NASA FY2008 budget review: other provisions

December 31, 2007 at 5:10 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA

[Third in a series.]

Following up on my previous posts summarizing the budget and reviewing its various requests for reports and studies, there is some other language of interest in the appropriations legislation itself and its accompanying conference report:

Much to the consternation of The Mars Society and other human Mars exploration advocates, the bill retains the language in the House version banning funding for “any research, development, or demonstration activities related exclusively to the human exploration of Mars.”

The bill itself also prevents NASA from implementing any layoffs through the end of the fiscal year. It also requires NASA to develop a strategy “for minimizing job losses” during the Shuttle-Constellation transition, including projections of civil servant and contractor workforce levels at the agency’s various field centers. The initial version of the strategy is due to Congress within 90 days, with updates to be provided every six months “until the successor human-rated space transport vehicle is fully operational”.

The conference report notes that no money is being provided to NASA’s Centennial Challenges prize program in FY08 to fund additional prizes. “Providing additional funds to a program based on prizes only creates a sizeable amount of unused funds while other aspects of NASA’s mission are being cut or delayed due to a lack of funds,” the report notes. That language is immediately followed by nearly seven pages of earmarks totaling several tens of millions of dollars (which will be dissected in a later post.)

In the conference report, appropriations said they are “disappointed by the Administration’s request of a less than one percent increase for fiscal year 2008 and projected minimal increases of approximately one percent over the next several years.” The report singles out earth science in particular, noting the recent decadal survey and concerns about the declining number of earth science sensors in orbit. The report “recommends” $40 million to NASA to initiate some of the missions identified in that report, and asks NASA to include in its FY2009 budget submission “its plan for meeting these unmet needs.”

One science area that got an increase in the budget was research and analysis (R&A) funding: a boost of $24 million above the original request. Scientists had expressed concern in the past about cuts in R&A funding, and the report acknowledges “significant cuts in recent years” there. The report also calls on NASA to have the National Research Council assess the space agency’s overall R&A program, including the appropriate funding balance between R&A and flight missions.

The report singles out a few missions for funding. Congress provided $60 million to the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), $38.4 million above NASA’s request, and directed NASA to move SIM into the development phase. NASA had planned to use the program solely for engineering risk reduction as opposed to an actual science mission, a direction opposed by appropriators. The bill also includes $42 million for a lunar lander mission as part of the exploration program; the report calls the mission “of critical importance for the exploration vision”.

Appropriators also called on NASA and the administration to provide “sufficient funds” for the Orion crew exploration vehicle in its FY 2009 and 2010 budget requests to keep the project on schedule, rather than try to carry over balances from previous years.

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A structural shift in space policy?

December 31, 2007 at 4:16 pm · Filed under Other, Campaign '08

Are the key participants in the national space policy debate, and the tools they use, undergoing change? That’s at the core of an article by Kathleen Connell in this week’s issue of The Space Review. Connell sees three “structural shifts” taking place that could reshape—for better or worse—the relative importance of space policy and the size and nature of NASA’s budget: the emergence of a new class of “space consumers” thanks to personal spaceflight companies, the use of new online tools to loosely organize “virtual crowds” on topics of interest or concern, and a growing appreciation of the role of space to study and even mitigate climate change. “Those would-be space leaders who understand the dynamic intersection of empowered public will, interactive technology, space consumption, and global warming will best be able to guide NASA into the second decade of the 21st century,” she concludes. “Should they also embrace these facets of the future, a future that has already arrived, they will find themselves with the credibility to also make the case for increasing budgets and increasingly robust space exploration initiatives as well.”

So how powerful and imminent are those structural shifts? It will probably take some time for the first to emerge, and even then the population of “space consumers” will remain very small relative to the overall population. The second is clearly taking place now in politics in general, although it has yet to take root effectively in space politics. And as for the third, one need only look at Hillary Clinton’s proposed space policy and the comments by others, like John Edwards, for a “balanced” space program to see that earth sciences, including climate change, will take on a larger role in the ‘08 election and beyond.

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Where the candidates stand - if in fact they’re standing

December 31, 2007 at 3:38 pm · Filed under Campaign '08

In today’s issue of The Space Review I have an article summarizing the positions the various presidential candidates have taken on space issues—assuming, of course, that they’ve taken any position at all. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you won’t get too many new insights in the article, given the lack of new information from the various campaigns on this topic. I did make an effort to collect some new information from the campaigns by sending a short list of space policy questions to each campaign, but none of them responded. “That lack of response is almost certainly due primarily to the relatively obscure nature of this publication,” I note in the article, but given that the somewhat better-known Washington Post was also unable to coax much information from the campaigns, it’s also indicative of the relative importance of this issue among the candidates.

Similarly, SPACE.com has a roundup of statements from the candidates on space issues. This article focuses on the statements made by the candidates themselves, even outside of the current campaign (such as a Sen. Chris Dodd press release announcing some NASA SBIR awards). It’s also more comprehensive: I did not know, for example, that Alan Keyes was running for president again. I suspect most voters in Iowa and New Hampshire don’t know he’s running, either…

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NASA FY2008 budget review: reports and studies

December 29, 2007 at 11:01 am · Filed under Congress, NASA

[Second in a series.]

The conference report accompanying the FY2008 appropriations bill contains a number of provisions calling on studies, either by NASA or outside agencies, on various areas of concern to Congress:

The conference report states that the House and Senate appropriations committees are concerned that “NASA is not able to anticipate adequately technical problems and project overruns on existing programs, and are especially concerned that new programs, such as Project Constellation, will encounter similar problems.” They are also similarly concerned with the decisionmaking process within NASA to resolve such problems. Thus, the report directs NASA to “establish an ongoing relationship with the National Academy of Sciences for the purpose of providing an independent project review capability using ad hoc committees established under the purview of the Space Studies Board and/or the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board,” with $1 million set aside in the Cross-Agency Support Programs budget for such work. The report adds that the appropriations committees “do not intend to recommend approval of any major program changes unless an independent review by the National Academies concurs with NASA’s proposed course of action.”

The report also explicitly supports efforts to keep Arecibo Observatory in operation, directing NASA “to provide additional funding” for the radio telescope. Part of that interest in Arecibo is rooted in its space radar capability, used to study near Earth objects (NEOs); the report calls on NASA to call on the National Research Council (NRC) to study NEO survey and deflection strategies. An interim report, focused on survey programs, is due in 15 months, while the final report, with “recommendations regarding the optimal approach to developing a deflection capability”, is due in 21 months.

The report also states that NASA should ask the NRC to study the availability of radioisotope power systems, which are needed for planetary missions where solar power is infeasible. Both NASA and the Department of Energy have raised concerns about the availability of plutonium fuel used for such systems, but the report notes that “NASA has curtailed a major part of its technology development for advanced RPS devices.”

Yet another NASA-NRC study request involves a decadal study of life and physical science research in microgravity, to establish priorities for such research planned between 2010 and 2020. The report also calls on NASA to increase spending on “non-exploration” microgravity life and physical sciences research in FY08 by $13.5 million.

There has been a lot of discussion about COTS in the budget, including the cut in funding for the program and language which directs NASA to not make a new award until after the GAO reviews a current protest by Rocketplane Kistler. However, the report also directs the GAO to “perform a full review of COTS program expenditures and management,” although it appears that this study would not itself hold up the COTS program.

Congress is also asking the GAO to study NASA’s plans for the post-shuttle transition, noting the appropriations committees’ concerns “about this immense and unprecedented undertaking of transitioning assets and facilities to another NASA program, for external use, or for disposal, as well as the transitioning of the space shuttle workforce.”

Finally, the report specifically directs the NASA administrator to study “the possibility” of sending the Alpha Magnetic Spectometer (AMS) to the ISS. The report is due to Congress within 30 days “and should include the steps necessary to prepare for such a mission.” The report, though, doesn’t specify that such a mission be a shuttle mission.

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NASA FY2008 budget review: summary

December 27, 2007 at 12:23 pm · Filed under NASA

On Wednesday President Bush officially signed the omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2008, which includes funding for a wide range of agencies, including NASA. Congress had passed the bill last week before recessing for the year. With the FY2008 appropriations process at an end (and it being an otherwise quiet time on the space policy front), it’s a good time to review how the NASA budget turned out. Below is a summary of the final appropriations bill as compared to the administration proposed back in February (all values in millions of dollars):

The “Reductions” line item above are from language in the bill that calls for reductions in “corporate and general administrative expenses”, totaling $57.9 million for the Science, Aeronautics, and Exploration account and $32.0 million for the Exploration Capabilities (Shuttle, ISS, and Space and Flight Support) account.

So, at first glance, over ten months after the appropriations process started, NASA ended up with almost exactly what the administration requested: a little less for exploration, a little more for science and aeronautics. As always, though, the devil is in the details, including the shifts in funding within accounts and the language in the conference report. (Not to mention whether those funding levels are sufficient for the agency to carry out everything on its plate, a whole other debate.) Those details will be discussed in later posts.

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Export control relief on the horizon?

December 21, 2007 at 1:11 pm · Filed under White House

An article in Thursday’s issue of CongressDailyAM (not freely availably online, unfortunately) suggests that the Bush Administration may be close to making some changes to the export control process that could benefit the aerospace industry. The changes are believed to be based on recommendations made earlier this year by the Coalition for Security and Competitiveness. Industry representatives told the publication that a “package of process improvements” could be announced any week now; these changes would affect how the export control regime is implemented but not involve anything that would require legislative action by Congress. Some of the coalition’s proposals back in March for items on the Munitions List include appointing a senior director on the National Security Council responsible for export policy, increasing the staff of the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, and implementing “more efficient, effective, and transparent licensing procedures and technology disclosure review processes”.

However, you shouldn’t necessarily hold your breath that these changes will be imminent: one person told CongressDailyAM, “This is the fifth week we’ve been told we will get an answer soon.”

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A “daisy’s chance on the moon”

December 19, 2007 at 7:01 am · Filed under Congress, NASA

That’s the Orlando Sentinel’s assessment of the odds that Congressman Dave Weldon’s shuttle life extension proposal will be enacted in an editorial published Wednesday. The Sentinel finds faults with Weldon’s proposal in terms of both money and priorities. Getting that money—Weldon estimates that the total cost would be about $10 billion, assuming the shuttle can be operated for a fraction of current costs—is no easy feat in the current Congressional environment, the editorial notes. “Even if all those extra dollars were to fall like meteors from space, the shuttle would not be the best place for NASA to put them,” the editorial continues, saying the money would be better spent on accelerating Constellation. “Investing billions more now [on the shuttle] would be like busting the family’s bank account to put a new engine in a 30-year-old car.”

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Putting COTS selection on hold?

December 18, 2007 at 1:48 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA

I haven’t had a chance to review the NASA-related language in the omnibus appropriations bill currently being considered by Congress, but Space News [subscription required] has found a provision that would effectively place the ongoing COTS selection process on hold, perhaps for months:

“[T]he Appropriations Committees note that one of the two COTS contracts is currently in dispute, and are concerned by NASA’s recent decision to re-compete the disputed contract before all challenges have been resolved,” the report language states. “In doing so, NASA could potentially create a liability to fund three proposals instead of two as originally envisioned, increasing the costs of this program to the taxpayers. Therefore, NASA is directed not to select a new contractor until all challenges are decided. Further, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is directed to perform a full review of COTS program expenditures and management.”

(I suspect some at NASA are cringing at the use of “contracts” and “contractor” above since they have emphasized on many occasions that COTS is run as a set of Space Act agreements awarded to companies outside of the usual federal acquisition regulations; that flexibility would seem to provide ways for NASA to get around any concerns expressed in the conference report excerpt above.) The article also notes that the bill cuts the funding for COTS in FY08 by roughly a third, from the requested $236 million down to $160 million, which could have a bigger influence on the selection process that the delay.

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Weldon’s grand plan for a shuttle “soft landing”

December 18, 2007 at 7:55 am · Filed under Congress, NASA, Campaign '08

Congressman Dave Weldon (R-FL) formally announced yesterday his legislation intended to keep the shuttle flying until Orion is ready to begin operations. A breakdown of what his bill would cost, according to Florida Today:

• $1.6 billion to speed the development of the new Orion space capsules and Ares rockets.
• $819 million to reimburse NASA for costs incurred returning to flight after the 2003 Columbia accident.
• $1.2 billion to bolster other NASA aeronautics and science projects that have been cut in recent years.
• “Such sums as necessary” to keep the shuttle fleet flying two missions a year until Orion spacecraft are ready to launch.

Weldon believes that the “such sums” would amount to $2 billion a year for 2011 through 2013, when Orion would be ready to fly under an accelerated schedule, although he didn’t get into details why he thought that, given that this would be cheaper that current shuttle operation costs (he did say he thought that one of the shuttle orbiters could be retired, and that NASA had developed a track record that showed it could “be innovative and make do with limited resources”).

Where would this money come from? That’s not addressed in Weldon’s legislation. “It’s an authorizing bill, not an appropriating bill,” he said, meaning that even if Congress approved the bill, there’s no guarantee that appropriators would provide the requested funding. Recall that the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 authorized nearly $18.7 billion for NASA in FY08; it appears the final appropriations bill being considered by Congress now will fall over $1 billion short of that request.

Moreover, it doesn’t seem likely at the moment that Congress would approve the bill. Florida Today reports that two of the biggest shuttle supporters in the Senate, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Bill Nelson, were lukewarm at best about the bill. The Orlando Sentinel reports that even Weldon considers it unlikely that the bill will make it into law.

So why introduce it at all, besides demonstrating to constituents that you’re trying to help the local economy by keeping the shuttle and its jobs in place for a while longer? Weldon hopes that his bill will “force a national debate over the future of America’s space program”, in particular among the presidential candidates. Weldon criticized the Republican candidates for not being forthcoming about their proposed space policies, according to the Sentinel:

“The best person with a space policy — actually, the only candidate with any kind of substantial space policy on their Web site — is Hillary [Clinton],” he said. “The Republican candidates need to wake up and smell the coffee.”

The Sentinel did contact two of the leading Republicans, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney; both offered general platitudes in support of space exploration and the Vision for Space Exploration that are unlikely to mollify Weldon.

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Weldon to introduce shuttle legislation today

December 17, 2007 at 7:29 am · Filed under Congress

Congressman Dave Weldon (R-FL) will formally introduce legislation today to extend the life of the space shuttle during a press conference today at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. As first reported by the Orlando Sentinel earlier this month, Weldon is concerned about a long gap between the shuttle retirement around 2010 and the introduction of Orion, circa 2015. According to a statement from the Congressman’s office, the “S.P.A.C.E. Act” would “propose” additional shuttle flights during the gap. “This legislation will also provide additional resources for the Constellation project, and will have a positive effect on our national security as well as the local economy.” (The latter is pretty obvious, but perhaps someone will ask Weldon how he ties continuing civil human spaceflight with national security.)

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