Centennial Challenges program this fiscal year. An earlier effort to reprogram $2 million from the FY04 budget to permit an initial series of small-scale prizes was rebuffed by the House Appropriations Committee last month. However, Space News reports, NASA has been on the Hill trying to educate members about the program and submitted a new reprogramming request in late June which again asks for $2 million for Centennial Challenges. There are some concerns among both Republicans and Democrats about such so-called “no year” funding, when there’s no idea when—or even if—the money will be spent.
July 29, 2004 at 7:31 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
At the Democratic National Convention last night John Glenn was one of the speakers. His short speech mentioned space a number of times, but only in terms of past accomplishments or in a broader reference to the need to promote education and scientific research:
I am concerned about the erosion of America’s commitment to the twin pillars of our success in the 20th century — leadership in education, and leadership in scientific research… It was education and research that gave us new opportunities to study in this new and unique laboratory of space, and that helped America put my friend Neil Armstrong on the moon, and win the Cold War.
At NASA Watch Keith Cowing suggests that “that the topic of space might be on the cusp of actually being a campaign issue.” However, by reading Glenn’s speech, as well as past Kerry campaign material, it’s clear that it’s not space itself that’s a potential issue, it’s the broader investment in science and technology, and that’s an issue that is relatively minor compared to the economy, homeland security, and Iraq, among other far bigger issues.
July 29, 2004 at 7:05 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
I’m sorry, but each time I thought I’ve said enough about this whole fiasco, something else keeps dragging me back into it. It appears that, hours after deleting all the Kerry photos from their web servers, NASA has restored some of them. Searching the KSC Multimedia Gallery for “Kerry” now turns up eight photos. These are all of the tour of the shuttle Kerry and his colleagues got. The images from the campaign event are missing; a reasonable choice, as I noted in my previous post. None of the eight are of Kerry crawling out of a hatch.
According to WESH-TV in Orlando, this has really surprised KSC officials:
People at the Kennedy Space Center are stunned that this could be such a persistent issue. They are in full damage-control mode, with high-level meetings and knee-jerk reactions still taking place Thursday.
At least they don’t worry about anything like this happening again: candidates will be steering clear of NASA centers for the foreseeable future after this.
July 29, 2004 at 12:33 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
In the comments to a previous post, an anonymous reader cites an article at Media Matters for America, a fairly new organization devoted to identifying perceived [right-wing] biases in media reports. According to that article, one of the more, ah, embarrassing images from Kerry’s KSC visit, where the senator is in a bunnysuit on all fours crawling out of a hatch, was not posted on KSC’s web site, although 13 other images from his visit were. The implication from the report was that this image was somehow leaked to the media.
To check this, I went to the KSC PAO multimedia web site this morning and did a search on “John Kerry”. The result: “No records were found matching your search criteria.” I assumed that this was a momentary glitch, but apparently the images have been permanently removed. SpaceRef reports that the images were removed today by order of the US Office of Special Counsel (OSC) because of concerns that the images could violate Hatch Act rules that limit the political activities of federal employees. SpaceRef has archived nine of the images that had been posted; none of them feature a crawling Kerry.
I’m not surprised that at least some of the images were removed, particularly those that showed Kerry in a town hall forum campaign stop at the KSC visitors’ center. It may have been simpler for the OSC to tell NASA to yank all the images than determine whether a tour of the shuttle by one retired and three current senators (Glenn, Kerry, Graham, Nelson), two of whom flew on the shuttle, was a campaign stop or a standard VIP tour. However, I bet you won’t see any (vice-)presidential candidates visit NASA centers for the foreseeable future.
July 28, 2004 at 7:21 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
On the kerryspace mailing list today there was a message that suggests that the Kerry campaign is drafting a position paper on space issues. Some highlights:
- The effort is being led by Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator for policy and plans and former executive director of the NSS.
- The policy seems to focus on terrestrial applications of space technology and services, including some things previously reported (performing materials research and other science on ISS), as well as helium-3 from the Moon. (Please, for credibility’s sake someone tell him to take the helium-3 part out until, say, there are fusion reactors on Earth that can use it…)
- The policy would call for funding NASA at its current levels or higher.
- The policy would put a greater emphasis on commercial involvement, including prizes (which, as previously reported, would be consistent with his overall science and technology policy.)
July 28, 2004 at 1:03 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
In her speech at the Democratic National Convention last night, Teresa Heinz Kerry managed to work a little space imagery into her talk:
Americans believed that they could know all there is to know, build all there is to build, break down any barrier, tear down any wall. We sent men to the moon. And when that was not far enough, we sent Galileo to Jupiter, we sent Cassini to Saturn, and Hubble to touch the very edges of the universe in the very dawn of time.
(APPLAUSE)
Americans showed the world what can happen when people believe in amazing possibilities. And that, for me, is the spirit of America, the America you and I are working for in this election.
I suspect that will be as close as we get to any mention of space during the convention. The language didn’t go over well, though, with CNN’s Tucker Carlson, who wanted something more along the lines of the infamous “shove it” rebuke:
I wanted to hear her talk like that. Instead she went off about Jupiter and Galileo and totally lost me. I didn’t get it at all.
One other space-related convention note: we hear that the Space Foundation and the NSS organized a reception Tuesday night at Boston’s Museum of Science titled “A Salute to the Space Leaders of the Democratic Party.” (To preempt the inevitable comments, yes, there are a few, although I don’t know if any attended.) The reception was sponsored by a number of aerospace companies. A similar reception is planned next month for the Republican National Convention in New York.
July 28, 2004 at 12:45 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
I’ve been informed that federal campaign law requires me to post an opinion about that whole silly controversy over the Kerry “bunnysuit” photos taken during his visit Monday at KSC. (Actually, the law doesn’t require it, but sometimes it seems that way.) My use of the word “silly” above should plainly describe how empty an issue this is; you can also read what Keith Cowing has to say about it at NASA Watch. But don’t take my word for it: here’s what Tucker Carlson and George McGovern said about it on CNN’s Larry King Live last night:
CARLSON: And, in fact, or the weird, you know, NASA outfit.
KING: That’s with all the NASA people. Why was that weird? That’s what they all wear.
CARLSON: Really, yes, but they wear it in the privacy of their own space capsule not, you know…
MCGOVERN: He looked like a teletubby.
There you go. Don’t say we don’t have insightful commentary on the key space issues of the day here.
July 27, 2004 at 9:44 am · Filed under Campaign '04
Last week, space advocates lamented that President Bush said nothing about the Vision for Space Exploration when he had a golden opportunity: the visit by the Apollo 11 crew to the White House on the 35th anniversary of their flight. This week those advocates have something else to sigh about: Democratic Presidential candidate John F. Kerry visited the Kennedy Space Center and said virtually nothing about space, choosing instead to talk primarily about health care. (Perhaps it will be a goal of a Kerry Administration to make health care plans no more complicated than, say, the space shuttle.)
The AP found that Kerry “didn’t once mention NASA”, although he certainly invoked the history of the space program in his talk, saying that Cape Canaveral was no better place to launch something, even, it appears, a health care plan. As Florida Today notes, Kerry and his entourage, including Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida and former Sen. John Glenn, got a behind-the-scenes tour of KSC by center director Jim Kennedy. (Although I doubt you’ll see photos like this and this show up in Kerry campaign materials in the future.) The Houston Chronicle reported that Kerry’s speech was a “far-ranging but sometimes listless riff on the keywords of his campaign: strength, respect abroad, health care and jobs.” He also talked about energy independence, the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, saying, “The great mission to the moon of today is to make America secure by becoming energy independent – alternative and renewable fuels.” (This should sound familiar to regular readers.)
The oddest comment of the whole day actually came from a Republican, Rep. Tom Feeney, who criticized Kerry for voting against the space station (apparently ignoring the fact that Kerry changed his position at some point in the mid-1990s and started voting to support the station in 1997 and 1998.) He then said, according to WESH-TV in Orlando, that those votes against the station “have harmed Florida’s economy.” Sadly, the station doesn’t pursue this point to trace the (il)logic Feeney used to reach that conclusion.
July 27, 2004 at 8:02 am · Filed under Congress
Lost in all the discussion about the NASA budget in the House last week was the Senate’s effort to press ahead with a NASA authorization bill. The full Senate Commerce Committee was scheduled to consider the bill during a markup session last Thursday (the same day that the House Appropriations Committee was meeting on the VA-HUD appropriations bill), but didn’t have time to take up the bill, according to SPACE.com. The Washington Post helps explain why they may not have had the time to deal with it: one committee member invoked a rarely-used rule that limits hearings to two hours in length when the Senate is in session. The maneuver was not linked to the NASA bill but was instead a bid by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) to put off the committee’s consideration of a controversial nominee to head the FTC.
Committee chairman Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said the committee would consider the bill in September after their return from summer recess. It may be a moot point, though, since the House has yet to introduce an authorization bill and the House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, has said it is unlikely the House will be able to pass one this year.
July 26, 2004 at 12:46 pm · Filed under Campaign '04
One of the things delegates to the Democratic National Convention will do during their stay in Boston this week is approve the party platform. The report of the platform committee is available, and a search of it turns up nothing about space policy in its 37 pages. The closest reference to space in the document is a discussion of how the Apollo program is an example of the nation’s “ingenuity and determination” that will be used again to give the country energy independence:
We are committed to achieving energy independence, and we know we can do it. Our ingenuity and determination built the cars we drive and the bridges we use. It electrified rural America in the 1930s, and took us to the moon in the 1960s. Our resolve helped conquer polio.
It’s this simple: When we see a problem, we roll up our sleeves and solve it. And that’s what we pledge to do now.
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