It’s true that Kevin Kelly used to work for Mikulski and may or may not have been hired by George French to lobby on RpK’s behalf. (Neither French nor RpK appear on Van Scoyoc’s client list, although that list may not be up to date.)

First, you looked for the wrong name on Van Scoyoc’s list — but more on that later. More directly, Kevin Kelly spoke at NewSpace 2007, where he publicly repreresented Rocketplane Kistler. His talk was about the K1. He is even listed on the NewSpace 2007 agenda here …

http://www.space-frontier.org/Events/NewSpace2007/#thursdayanchor

as the “Washington Counsel to Rocketplane Kistler”.

This was two (2) months before RpK’s agreement was terminated.

This relationship is not new. There is a July 2004 article that quotes Kevin Kelly, and describes Kelly as a Rocketplane (pre-Kistler) lobbyist, here:

http://spacefellowship.com/News/?cat=22&paged=5

Now for the proof … If you look at Van Scoyoc’s client list here:

http://www.vsadc.com/pages/page04.htm

you will see “Space Explorers, Inc.”, which has a link to here:

http://www.space-explorers.com/

which is a private educational company owned by George French.

You will find the history of Space Explorers Inc. here:

http://www.space-explorers.com/about/history.html#begin

– COTSadvocate

Perhaps I can refresh your memory :

http://www.space.com/spacenews/GAOrulingweb_122006.html

Now we can see what this action is all about :

http://rescommunis.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/nasa-moves-ahead-with-cots-despite-bid-protest/

Some of us find evidence to be much more reliable than spin.

I have to take issue with one point you made several messages ago. The language of the conference report prevents NASA from proceeding with another COTS award until the dispute with RpK over losing their previous funded agreement is resolved. Since RpK has carried that appeal all the way up the chain inside NASA, its only recourse was to file suit in federal court. George French has now publicly stated that they have no intention of doing so.

The GAO dispute is NOT about the termination, but about NASA’s plans to structure the new COTS procurement as a Space Act Agreement process, just as the first one was. Note that this GAO protest, which is indeed supposed to be resolved by early February, has no impact on the availability of funds for the new COTS award. Therefore, it is not relevant to the Conference Report’s justification for requiring a resolution before a new award.

So with George French’s announcement, this language is effectively moot. The irrelevant GAO dispute must be resolved before an award can be made simply because the procurement is under an administrative cloud, but not because of the Congressional language.

– Jim

Precisely because they are so broadly, falsely, and uselessly partisan. There’s no value in having a discussion about whether all Democrats are against space commerce or whether all liberal Democrats are against commerce when the statements are clearly false on their face. For that to be true, the Democratic Party would have to be a front for a massive communist, socialist, or other non-market political conspiracy, which is obviously and patently not true.

These kinds of arguments obscure and detract from the discussions that we should be having. We should be discussing (or at least I would rather discuss) what is the best set of policies (whether they’re from the left-, right-, both, or neither wings) for advancing space commerce (or commerce). It’s goofy to debate whether the Democrats are against commerce when their platform puts substantive issues ranging from NAFTA and free trade to small business subsidies to R&D tax credits on the table for debate. As long as we’re pointing fingers based on utter falsehoods, we’re not discussing anything true or substantive.

FWIW…

This is an important point. To its managers’ credit, COTS has always been run above-board with full-and-open competitions and transparent processes. It’s not the COTS program or NASA’s fault that RpK has tried to circumvent those processes with a GAO appeal, threat of court action, and/or Congressional lobbying.

That’s a very different situtation from ESAS/Constellation/Ares I, where questionable numbers were employed in a closed, internal study with no independent review, possibly to produce a predetermined result, and where much work has gone to sole-source contracts in the absence of any competition.

Even with RpK’s challenges, from the point-of-view of both good technical results and good government, we should take the former over the latter, any day.

FWIW…

In summary — George French, via Kevin Kelly, asked Senator Mikulski to force NASA to reinstate the U.S. Government’s $200M agreement with RpK.

Obviously, she said ‘No’. Instead, she chose to hold up the entire COTS procurement at the behest of RpK.”

It’s true that Kevin Kelly used to work for Mikulski and may or may not have been hired by George French to lobby on RpK’s behalf. (Neither French nor RpK appear on Van Scoyoc’s client list, although that list may not be up to date.)

That said, the causal connection between the Space News quote about RpK lobbying Congress to reinstate its COTS agreement and the COTS cut in the bill is not obvious, and it requires a leap of logic to connect the two. If Mikulski really was doing Kelly or French a favor, then she wouldn’t cut the program that RpK is trying to get dollars out of. That makes no sense as it only makes it harder for RpK to win more bucks (whether with NASA, GAO, or the courts).

If there is a causal connection between the two, it would appear that Kelly and/or French’s lobbying backfired on RpK. Instead of helping to reinstate RpK’s agreement, the lobbying campaign drew attention to the COTS program and the fact that almost half of its budget was in limbo. I would guess that an appropriations staffer took advantage of the situation, cutting COTS as part of a long list of reductions to meet an overall budget target (either the original budget allocation for their subcommittee or later White House negotiating limits) for that staffer’s part of the appropriations bill.

FWIW…