Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for May, 2008
May 31, 2008 at 9:58 am · Filed under Campaign '08
The featured event Friday afternoon at the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) was the “Election 2008 Space Panel” featuring representatives of the three major presidential candidates (Sens. Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama), moderated by CNN’s Miles O’Brien. This was one of the few opportunities for the campaigns to speak out in detail and debate various elements of space policy. For those looking for grand new insights into the candidates’ space policies, though, or even settle some nagging questions, the panel was a disappointment.
Half of the four people on the panel were able to talk about space policy quite well: Lori Garver, representing Clinton, was well-versed in the issues, not surprisingly; O’Brien has also done his homework, based on the questions he asked on topics beyond NASA’s budget and the future of the vision, ranging from commercialization to military space policy to export control. However, Steve Robinson, an Obama advisor who works on primarily education issues, as well as Floyd DesChamps, a Senate staffer called in at the last moment to represent McCain, were not as fluent on the issues. More than one person remarked afterwards that Robinson has a “deer in the headlights” look when asked about export control, and only said he had nothing more to add on the issue. (To be fair, his turn to address the topic came after the other two panelists, who both said that ITAR was a problem that needed to be addressed.)
A couple highlights: During the session, O’Brien asked Robinson about the Obama education policy, which includes the now-infamous statement about delaying Constellation for five years, even though Obama is now talking about continuing to develop Ares 1 and Orion. Robinson never directly addressed the issue, saying that Obama would be willing to listen to the space and science community about this (a theme of consultation with scientists that he mentioned elsewhere in the panel). On the balance of human and robotic exploration, he suggested that younger audiences might find robots more inspirational (another theme) than human missions, or at least find them inspiring to some degree, whereas older audiences might not.
DesChamps mentioned that McCain was concerned about the Shuttle-Constellation gap, and suggested that McCain would take a “closer look” at NASA to see if additional investment was warranted. (This was after he noted McCain’s strong interest in fiscal responsibility.) He did not specifically mention McCain’s proposal for a spending freeze for discretionary non-defense programs, though. After the panel I asked him whether there might be a possibility of excluding NASA from that freeze, particularly if there is a continuing resolution for part or all of FY2009, since the combination of a CR and a freeze would likely lengthen the gap or force NASA to raid other programs to keep Constellation on track. He said he was not optimistic that such an exemption could be worked out.
I’ll have a more thorough review of the panel and its implications on the overall space policy debate in Monday’s issue of The Space Review.
May 30, 2008 at 5:44 am · Filed under Other
In recent weeks officials in Florida and Virginia have been vying to win over Orbital Sciences Corporation, which is deciding between Cape Canaveral and Wallops for the launch site of its new Taurus 2 launch vehicle, part of its COTS system for delivering cargo to the ISS. The two states are reportedly offering various incentives to Orbital after the company surprised some in Florida when it announced in February that it would carry out at least initial test flights from Wallops. As part of its effort to win over Florida, members of Florida’s congressional delegation signed a letter urging Orbital to launch from the Cape. A total of 20 of the 27 members of the delegation, 8 Democrats and 12 Republicans, signed the letter. (An interesting omission from the list was Sen. Bill Nelson.) No timetable for choosing a launch site has been announced, although one person I talked with yesterday who is familiar with the issue said a decision could come as soon as next week.
May 28, 2008 at 6:01 am · Filed under Campaign '08, Congress
At first glance, the easy victory Tuesday by Rep. Mike Simpson in the Republican primary for Idaho’s 2nd District wouldn’t appear to have much relevance to space policy: Simpson doesn’t represent a “space state” and doesn’t serve on the House Science and Technology Committee nor the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. However, there is a link, however tenuous. One of Simpson’s challengers was Gregory Nemitz, billed in an article about the campaign last week as an Internet businessman. However, this is the same Greg Nemitz who filed a claim on the asteroid Eros and then attempted to charge NASA a “parking and storage fee” when the agency’s NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft landed on the asteroid. When NASA declined to pay the $20 fee, he filed suit in federal court, only to have the case dismissed.
The pre-election article stated that Nemitz would “promote scientific research, such as space exploration, through grant competitions.” His campaign web site is now redirecting to his business BeefJerky.com, although a cached version is available; there doesn’t appear to be much, if anything, there about prizes, space property rights, or other space matters.
May 28, 2008 at 5:43 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
The full House Science and Technology Committee has scheduled a markup of HR 6063, the NASA authorization bill for FY 2009, for Wednesday, June 4, at 10 am. The space subcommittee approved the bill without changes in a brief markup session last week.
May 26, 2008 at 1:50 pm · Filed under NASA
NASA administrator Mike Griffin, who spoke at the Washington Space Business Roundtable luncheon last week before the delayed Sen. Bill Nelson arrived, did not provide the most uplifting assessment of the space agency. “It’s a time of incredible turmoil at NASA,” he said, citing the confluence of several factors, ranging from the impending retirement of the space shuttle to political events in Washington, including the transition of presidential administrations. “Presidential transition years aren’t ever smooth,” he said. “They are accompanied by quite a lot of turmoil as a new team gets elected and begins to pursue their agenda.”
Further complicating matters is the likelihood, Griffin said, that NASA will start FY 2009 on a continuing resolution (CR). “The question is whether it will be for six months or a full year,” he said. A CR is effectively a budget cut for NASA, since spending isn’t adjusted for inflation, although it may give NASA the flexibility to shift spending between programs. “Will the continuing resolution be broadly applied and left to the discretion of agency heads to implement, or will special programs be targeted to be either favored or disfavored? Those are questions that only the Congress can settle.”
Despite these near-term difficulties, Griffin asked the audience to remained focused on NASA’s long-term goals. “We have the choice confronting us in tough times of what do we do when the going gets tough,” Griffin said. There is a temptation, he said, to change NASA’s direction to deal with those fiscal issues as well as the Shuttle-Constellation gap. “We can adopt lesser goals to try to close the gap or to try to deal without funding constraints, but realistically what does that mean? If we adopt lesser goals, that means, drop the Moon, again, as was done in the early 1970s.” That would keep NASA trapped in low Earth orbit, he argued, putting us right back where we were prior to the development of the Vision for Space Exploration.
“When the going gets tough, let’s not reoptimize for low Earth orbit,” he said. Such an approach gives up the current outward-focused space policy “where we go to new places, do new things, and one day, eventually, create new places and create new societies.” That also means that “we give up on the engine of capitalism” by having a government system provide services that could be done by the commercial sector, as in COTS, more efficiently than the government. “I don’t want to lose either one of those two things. So in the face of difficulties that we certainly will incur… if we allow temporary extingency to cause us to make shortsighted decisions, we will lose a lot.”
May 26, 2008 at 12:21 pm · Filed under Campaign '08
During his speech Thursday at the Washington Space Business Roundtable, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) also spent some time talking about the presidential election and the relevance of space policy to the campaign. He is convinced that space will be critical to winning Florida, and thus the White House. “I am banking on the fact that I believe that Florida is going to be critical again in this presidential election,” he said. “And therefore I am going to take this opportunity to educate the two presidential candidates that if they want to win Florida, this [space policy] is mightily important.”
Nelson said he has already talked about this issue to the Democratic candidates, including just earlier that day with Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who were in Washington to vote on the supplemental appropriations bill. Nelson also referred to Obama’s recent comments about space in Florida. “You will see he made a different statement, and I thanked him for that this morning, and he said, ‘I’ve been listening to you,’” he recounted. “And I said, ‘I know how to win in Florida.’” He added he had similar discussions with Clinton, who he described as having “the best position of all three of them on the space program.”
He also said he had a good relationship with Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, despite McCain’s reputation for being “prickly”: “I know how to deal with a porcupine.” Nelson said he had some discussions with McCain on space, “and it is my intention to lean on him pretty hard” on the subject. Nelson said he was concerned about McCain’s proposal for a domestic spending freeze if elected. “The thing that worries me about John is that John gets into these rigid positions and it’s hard to get him off of it,” Nelson said. “If that’s his position, I want to make sure the people of Florida know that, and especially the people of east-central Florida. So maybe we’ll have a chance to get a little more flexibility out of him if Florida becomes key.”
Nelson added that another battleground state in the general election is likely to be Ohio. “And guess who I’ve been talking to: John Glenn,” he said. “I think he is prepared to do the same thing in Ohio” if the state becomes key to the election.
May 25, 2008 at 1:30 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
This morning The Planetary Society hosted a small press conference to talk about their “Visions of Mars” DVD that is on the Mars Phoenix spacecraft, set to land later today. It was a rather straightforward press conference until a surprise guest showed up: Congressman John Culberson (R-TX), who was in town to observe the landing. “I am here today to express my support, and the support of our subcommittee on appropriations [Culberson is a member of appropriations subcommittee whose jurisdiction includes NASA], for the United States to maintain its leadership position in the exploration of outer space, and our preeminent position when it comes to the scientific research that is the inevitable spinoff of the space program,” Culberson, wearing a blue polo shirt with the Phoenix mission logo on it, said in a brief statement during the press conference.
Culberson didn’t delve too deeply into policy issues during his statement, instead discussing the importance of space exploration as “an insurance policy” for national prosperity and security, and heaping praise on the space program and, in particular, JPL. “The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is, in my opinion, the gold standard that has been set for all of NASA,” he said. Then, perhaps remembering that he represents a district in the Houston area, he slightly amended his remarks. “The Johnson Space Center, on the manned side, does a magnificent job and they set the gold standard—well, the Johnson Space Center sets the gold standard for the manned program. I believe JPL sets the gold standard for the unmanned program.”
I talked with Culberson briefly on his way out the door after his statement. I asked him what the odds of actually getting an appropriations bill done for FY 2009 versus another year-long continuing resolution. “We’ll get a bill out, but it will be after the election,” he said. He said that he’s optimistic about getting additional money for NASA, noting the $200 million the Senate added to the war supplemental. The House version doesn’t include that money, but Culberson said he will be on the conference committee that will reconcile the two versions and that he will be “aggressively working to preserve it.” “I’m optimistic,” he concluded. “I think we’ve got a really decent shot at it.” On the authorization bill, he said he hadn’t not looked at it in detail yet but planned to “go through it this week with a fine-toothed comb”.
Both Culberson and Planetary Society executive director Lou Friedman, who introduced Culberson, noted that the Congressman came out here on his own out of his own personal interest in the landing. This is not unusual for Culberson: a few years ago he attended an outer planets session of an AAAS conference in Washington on a Saturday morning, sitting through most of the session and speaking only briefly during a Q&A session. And to further cement his space geek credentials, at the end of his statement he held up his smartphone and announced that he would using it to stream the landing event live from the control room, through a service called Qik. (As you can see from the link he has already been there, testing it out.) “So I think I’ll be the first congressman to be broadcasting live from the control room,” he said.
May 24, 2008 at 1:29 pm · Filed under Campaign '08, Events
Andrew Hoppin announced yesterday that there will a space policy panel at Netroots Nation (formerly Yearly Kos), this July in Austin, Texas. It’s a fairly high-power panel, featuring Lori Garver, former FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation Patti Grace Smith, and NSS executive director George Whitesides, among others. The panel he writes, is “an opportunity to bring critical space policy issues to light within a potent progressive political constituency—the Netroots—that hasn’t historically paid much attention to space. It is also an opportunity for the Netroots to weigh in on what a new progressive space policy agenda could be under a progressive Administration in 2009.” The formal description of the panel:
NASA is in crisis–overburdened, under-funded, and inefficient. Yet the progressive legacy of space, which dates back to JFK, is being quietly reborn: NASA can reinvent itself as a critical resource in climate change mitigation; the UN and some in the U.S. military are collaborating to prevent space weapons from becoming an arms race with China; progressive “NewSpace” entrepreneurs are creating new domestic high-tech jobs. Before 2009, a new progressive space policy needs to be devised and advocated beyond the traditional space constituencies, to upgrade Bush’s failing space exploration vision. Who better to initiate this work than the Netroots?
I’m not sure I understand the point about the UN and US military collaborating to prevent an arms race in space with China; the US government has insisted that there is no arms race in space, and had thus blocked proposals at the UN and elsewhere for treaties that would explicitly ban space weapons. Also, while they mention the role NewSpace can play, it’s unfortunate Netroots Nation conflicts with NewSpace 2008, the annual Space Frontier Foundation conference.
May 24, 2008 at 1:11 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
Another topic that Sen. Bill Nelson mentioned in his speech Thursday was a NASA authorization bill for 2009. The House version is waiting approval by the full House Science and Technology Committee after the space subcommittee approved the bill in a brief markup session on Tuesday. Nelson said the Senate is getting ready to mark up its version of the bill, working in close cooperation with both NASA and the House. (NASA administrator Mike Griffin, in his comments prior to Nelson’s speech, said the new authorization bill “extends and augments the good features” of the 2005 NASA authorization bill, “while as best as I can tell adding no bad features.”)
“We’re going to adopt in the Senate authorization bill a lot of the stuff they have come out in the House bill with,” Nelson said. The plan is to make the bills as similar as possible so it will be possible to reconcile them without a time-consuming conference committee. That way, “we can negotiate differences easily without having to have a formal conference committee.” Among the similarities in the Senate bill, he said, would be authorization for an additional shuttle flight to fly the AMS and other experiments to the station.
May 24, 2008 at 12:56 pm · Filed under Congress
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) was the scheduled speaker at a Washington Space Business Roundtable luncheon on Thursday, but with votes taking place on the Senate floor that morning, it wasn’t clear that he was going to make it—so much so that the luncheon organizers drafted a last-minute replacement, NASA administrator Mike Griffin. However, Nelson was able to get away and make it to the luncheon (after Griffin had started speaking) and he brought good news: the Senate had voted 75-22 to pass its version of a supplemental appropriations bill that, while primarily intended to fund military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, includes $200 million for NASA.
While this is a step forward for getting more money for NASA, it’s hardly a done deal, because the House version of the bill has no additional money for NASA, and the legislation in general faces a veto threat from the president. Nelson tried to remain optimistic about it as he laid out the plan for beyond this supplemental bill. “If we can hold that [extra money] in the negotiations with the House, and then, if we can avoid a presidential veto,” he said, adding that the bill passed in the Senate with a veto-proof majority, “if all those ‘ifs’ take place, then what we do is we go to the NASA appropriations bill for fiscal year 2009, which starts this October the 1st, and we try to get at least another $800 million, so that the total funding in this year would be a billion dollars extra.”
That billion, plus an additional $1 billion for NASA in FY2010, “does a number of things for us” beyond simply shortening the Shuttle-Constellation gap, ranging from reducing the amount of money that would have to go to Russia for ISS transport services to mitigating the effects of layoffs at the Kennedy Space Center. “In other words, we don’t have to lay off Americans at the Kennedy Space Center in order to hire Russians in Moscow,” he said.
But that near-term obstacle remains convincing the House to go along with any extra money for NASA, be it $2 billion or $200 million. He recounted a meeting he and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison had last year with House colleagues and OMB director Jim Nussle. He described “some of the most eloquent statements that I’ve heard made” in support of additional NASA funding, then pointed at the wall behind him. “But it was like talking to that wall.” Although the Senate approved the extra $1 billion last year, the measure didn’t have the support of the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David Obey, and “without White House support, the deal collapsed,” Nelson said.
Nelson said they would try again this year, “and you’re looking at the guy who is the most visibly exercised in the Congress about this because of the potential devastation to our folks at the Kennedy Space Center.” However, he didn’t indicate any new change in tactics or support that would lead to a different, more positive outcome this time around.
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