It’s not quite “the best of times, the worst of times”, but it was clear yesterday that civil space fared better than military space in the eyes of Congressional appropriators. The House Appropriations Committee signed off on a $16.5-billion budget for NASA, making no apparent changes to what the Science, State, Justice, and Commerce subcommittee approved last month. That budget is $15 million more than what President Bush requested, but adds over $50 million to aeronautics and $40 million to science programs. A Hampton Roads (Va.) Daily Press article points out what was cut to make up for those additions: $50 million from exploration programs, $10 million from ISS, and $10 million from “launch services” for the shuttle (it’s not clear what this last item is, particularly since the committee press release noted that the shuttle program is fully funded.) The Daily Press article also notes that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) opposes any effort to cut ISS funding to support aeronautics.
The same committee, though, did not look as favorably on some controversial military space programs. The committee cut $126 million from the Space Radar program, and $400 million from the Transformation Communications Satellite (T-Sat) program, the committee’s news release noted. This leaves T-Sat with $436 million and Space Radar with only $100 million in the FY06 budget. House authorizers made similar cuts earlier this year, and Space News adds (subscription required) that the full committee is also “deeply concerned about the negative trends in space acquisition”, a sentiment shared by many on Capitol Hill.
Can NASA put Exploration (or other) programs in Virginia, so that cuts to aeronautics in Virginia is compensated by increases to exploration (or other) in Virginia.
Finally, someone in the commercial space world who really gets it, who understands how government and commerce play together to open a new frontier. I consider this note from the Space-X newsletter distributed today the best news I’ve heard in a long time:
“Now that development of Falcon I is almost over, we are turning our focus to Falcon V, and one of the primary markets for that vehicle is resupply of the International Space Station. As such, we will need to work closely with JSC and other parts of NASA to understand the rendezvous and docking/berthing requirements.”
The Space Station is the only large market _currently_ available for commercial space launch vehicles, and it is very refreshing to see Elon understand that, rather than biting the Federal hand that is feeding him.
On to the subject at hand: based on performance alone, I’d put my money on civil space too. Military space management for the past few years, at least in the public world, has been a clear and almost unmitigated disaster. Bad as NASA is, the Air Force has managed to out-do them on almost every level.
— Donald
If the space station is NASA’s main foot forward, and if the Air Force is even worse, then NASA and the Air Force are in a race to the bottom. You’ll see: come 2010, you’ll have no hope for the space station at all.
I don’t care about the Space Station at all, except that it be there and that it require supplies. That is the prerequisit for the establishment of a larger commercial space transportation industry, that can later amortize economies of scale and new technology.
No Space Station, no near-term large orbital market, and we wait for the tourists to bootstrap us. Which will happen, but probably not as fast as a lot of us hope.
Elon has it right.
— Donald