While many people were anticipating some sort of statement by the President this week to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, Unfortunately, no such statement was released. Bush did meet privately Wednesday morning with the Apollo 11 crew (who had been feted the night before at the National Air and Space Museum), but made no public appearance with the three former astronauts nor made a statement. In an interview after the meeting, Neil Armstrong told CNN’s Miles O’Brien that the issue of the exploration vision did not even come up during their visit with the President:
O’BRIEN: …How was the president today? What did he say about the current initiatives in space?
ARMSTRONG: The president was in marvelous spirits this morning. He didn’t really talk to us — he thanked us for our participation, but he really didn’t talk so much about the future. He talked about the character of the country.
Later in the same interview:
O’BRIEN: This gradual evolutionary process, Neil Armstrong, is the approach right now, the Bush administration to NASA. Do you think that can work? It’s a far cry [from] what you experienced in the Apollo days.
ARMSTRONG: Yes, it is a different approach. And I don’t know a lot about the details of the plan. I think that’s going to evolve over the next couple of years as this is discussed by NASA and the other members of the technological community and put some flesh on the bones, and I think then we’ll be in a much better position to judge what really makes sense.
Armstrong and Collins also participated in an online chat hosted by the White House, but very little was said about the exploration vision, other than Armstrong, who said “I am encouraged with the new initiative.” There is also this quizzical exchange:
Wesley, from Connecticut writes:
I was disappointed to hear that on the 35th anniversary of your landing, a Congressional subcommittee took a blow against the new space vision and decided to cut funding to NASA. What are your thoughts on this? What can a 19-year-old do to save the vision? Thank you all for your service to our country.
Michael Collins
I think it is going to Mars.
Finally, White House photographers were able to capture this photo of Armstrong handling some paperwork with what we can only guess to be the administration’s newest space policy advisor. That, or Barney is getting one of those rarest of gifts: a Neil Armstrong autograph.
So, to sum up:
-The House cuts the NASA budget by a large amount.
-NASA does not immediately object. It only objects AFTER the full committee approves the cuts.
-There is no statement from the White House about the cut.
-There is no statement by the White House on the Apollo 11 anniversary in support of the Vision for Space Exploration. (contrary to an earlier UPI article)
All in all, it looks like the Bush administration has given up on the Vision, and the NASA leadership is following along.
President Bush does not mention “exploration” when meeting with Apollo astronauts and this comes out in the Wall Street Journal on the same day. To quote from Jeff Foust’s comment at spacetoday:
A proposed new federal policy would require the military to select only one of the two existing major launch vehicle providers to continue supporting by the end of the decade, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. . . . . The plan would also require NASA to use EELVs for its future space exploration programs, rather than develop its own successor to the space shuttle,
If NASA is restricted by law to using Altas or Delta, how can NASA take advantage of the savings promised by the alt-space movement?
Why would such a policy be implemented except to provide finanical assistance for lower cost Defense procurement of EELVs, whether or nor the EELV was the best vehicle for NASA?
National security is a good thing and to combine DoD and NASA procurement to obtain a better deal for both does make some sense, it just is not a “free market” solution and strongly relegates NASA to an inferior supporting role. And its a rather blatant form of protectionism since neither Delta nor Atlas can compete in the commerical market place with the Russians.
We are obviously going to have to wait to see what if anything can be done to counter the neglect to VSE, and the president’s ignoring his own creation. I don’t know why he would propose something like this, then ignore it, unless he really is just a posturing, partisan politician, and he really did pose VSE as a big trial balloon, which went over like lead amongst everyone except hardcorps space advocates.
The ball is now in the space advocates court. What we do in the next few months will determing whether VSE goes the way of the Ride Report, the National Commission on Space’s Pioneering the Space Frontier, the Augustine report, and all the rest.
The House Appropriations committee may not feel in a position to approve the funding for an initiative because the Congress in general has no policy in place. They may be looking to the full House and Senate to approve a framework in which the budget would be supported. In other words the budget shouldn’t dictate the vision by a congressional vision should be supported with the proper funds. It will take time for congress to create its version of the vision and until than the NASA budget is just an interim thing.
Lobbyist and Advocates need to keep pushing Congress and of course the election is going to have a big impact on the outcome. It would have been better for this to be in the first or second year of an administration but we must live with the dice as they roll.
After hearing Kerry’s response about replacing whomever Bush selects, I can assume he will replace O’Keefe and this new person may not see human spaceflight as a high priority. The vision of what Americans should be doing in space must come from those same Americans. Advocates need to show government there is a political penalty for not supporting human spaceflight outside of earth orbit.
After hearing Kerry’s response about replacing whomever Bush selects “for head of intelligence”
(To clarify)
I suspect that Karl Rove has decided that this isn’t a winner during the campaign. It doesn’t indicate that the president has lost interest, but it probably does indicate that he doesn’t intend to follow through until after he’s reelected.
Whitehouse speaks: The White House has threatened to veto a spending bill that would deny NASA the funding it is counting on to get started on a new space exploration agenda next year
See story at Space.com
http://www.space.com/news/bush_veto_040723.html
“The White House has threatened to veto a spending bill that would deny NASA the funding it is counting on to get started on a new space exploration agenda next year.”
Interesting. Has this White House vetoed any bills at all?
Read more carefully. . .
Josh Bolton says the cuts are unaceptable and might warrant some senior advisors recommending a veto.
Ever play the game “telephone?”
If he vetoes this bill, it will be the first one in his presidency.
Well it doesn’t same some, it just says the presidents senior advisors.. but nobody said that the President said it or he would if it came down to the wire. This is the first word from anybody as far as I know on a position from the White House. I expect that this will continue for several months.
It would be very interesting if President Bush did indeed veto this bill, and even more interesting if the main reason was it’s cuts to his Vision for Space. I don’t know it will be the reason for his veto, but it would give heart to many that space policy and programs was being treated with the importance and respect it is long overdue.
Rand Simberg tells us it will be the first veto of his presidency, and if true, may be even more significant for space policy and programs affecting what is done and how it’s done on Capitol Hill, and inside the Beltway too. I look forward to further developments.
This would send a message if Bush does Veto the bill to Congress
Just to clarify a point of confusion on this matter, Bolton’s letter to Chairman Young is a pro forma veto threat. The president doesn’t pick up the phone and say, “I’m going to veto.” The head of OMB sends a letter that says we will have no choice but to recommend a veto if you don’t address our concerns. It gives the president some cover, but the message to appropriators is clear. But as Jeff rightly points out, it’s unlikely this issue will ever come down to a veto. And not because Bush isn’t serious (who knows?) or because NASA’s budget is part of a $93 billion spending package that also funds military veterans’ benefits, federal housing programs, and environmental protection. What makes the veto threat rather hollow is that the VA-HUD bill will almost certainly be folded into an omnibus bill. Vetoing the omnibus would be tantamount to holding up funding for nearly the entire federal government. Would Bush risk shutting down the federal government over NASA cuts?
Some quick research into the history of presidential vetoes and NASA helps a bit. Reagan vetoed a NASA bill because it required him to create a National Space Council that he did not want.
Also, if you go to Google News and do a search under “Bush veto” you will discover that although Bush has not vetoed any bills before, he has threatened to do so on a number of occasions and been successful.
This is a way of notifying both the Senate and the resulting conference committee that the administration doesn’t like certain things about the budget so far. It causes them to pay attention.