Gerald Ford’s space policy legacy

Yes, he actually has one, but not necessarily as president. Prior to being selected to replace Spiro Agnew as vice president, Ford had a long career in the House and played a role in the formation of NASA in 1958, as he recalled in an April 1975 speech at the presentation of the Goddard Memorial […]

Gordon: lunar base offers “promise”

Saturday’s issue of The Tennessean features a number of editorials and op-eds on NASA’s plans to establish a lunar base, including an essay by Rep. Bart Gordon, incoming chairman of the House Science Committee. Gordon likens a lunar base to existing bases in Antarctica in terms of scientific and strategic importance:

Like our bases in […]

Save the dates for 2007 Congressional lobbying efforts

The National Space Society and ProSpace have announced dates for their next space policy lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill, which will be among the first such citizen space lobbying events of the 110th Congress. The NSS plans to conduct its Space Budget Blitz 2007 on February 11-13, which should be shortly after when the FY2008 […]

No appropriations post for Lampson

A minor announcement last week could have some repercussions for NASA down the line. When Nick Lampson won Tom DeLay’s former seat in the House in November, many expected him to gain a seat on the powerful appropriations committee, a position from which he could be expected to flight for NASA’s budget (while also working […]

Griffin on Congress, White House changes

The St. Petersburg Times (the one in Florida, not Russia) has a brief but interesting interview with NASA administrator Mike Griffin in Sunday’s issue. Besides talking about the lunar base announcement earlier this month and Mars exploration plans, the paper asks Griffin about what the change in party control of Congress means to NASA. Griffin […]

Bush mentions the Vision (sorta)

One of the criticisms leveled at the Vision for Space Exploration is that, since President Bush’s January 2004 speech at NASA Headquarters, he has done little, if anything, to promote it publicly. A break in the silence came today, with the release of a presidential proclamation designating December 17th as Wright Brothers Day. According to […]

Peer-reviewed space policy

I neglected to mention earlier this month a new blog, Poli-Space Peer Review. Ryan Zelnio provides some synopses and commentary about space policy papers published in peer-reviewed journals, like Space Policy, as well as some related pieces. This is particularly useful for those of us without regular access to some of these journals.

Some wiggle room for NASA in the ’07 budget?

The decision earlier this week by the incoming chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations committees to replace the pending FY2007 appropriations bills with a year-long continuing resolution was a setback for NASA, which was looking for a small but critical increase in its budget to support the ramp-up of the exploration program, among other […]

Coverage of the Joseph speech

Some links to articles about Robert Joseph’s speech about the new national space policy at the National Press Club yesterday afternoon:

The AP account of the speech comes first, because it’s timestamped at 1:58 pm Wednesday, two minutes before Joseph’s talk started. (Presumably the AP’s Barry Schweid got an advance copy of speech, and the […]

Defending the national space policy

On Wednesday afternoon Robert Joseph, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the State Department, gave a speech at the National Press Club about the new national space policy, the first time a senior administration official has spoken about the policy on the record since the policy’s release over two months ago.

Nor […]