February « 2007 « Space Politics

Budget’s done; now what?

By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 15 at 5:41 am ET

The Senate yesterday passed the joint funding resolution that funds NASA and many other federal agencies through the rest of the 2007 fiscal year. Since the Senate made no changes to the House version, that means that NASA will get just over $16.2 billion for the full fiscal year, compared to the nearly $16.8 billion […]

Same as it ever was

By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 14 at 7:09 am ET

China’s ASAT test last month was supposed to shake up how the US and other countries perceived the threat posed by such weapons and their reaction to them. So far, though, government officials from China and the US are sticking to the same positions they espoused prior to the January 11 event. A Chinese Foreign […]

Final FY07 budget nears approval

By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 14 at 6:54 am ET

The Senate yesterday ended debate, as expected, on the joint funding resolution that would fund many federal agencies, including NASA, through the end of FY07. There was no mention of any amendments to the bill, including any additional money for NASA; any efforts to add money to NASA will have to rely on a supplemental […]

House Earth sciences hearing

By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 13 at 6:20 am ET

The House Science and Technology Committee is holding a hearing later this morning on National Imperatives for Earth and Climate Science. The hearing will be based on the Earth sciences decadal survey released last month that warned of a potential future gap in space-based Earth sciences data because of funding cuts (cuts that, as previously […]

A few comments about comments

By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 13 at 6:20 am ET

Looks like it’s time for the occasional call for decorum regarding comments. A few simple guidelines:

The focus of the discussion here is space policy. If there’s a relevant discussion about presidential candidates’ opinions on space policy, great. If it’s about politics and politicians in general, take if some place else. I have a personal […]

Milspace budget matters

By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 12 at 7:12 am ET

Lost in the discussion last week about NASA’s FY08 budget proposal (which itself was quickly overshadowed by more sordid matters) was the space portion of the Defense Department’s FY08 budget proposal. The budget includes $11 billion for Air Force space programs in 2008, up from $9.5 billion in 2007, as Aerospace Daily and Space News […]

Good timing for a budget blitz

By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 9 at 8:18 pm ET

By coincidence, around the same time the Senate is completing debate on the joint funding resolution, the National Space Society will be conducting its Space Budget Blitz 2007 citizens lobbying effort on Capitol Hill. The event was planned months in advance to take place about a week after the FY08 budget proposal was released, but […]

FY07 budget inches closer to approval

By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 9 at 8:02 pm ET

The Senate is poised to vote on the FY2007 joint funding resolution as early as Tuesday, after a cloture vote to end debate on the bill. According to reports it doesn’t seem like any effort to raise NASA’s share of the funding is getting much attention: the AP report and others have focused primarily on […]

STA breakfast notes

By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 7 at 10:49 pm ET

Yesterday’s Space Transportation Association breakfast, held immediately prior to the beginning of the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference, featured Leslee Gilbert, the minority staff director for the House Science and Technology Committee. Obviously there was a lot of interest in NASA’s FY07 and FY08 budget situations, although given that the FY08 budget had come out […]

More NASA budget reaction

By Jeff Foust on 2007 February 6 at 5:02 am ET

Some more reaction to the proposed FY08 NASA budget, on and off the Hill:

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) says she is “disappointed” that NASA is getting only a 3 percent increase in FY08 over its FY07 proposal while other R&D agencies, like the NSF, are getting much larger increases. “I fought to have NASA included […]

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