Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for December, 2005
December 19, 2005 at 5:53 am · Filed under Other
In some respects, it can seem like the Vision for Space Exploration sprung forth in January 2004 with little advance notice: other than rumblings and rumors that a new space policy was in the works in the months and weeks leading up to the announcement, there was little substantial indication that NASA and the administration were actively working on a new exploration initiative. However, as Dwayne Day and I write in the latest issue of The Space Review, NASA’s planning for a new exploration plan started in earnest back in 1999, when administrator Dan Goldin gathered some of his top executives and quietly started the Decadal Planning Team (DPT). This effort, with the backing of Goldin and later Sean O’Keefe, worked primarily behind the scenes developing architectures for human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and other destinations in the solar system (one particularly far-sighted proposal that was considered called for a human mission to Callisto, the outermost of Jupiter’s four large Galilean moons.)
One of the major outstanding questions in the article that neither we nor the NASA historians whose research on the DPT formed the basis of our article could answer is what impact did the DPT (and, later, the NASA Exploration Team, or NEXT) have on the ultimate VSE. The DPT’s efforts were intended to be “science-driven” and “destination independent”, yet the Vision is focused clearly on one particular destination—the Moon—with science a secondary concern. When, and whether, these questions get answered may depend on the ultimate success of the Vision: “if Americans once again return to the Moon late in the next decade, scholars will examine the 2003 decision that started the process. If the plan falters under budget cuts or due to changes in political winds, it may never be researched in depth. Few people pay attention to failed policy initiatives.”
December 19, 2005 at 5:38 am · Filed under Other
It’s an argument we have all heard many times: why should we spend money on space when we can spend it on X (where X is education, health care, medical research, etc.) That’s an issue that Eric Hedman tackles in this week’s issue of The Space Review, looking at the struggles for funding NASA versus other agencies, and the battle for funding within NASA itself. Perhaps the best piece of advice is the following passage:
Proponents of space exploration need to continuously improve the ability to communicate their ideas and explain why we need NASA to have a clear mission and a sufficient budget to carry it out. We need to be able to explain the benefits in ways that people who do not regularly follow what the space program is doing will understand. We need to be able to explain to lawmakers what the benefits are not only to specific congressional districts but also to the country and the human race as a whole. We also need to be able to sell it without overselling individual points and losing credibility.
While Hedman is talking about NASA specifically, his arguments also apply to state-level space efforts. This is something backers of a New Mexico spaceport may want keep in mind, particularly given an editorial in Sunday’s Albuquerque Tribune, where managing editor Kate Nelson lays into the spaceport plan with all the subtlety of a chainsaw. “I know, I know, we have this gaping hole in our Medicaid program,” she writes at one point. “And, sure, our schools are some of the worst in the nation,” she adds elsewhere. Sound familiar?
December 19, 2005 at 5:21 am · Filed under Other
Florida Today reports Monday that the state of Florida is considering merging several of its space-related organizations into a single entity dubbed “Space Florida”. These organizations include the Florida Space Authority, Florida Space Research Institute, and the Florida Aerospace Finance Corp., which would continue as departments within Space Florida. This move was not unexpected, since there had been concerns raised for months that there was a need for a single state space agency to provide “one-stop shopping” for people interested in doing space business in the state. This concept may have gained additional urgency with the latest developments in New Mexico; the South Florida Sun-Sentinel writes in an editorial Monday that the state needs to take several steps to retain its leadership in space, recommending that “once a state task force on commercial space ventures issues recommendations next month, lawmakers ought to quickly adopt ideas that make sense strategically and financially.”
December 19, 2005 at 5:14 am · Filed under Congress
The full House approved the conference report on S.1281, the NASA authorization bill, late Saturday on a voice vote. SpaceRef reports that the Senate has yet to approve the conference report because Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) has put a hold on the bill in an effort to convince NASA to spend much of the $25 million appropriated to hypersonics research in the FY2006 budget on the X-43C program. It’s unlikely this will permanently jeopardize passage of the report, and thus the bill, and since the Senate has no immediate plans to recess for the holidays a resolution may come sooner rather than later.
December 16, 2005 at 6:47 am · Filed under Other
Everyone’s in favor a new spaceport, until someone mentions the T word. Taxes. The Albuquerque Tribune, following up on this week’s announcement of Virgin Galactic setting up operations as a to-be-built New Mexico spaceport, tracks down how the spaceport will be paid for. The majority of the money, including $100 million in capital outlays and $35 million in transportation and other funding, into the project, with $90 million to come from federal and local sources. While the federal funding isn’t specified, the local funding could come in the form of “a local option gross receipts tax” for businesses in that part of the state. That proposal has generated some opposition from politicians from that part of the state: “At first blush, I don’t think that’s the prudent way to do it,” said state senator Leonard Lee Rawson, who just yesterday was raving about the project. His concern is that the project could provide revenue for the whole state, with some taxpayers paying a disproportionate share of taxes for it.
That complaint is minor, though, compared to the reaction in Florida to the announcement. Florida Today minces no words in an editorial, saying that the Virgin/New Mexico deal “shows more starkly than ever how Florida is failing to attract the 21st century space business the state and Brevard County desperately need to offset thousands of coming workforce cuts at NASA.” The editorial also complains that the Florida legislature failed to take up a proposal to create an aerospace incentive fund intended to lure the eventual CEV developer to establish operations in Florida. Few are spared the wrath of the paper’s editorial board, including Gov. Jeb Bush:
New Mexico has a business-friendly spaceport — Florida, none.
New Mexico has anted up $225 million to spawn new-era space jobs — Florida, zilch.
New Mexico has a hands-on governor who has made space business a top priority — Florida doesn’t.
December 16, 2005 at 6:34 am · Filed under Congress
Florida Today follows up on the report earlier this week that some members of Congress are lobbying the OMB to increase NASA’s budget to fully fund the shuttle program, saying that without full funding one shuttle orbiter, Atlantis, will have to be mothballed. (Why Atlantis, which is slightly younger than Discovery? The article doesn’t say.) Two Congressmen who represent the Space Coast area, Dave Weldon and Tom Feeney, were among those who signed the letter. “Underfunding the shuttle is like building half a bridge,” Feeney claimed, with the ISS as the bridge. The article also quotes space policy expert John Logsdon, who plays down what he perceives as some of the hyperbole in the letter.
Florida Today, through its space blog, includes a link to the letter sent by the members of Congress to President Bush, but as of this morning the link wasn’t working. (However, a Florida Today editor emailed a revised link to the letter that does work.)
December 16, 2005 at 6:20 am · Filed under Congress
A House-Senate conference committee met Thursday afternoon and approved a final version of the NASA authorization bill (using the Senate bill number, S.1281) which will go to the full House and Senate for approval, perhaps by the end of the year. While the conference report has not been published online yet, some details of the bill, as noted in press releases by the House Science Committee (via SpaceRef), House Science Committee Democratic Membership, and the office of Rep. Ken Calvert, include:
- Endorsement of the Vision for Space Exploration;
- Designation of the US segment of the ISS as a “national laboratory”;
- Creation of a series of cost control and notification procedures modeled on the Nunn-McCurdy controls for DOD programs;
- Authorization for larger Centennial Challenges prizes;
- Prohibition of any layoffs of NASA personnel before March 2007.
December 15, 2005 at 6:35 am · Filed under Other
The announcement this week that Virgin Galactic will establish operations at a new spaceport in New Mexico raises a question: just who is going to pay for building the spaceport, estimated to cost between $200 and $250 million? The state is expected to provide at least $100 million towards its construction (the rest to come from unspecified local and federal sources) and, according to news reports, the state legislature is expected to approve that funding. State senator Leonard Lee Rawson, a Republican from Las Cruces (near where the spaceport will be built), doesn’t have a problem supporting a project backed by a Democratic governor. “It’s new jobs; it’s economic development. I don’t think it’s a conservative or liberal issue,” he told the Albuquerque Tribune. State House speaker Ben Lujan, a Democrat, told the Washington Post, “We’ll get this through the legislature, that’s a promise.”
The Post also points out that state governor Bill Richardson is also contemplating a run for President in 2008: “The 58-year-old Hispanic governor is working to portray himself as a ‘different kind of Democrat’ who is willing to work with the private sector on daring initiatives, his campaign planners say. [Richard] Branson suggested that Richardson’s gamble on the spaceport could pay political dividends.” However, the spaceport won’t be in full operation, at least as far as Virgin Galactic is concerned, before the 2008 election.
[Disclosure: my employer was hired to perform some economic impact assessments of the new spaceport, and some preliminary "forward-looking" (that is, optimistic) estimates were released as part of this week's announcement.]
December 15, 2005 at 6:14 am · Filed under Other
The Strategic Research Institute announced yesterday that the 3rd Annual Commercial Remote Sensing Industry Conference, to be held in Washington DC in February, will focus on “new initiatives and legislation authorizing appropriations to the remote sensing industry”. Among the speakers will be Congressman Mark Udall “from the District of Colorado”. District of Colorado? I hadn’t heard that Colorado had been sent to the minors…
Interesting note: the conference is taking place on the same dates, and at the same hotel, as the FAA/AST’s annual commercial space transportation conference. Both conferences overlap with the end of Satellite 2006, the annual conference that focuses on the commercial communications satellite industry.
December 15, 2005 at 6:02 am · Filed under Congress
Backers of a NASA mission to the Jovian moon Europa got some good news in the final version of 2006 budget, which included report language calling on NASA to begin work on a Europa mission to replace the cancellation of the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO), and to include a new start for that mission in its 2007 budget proposal. However, The Planetary Society, citing a report in the subscription-only publication Washington Aerospace Briefing, said Wednesday that NASA has decided not to include the mission in its FY07 budget. The society has no plans to take this lying down: “Whether or not is in the budget request, we will lobby in Congress for its inclusion in the NASA program.” Europa has long been a high priority for planetary scientists, although one wonders whether it is as high a priority today compared to Titan, whose stock seems to have risen in the last year because of the interesting results collected the Cassini/Huygens mission.
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