Congress

Familiar faces on the science committee

The House Science and Technology Committee today announced its roster of members and subcommittee assignments. As expected, Rep. Mark Udall (D-CO) will be the chairman of the space and aeronautics committee, with Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) becoming the ranking minority member, flip-flopping the roles the two had in the previous Congress. The rest of the membership of the subcommittee, including a number of familiar names, is as follows:

Democrats:
David Wu (Oregon)
Nick Lampson (Texas)
Steven R. Rothman (New Jersey)
Mike Ross (Arkansas)
Ben Chandler (Kentucky)
Charlie Melancon (Louisiana)

Republicans:
Dana Rohrabacher (California)
Frank D. Lucas (Oklahoma)
Jo Bonner (Alabama)
Tom Feeney (Florida)

Also, at the full committee level, former House Science Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner returns to the committee. He had made a failed bid to become the ranking minority member of the full committee (losing to Ralph Hall of Texas), but will be the ranking Republican on the new Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee.

3 comments to Familiar faces on the science committee

  • concerned citizen

    I sure hope the staff on these new committees pay attention to what’s happening with Ares I performance and Orion’s mass. See presentation at:

    http://images.spaceref.com/news/2007/2007.01.25.esmd.pdf

    Ares I is still underpowered to the tune of 10,000 lbs. If Orion can’t shrink by that amount, Ares I will have no mass margin to accommodate the weight growth that naturally occurs during development. And 10,000 lbs. is almost 20 percent of Orion’s total mass — that’s a huge (read unlikely) mass reduction.

    On top of that, insiders indicate that Orion is getting slightly heavier, not a lot lighter. They also indicate that Ares I is using a few-second burn from its launch abort system just to deliver its current, inadequate performance to orbit. Of course, the launch abort system is only intended to be used in an emergency — not a good sign.

    And all this before the system requirements review for the Stick’s J2-X upper stage, which could (is likely to?) also get heavier.

    Again, I sincerely hope that the staffers on these new committees get their heads up and start exercising some strong oversight on Ares I and Orion. Setting budget and other rumored technical issues aside and just based on mass alone, the Ares I train appears to be headed for a huge derailment.

  • Naaaa, just slap a couple of more SRBs onto the SRB.

    We’re covered.

  • anonymous

    “Naaaa, just slap a couple of more SRBs onto the SRB.

    We’re covered.”

    Horowitz refuted the worst of the Ares I performance and Orion mass rumors. But the fact that he confirmed that a discrepency exists on the order of a few thousand pounds this early in the program’s design and development cycle is still pretty worrisome — both from a design feasilibility and program controls point-of-view. Even more so with his talk of using the Orion abort system to enhance Ares I performance…

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