Wouldn’t you know that just after I write up a long-overdue summary of NASA authorization activities in the House that there’s some activity on the legislation. Aerospace Daily reports Thursday that the full House is set to consider the bill on Friday. One issue that will have to be dealt with is a proposed amendment by Rep. Jerry Costello (D-IL) that would prohibit the offshoring of any ISS jobs. (The bill already has a similar measure, but “only when such actions are consistent with international treaties and obligations”, according to the article. It’s not clear if offshoring is really that big of an issue for ISS employment in any case.)
A bigger issue that will not be resolved Friday is any change to the Iran Nonproliferation Act (INA). Any amendment to the authorization bill that loosens the existing INA restrictions on purchasing Russian hardware or services will wait until the House and Senate meet in conference to resolve differences between their two versions of the legislation, which could take a while.
Actually, Aerospace Daily got the Costello amendment completely wrong. The amendment *only* preserves an exemption for non-U.S. content in contracts required for ISS, so other cooperative programs (eg. the Hubble robot, which had Canadian robotics) are screwed. (Please, I know the robot is dead, and the amendment grandfathers existing programs, but the point is the same: future international programs are impacted, unless they are related to ISS obligations.) Basically this is an extreme form of Buy American, and neither NASA nor many others are clear exactly what the provision in HR3070 really means, let alone what the amendment would do. In any case, NASA opposes the provision and the amendment.
That’s pretty bad. But then, if it’s both ruinous and sponsored by a Democrat, it’s extremely unlikely to pass.
The INA is also ruinous — for the space station, albeit not for the country. I’m sure that they will find a way to repeal or ignore it. Besides, it was partly a “Clinton can go to hell” measure all along; to that extent, it is now obsolete.
Unfortunately, another “Clinton go to hell” law has not been, and will not be, repealed, the shift of satellite export control to the State Department. Much as I support the Space Station as an essential step, this law is proving far more ruinous to the United States’ future in space commerce than the INA.
— Donald