Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for April, 2005
April 28, 2005 at 10:29 am · Filed under NASA
NASA Watch reports that new administrator Mike Griffin has terminated the agency’s “roadmapping” effort, an agency-wide project to help chart the future of the agency. As the report notes, Griffin said earlier this month that he was disappointed with the pace of the roadmap efforts.
However, according to another source, the roadmapping effort is not being shut down immediately, but instead is being accelerated so that it can be wrapped up within the next month or so, perhaps by the shuttle’s return to flight. This may not be that different from termination—a lot of corners will doubtlessly have to be cut to finish the work in that short a timeframe—but it does suggest that NASA will try and salvage some of the work that has been done on the roadmaps to date.
April 27, 2005 at 10:27 am · Filed under Congress
The listing for Thursday’s hearing by the House Science Committee on NASA earth science programs has added some more people. One of the people now scheduled to testify is Berrien Moore, who is the co-chair of a National Research Council study on “Earth Science and Applications from Space”. That report, according to one source, will be released to the public later today, and it will be very critical of some aspects NASA’s earth sciences strategy.
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April 27, 2005 at 10:14 am · Filed under Other
A reader pointed out this newsletter from the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society. The major update in this newsletter is about a delay in a planned NASA research announcement, but it also includes some good news about the future of Voyager and several other space science missions whose fate were in doubt because of planned budget cuts in the 2006 budget. However, because of shifting priorities that have emerged from the roadmapping process going on within NASA:
Recently, the Science Mission Directorate has received advice from the Space Science Advisory Committee that in light of these new strategic priorities another senior review is warranted to identify the operating mission set that best addresses NASA’s strategic objectives. The current plan is to complete the strategic roadmap integration activity this summer before making any final decisions about the operating missions.
In other words, Voyager, whose funding after this month was in doubt, will remain in operation for the time being. Money is being transferred from another account (not specified) within the agency to continue funding the missions.
April 25, 2005 at 12:38 pm · Filed under Congress
The full House Science Committee is planning a hearing for this Thursday at 10am on “NASA Earth Science”. Witnesses include NASA associate administrator Al Diaz and three earth scientists. I haven’t seen any other details about specific topics of interest during the hearing, although it will be interesting to see how scientists think NASA’s Earth sciences program is faring under the Vision for Space Exploration…
April 25, 2005 at 12:34 pm · Filed under Congress
In this week’s issue of The Space Review I’ve written up a more detailed account of last week’s House Science Committee space subcommittee hearing about commercial space, with a focus on both the regulatory issues Rutan raised as well as how export controls are affecting these ventures. In the same issue Sam Dinkin proposes a large subsidy to promote commercial space transportation, in much the same manner as airmail subsidies in the early days of aviation. Given the magnitude of his proposed subsidy—$15 billion a year for ten years—I don’t think it would go very far in Congress, but the article does suggest some interesting possibilities if the federal government decided to prime the space access pump.
April 22, 2005 at 1:03 pm · Filed under Congress
The Nation, a left-leaning magazine, published an article about House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s influence over NASA and its budget. The article largely rehashes the issues most regular readers of this blog are familiar with: DeLay’s addition of JSC into his Congressional district, his last-minute move to top off NASA’s FY05 budget request, and the recent reorganization of the House Appropriation Committee’s subcommittee structure. Like many such articles, it includes an arguably questionable comment from John Pike: “With NASA changing its spending priorities to support President Bush’s vision for space exploration that will return humans to the moon and take them to Mars, there will be plenty of money going to start-up companies with no record of producing hardware, and there will be no way to measure results.” I’m not sure what he means by there being “no way” to measure results; at least one startup company has complained publicly about the amount of status reports and other paperwork they have to supply to NASA.
The thesis of the article is summarized in this sentence: “NASA, then, is another potential source of money and power for DeLay–if he survives his ethics troubles.” Don’t you think that if someone like DeLay—who already has significant power in Congress today—wanted “another potential source of money and power”, he would take aim at something a bit bigger than NASA and its $16-billion annual budget? Is that the best he can do to shore up his constituency back in Texas? Or is DeLay someone with an actual interest in space and is willing to use some of the power and influence he has accumulated to support the space agency? That alternative, unfortunately, isn’t really explored in the article other than a sentence that “for years, DeLay has expressed an interest in the space program.”
April 22, 2005 at 7:42 am · Filed under NASA
At Wednesday’s House hearing on commercial spaceflight, Burt Rutan mentioned in passing that he would be meeting with new NASA administrator Mike Griffin later that day. That meeting did take place and NASA had provided a photo of it as part of a gallery of images of the new administrator. (See photo number 8.) Michael Huang, who pointed out the photo in an email, wonders if the two are looking at an illustration of a lunar lander or similar spacecraft. That certainly wouldn’t be out of the question, since Scaled Composites is on the team led by t/Space that has an exploration concept study contract with NASA.
April 21, 2005 at 7:26 am · Filed under Congress
Burt Rutan was the star witness at a House Science Committee space subcommittee hearing Wednesday on future markets for commercial spaceflight. Rutan, not surprisingly, used the hearing to argue that the current regulatory environment—cemented in place with the passage of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act last year—is not effective for “aircraft-like” commercial suborbital spacecraft. As he bluntly put it in his opening statement, the launch licensing process administered by FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) “just about ruined my program”. Later, he took a swipe at both AST and a company just down the flight line at Mojave Airport from Scaled Composites:
In fact, while my company was already flying initial test flights and waiting for time-critical responses from AST, during 2003 and 2004, AST found time to expend extensive resources processing and awarding a launch license to a company that did not even have a vehicle in construction, or even funding for the project!
While he didn’t explicitly state it, he appeared to be referring to XCOR Aerospace, which received an AST launch license a year ago, a few weeks after SpaceShipOne got its license. (Disclaimer: in my day job I do work with AST, but not with anything regarding licensing.)
However, Rutan’s comments didn’t elicit much of a reaction from members of the committee, many of whom were instrumental in getting the CSLAA passed last year. Rutan’s comments were not mentioned in the official post-hearing subcommittee press release, although they were alluded to in a separate press release by the committee’s Democratic Caucus. Mark Udall (D-CO), the ranking member of the subcommittee, did ask Rutan for more information on the regulatory process, and said in the release that he received “some very constructive comments on the need to ensure that safety is properly addressed.” Overall, though, the subcommittee’s members spent far more time heaping praise on Rutan that debating regulatory issues.
One area where Rutan did get more traction from the subcommittee was on export control issues. Rutan and Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, both noted that they had run into obstacles dealing with export control issues (an issue because, although the “SpaceShipTwo” vehicle Scaled is building for Virgin will not initially be exported, Virgin is a UK company) that has delayed Virgin’s formal order for the spacecraft. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) used this as another opportunity to lobby for a “two-tier” export control regime that would loosen export control regulations when dealing with allied nations. At the end of the hearing, subcommittee chairman Ken Calvert (R-CA) promised to work with Rohrbacher on these issues.
April 21, 2005 at 6:51 am · Filed under Congress
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), the new chairman of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, issued a press release on the occasion of the subcommittee’s first hearing this year, on ISS research. In the release Hutchison promised “a reinvigorated subcommittee that oversees and works with NASA leaders” on ISS research and (presumably) related issues. Reading that, I couldn’t help but see that as a subtle dig at the former subcommittee chairman, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), who chaired hearings in the previous Congress on a diverse range of issues, from Saturn to NEOs to international space exploration efforts. Frequently, those hearings were poorly attended by members of the subcommittee; sometimes only Brownback and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), or even just Brownback, were in attendance. The press release doesn’t make clear exactly how she plans to “reinvigorate” the subcommittee. Of course, if Hutchison does decide to mount a campaign for Texas governor in 2006, it will doubtless sap a lot of her time that might otherwise be spent on subcommittee issues.
April 19, 2005 at 12:49 pm · Filed under Other
Here’s your chance to have breakfast with new NASA administrator Michael Griffin: just you and Mike—and 100 or so other people. Women in Aerospace will be hosting a breakfast on Tuesday, May 3, in Washington, with the new administrator as the keynote speaker. Details should be up on the WIA web site shortly, or you can read the flyer announcing the breakfast for location, costs, and reservation info.
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