A couple weeks ago we heard that we have to go back to the Moon or else the Chinese will turn it into a military base. Now we hear that Democrats want to “cripple” the nation’s human spaceflight program. At least, that’s the claim of Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL), after the House rejected an amendment he proposed to an NSF authorization bill that would require that any increase to NSF’s budget—the House bill authorizes a 40-percent increase—not be done at NASA’s expense. The Rules Committee had rejected a vote on the amendment, and a point of order against the amendment (because its provisions “are not germane to the bill”) was raised and sustained on the House floor last night.
Weldon argues that the rejection of the amendment makes it “increasingly clear that Democratic leaders have our manned space program in their crosshairs.” Weldon claimed in his press release that the increase in the NSF budget “was made possible earlier this year when Democrats cut a half-a-billion dollars from NASA funding.” The problem with this is that the NSF bill is an authorization bill for FY2008; the “cut” was in an appropriations bill (continuing resolution) for the remainder of FY2007. Just because the House authorized a 40-percent increase in NSF’s budget is no guarantee that the NSF will be appropriated that much (recall that NASA is authorized at a higher level than its current appropriation), nor that any increase in NSF appropriations would necessarily come at the expense of NASA, although the two are both funded out of the same part of the budget, as Weldon notes.
Another diagnosis from Rep. Weldon (an MD), from an earlier press release about his proposed amendment: “Our strategic competitors, like China, are putting their manned space program in strategic overdrive, while the Democratic majority is in the process of prescribing Ambien to our program.”
Given the House’s rejection of his amendment and his concerns about its effect on NASA, you might think that Weldon would have voted against the measure, as a matter of principle if nothing else. Nope. Late last night Weldon joined 398 other House members in voting for the bill.
This is not the first time members of Congress have said one thing and done another. A lot of the folks on the Hill who are now complaining about how lean NASA’s budget is voted for the Omnibus Spending Bill that cut NASA form the White House proposal by a half billion dollars.
I am a big fan of Dave Weldon, and I understand that he is fighting for his constituents and priorities he has held in Congress for 12+ years.
That said, previous Republican-led Congresses supported doubling the National Science Foundation’s budget to promote basic scientific research. So in isolation, increasing NSF’s budget is neither a new idea or a Democratic-owned idea.
The only legitimate comparison between the House Democratic Majority’s support for NSF and NASA is found in the House Budget Resolution passed in March of this year, and in the House Science and Technology Committee’s own Views and Estimates document, as provided to the House Budget Committee as input to the House FY2008 budget resolution. http://science.house.gov/docs/views_estimates_2008.pdf
The House budget resolution itself increases overall budget authority for science and technology by $2.5 billion, but does not mention NASA specifically except in saying (in a different budget function than R&D) that they reject the Administration’s cuts to aviation (i.e. aeronautics).
The budget resolution does provide enough resources in Function 250 (Science and Technology) to increase the NSF budget without cutting the NASA budget.
To get more insight, the Science and Technology Committee’s Views and Estimates says NASA should be funded closer to the FY2008 authorized level (from the existing authorization in law), instead of the President’s request.
The bottom line is that there is broad political support for increasing NSF’s budget. There is fairly broad support for maintaining NASA’s budget, and perhaps for giving it a small increase.
But nobody in Congress is offering amendments to increase NASA’s budget by 40%.
That speaks volumes, and no doubt frustrates Dr. Weldon and many who read this blog.
Only 17 House member called for a Summit. Now, two Florida House members on the Rules Committee voted against the rule proposed by Weldon.
Weak, very weak.
If this is the best that the NASA legislative affairs team can do, then they are in big trouble.
If NASA is arguing “Moon program vs. NSF” or “Moon program vs. NIH (curing Cancer/AIDS/diabetes/Alzheimers)”, or “Moon program vs. law enforcement” or “Moon program vs. Global warming research”
and all they have is speeches about cathedrals to fall back on …
and one of their biggest supporters (Sen. Shelby) wants to fire Griffin …
then they have already lost the battle.
Again, President Kennedy did not care about putting people on the Moon. He cared about the national security impacts & benefits of proving in front of the world that the free world way of life was better than the Communist way of life.
The current Congress does not care enough about building cathedrals to give NASA the funding they are asking for. At the same time, NASA’s current leadership does not care enough about what Congress really wants to buy in order to design their approach for going to the Moon to give Congress what it wants.
Mark my words, there is going to be major cuts to NASA’s budget requested funding level for Constellation.
MarkWhittingon: A lot of the folks on the Hill who are now complaining about how lean NASA’s budget is voted for the Omnibus Spending Bill that cut NASA form the White House proposal by a half billion dollars.
I would revise this to “The small handful of folks on the Hill …”
– Al
Weldon appears to be an increasingly desperate and/or unstable Republican. I can sort of understand Weldon’s past attempts to fault the Democrats for the FY07 flatlining of the NASA budget as part and parcel of the Washington partisan blame game, even though its was his own party’s failure to pass a budget before losing power that put the Democrats in that position.
But to try to boost NASA’s budget in an _NSF_ bill, and an _authorization_ bill at that, is just plain goofy. Such a maneuver has no hope of succeeding on technical grounds alone — forget the actual floor vote — and demonstrates a high level of ignorance and/or hopelessness.
And then to blame the Democrats for not allowing such a poorly constructed and positioned amendment to be admitted — per the existing rules of order — is just plain pathetic. Not even high school students in a civics class would fall for such an obvious paper tiger.
At least Weldon is actually focused on NASA’s budget unlike Senator Nelson and his obsession with NASA lawyers.
But it’s still very sad that this what passes for legislative and political strategy in Congress when it comes to NASA these days
“But nobody in Congress is offering amendments to increase NASA’s budget by 40%.
That speaks volumes, and no doubt frustrates Dr. Weldon and many who read this blog.”
Mr. Muncy is erecting a straw man. NASA doesn’t need a 40% increase to cover its current programs. Calvert is taling about boosting the White House request by about a billion, which would restore the funding cut earlier this year and put some more money into aviation and science. That’s considerably less than 40%, a figure I would be skeptical about unless it is explained what the extra six or so billion is going to.
Obviously, not many in congress (or the White House for that matter) care about NASA. Can’t blame them. The current implementation of VSE is boring and totally uninspiring.
Perhpas there should be funding should be tethered to implenting programs on scientific misconduct, falsification and fabrication. Perhaps some money should go to techincal ethics and integtrity as well as technical science.
Thanks
SRD
Mark,
Are you pretending to be dense on purpose?
NSF doesn’t NEED a 40% increase in its budget to cover its current program either.
The point is that Congress is throwing money at NSF and not at NASA. That is a market test. In fact, the whole point Weldon is making is that Democratic leaders in Congress favor “science” to the potential detriment of NASA’s human spaceflight programs. Weldon is saying the Democratic Congress likes NSF more than NASA.
While I think he’s overdoing it, and certainly wrong to make this a partisan issue, the underlaying point remains: Many in Congress are trying to increase NSF’s budget more than it was already increasing. Fewer in Congress are trying to restore previously forecast and SMALLER increases in NASA’s budget That is a bad sign for NASA’s budgetary future.
We can all wring our hands and wish it were not so, but it is reality.
– Jim
NASA already has plenty of programs which implement scientific misconduct, falsification and fabrication.
The Democrats are moving to eliminate the wasteful human spaceflight program? Happy day! Maybe I should switch parties…
MarkWhittington wrote @ May 3rd, 2007 at 2:09 pm
You could give NASA a 40 percent increase and see about 2 percent improvement in effort!
Mark WHY DO YOU SUPPORT a government only human spaceflight program? What happened to the Mark Whittington who use to advocate private space efforts? Is he being held hostage somewhere in GOP righty land?
What I love of Weldon’s lines the Chinese human space flight program is in “overdrive”?
LOL
Why not? Reality is whatever the far right of the party wants it to be…
Robert
Jim Muncy wrote @ May 3rd, 2007 at 10:10 am
NASA ought to be happy that very few serious people are talking about scrapping the entire human spaceflight effort.
Read the Texas MOnthly article on the spaceprogram!
Robert
anonymous wrote @ May 3rd, 2007 at 10:29 am
Weldon appears to be an increasingly desperate and/or unstable Republican.
There are quite a few of those…and it will get worse as time goes on…of course that is matched by a cacophony (spell) of far left Dems.
Robert
“Mark WHY DO YOU SUPPORT a government only human spaceflight program? What happened to the Mark Whittington who use to advocate private space efforts? Is he being held hostage somewhere in GOP righty land?”
Oler, not to seem like Bob Dole, but why are you lying about my record again? I’ve been the biggest champion of encouraging commercial space on this planet and in much broader venues than some blog. Your problem is that VSE is a Bush initiative, albeit one that has picked up some bipartisan support in Congress and the country. You have Bush Derangement Syndrome. Therefore, in your feverish mind, nothing good can some of VSE.
I’m also very ammused to see a former supporter of Gore, Dean, and Kerry tut tut about “big gummit.” Give me a break. That’s about as credible as just about anything else you’ve posted.
MarkWhittington wrote @ May 4th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
MArk,
There is nothing wrong with Big Government. BG organized the effort that Won WWII, tamed the “device”, built the interstate highway system, runs the finest ATC system in the country, and essentially empowered private enterprise to establish the most robust economy that history has known. How robust is it? It has sustained six years of unbriddled spending by this administration.
The far right rails against big government as if it is something horrific forgetting what it has done…the reason I am starting to suspect is that the far right has no clue how to make government work, so they need “small government” which is commensurate with their management capabilities…
(LOL)
Return to the Moon is not a bad program because Bush thought it up (if indeed he did) it is a bad program because it is being done by the same incompetents who brought us a shuttle that is an “incomplete success”, a station that is well even less and a general human space effort that is a joke.
And you support that.
You may mouth the words for private involvement, but when the rubber hits the road, you are carrying water for a program that has so little private involvement that it is darn near invivisble. Not to mention floundering.
As for my support of the opponents of this President in the 00 and 04 election…I am quite proud of it.
These clowns have floundered at almost everything that they have touched. There is not a single solitary project that they have had their ‘hands” in that the next “person” whoever it is is going to have to rescue from the turd pile. And that includes human spaceflight.
Thats your guys…enjoy the company.
Robert
MarkWhittington wrote @ May 4th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
as for the comparison with Bob Dole…he lost as well with that line.
Robert
Oler, your view of the world is as distorted as your view of history. World War II? Your crowd would have opposed it as fanatically as it now opposes the War on Terror. The interstate highway system? Ditto. Imagine if Ike had to deal with environmental impact regulations…
I support the return to the Moon because it represents a new direction for NASA away from being a high tech, government run taxi service back to exploration, leaving Low Earth orbit to private business. Lewis and Clark on a grand scale while private business builds the railroad, to use a good analogy. You simply mindless oppose it because it’s a Bush plan and you hate Bush.
Your hysterical rhetoric about the Administration I think proves my point. You are suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome. That’s one reason why nothing you say or post has any credibility what so ever.
MarkWhittington wrote @ May 5th, 2007 at 1:43 am
Mark.
try and come into the real world…
Return to the Moon is no Lewis and Clark on a grand scale. What a hoot.
LandC did not create government infrastructure that had no chance of standing on its on to do voyages of exploration that had no impact on American society.
Return to the Moon as “your guys” are presently doing it is really “no contractor left behind” in a government infrastructure that if the federal dollar were pulled could not survive on its on, and more or less exist in a vacumn in terms of the rest of American soeity. Like the current space shuttle/station program the ONLY people who will go back to the Moon ARE GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES.
The effort has continually ignored existing psuedo private industry infrastructure (Atlas/Delta) and near term possible real private infrastructure (Bigelow etc) all in an attempt to protect GOVERNMENT INFRASTRUCTURE.
That is the reality of the program that you are supporting. You attempt to hide that reality, perhaps you have to, by the hate Bush Syndrome…all I attribute to a spin off of your hate Clinton syndrome…lol
Besides this argument doesnt make sense….you wrote:
“I support the return to the Moon because it represents a new direction for NASA away from being a high tech, government run taxi service back to exploration, leaving Low Earth orbit to private business”
Ignoring the “high tech” nonesense…why does NASA need a new direction (which in all respects looks like the old one…aka government infrastructure/government employees/ government hard ware….) so it can leave the current one to private industry? that makes no sense…
as does your pivot to the RR…the western railroads were exactly the role government should play. Private enterprise built and operated thyem…what government enterprise is building return to the moon? Or have you sunk so low as to think that all the shuttle contractors are private enterprise.
As for WWII..
Mark I oppossed going to Iraq. I oppossed doing it because I predicted that this administration was so incompetent that it would make almost every mistake in the book…they have not dissapointed me in that.
Now we are there, we have to win…the trick is can we get the incompetents out of the way in time to do so…the incompetents your folks appointed.
I remember when you were buying the line that we would do our business in Iraq with 50,000 troops. what a hoot.
Find the old Mark Whittington…
Robert
Ahh, Jeff.
Sad to see the comments section of your blog devolve into an echo of the old space bulletin board…
Great posts, though. Don’t let the clowns get to you.
Cheers,
Shubber
“Sad to see the comments section of your blog devolve into an echo of the old space bulletin board…”
While Rome burns, the Neros fiddle. We are now entering the period of the VSE and ESAS death watch. When you’ve lost John Young, you’ve lost.
We are now entering the period of the VSE and ESAS death watch.
This would be a baby out with a bathwater incident. Many would be glad to see ESAS go and VSE reimplemented in a sane way.
VSE boils down to this : end the Shuttle LEO rut and get humans beyond. This can be implemented in hundreds of different ways, NASA came up with almost the worst possible implementation one could have.
Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote @ May 6th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Ending funding for government human spaceflight is a bad idear whose time has come…
A mesure of how bad things are is how many of those bad idears now ahve merit…lol
Robert
Human spaceflight won’t end with the demise of VSE and ESAS, It will just move back to the assets we already have, which are extensive. Six and seven person capsules on existing and new EELVs will provide for a robust space tourism industry, freeing up scarce funds for space, life and earth sciences, which are demonstrably far more important than moon landings, and propulsion research and development, which we desperately need. We have two very good propulsion projects (RL-60 and IPD) which only need to be fast tracked and completed. Channel wall nozzles are a necessity. We’ve got SSMEs which could easily be thrown away in space in experimental launch programs rather than retired.
As far as I’m concerned things never looked better for space, until George W. Bush, his VSE and ESAS and his incompetent treasury draining illegal war of aggression let’s destroy all the principles that made America great policies. The only way we can get past this crisis, is to stop it, dead. End it. The sooner the better.
Now that Michael Griffin has demonstrated that he is both incompetent and insincere, killing VSE and ESAS seems a lot easier than it once did.