Lobbying, NASA, White House

New Years roundup

You might think that the New Years holiday might be a quiet period for space policy, but there are a few items of note this morning:

As you’ve likely already heard, the lobbying effort by supporters of current NASA administrator Mike Griffin has gone to new heights (or new depths, depending on your point of view), with an email by Griffin’s wife asking recipients to sign a petition asking President-elect Obama to retain Griffin. Also noted is the recent publication of a book of speeches by Griffin, sent via priority mail by a “cash-strapped NASA” to an unspecified number of recipients. (I am sufficiently unimportant that I received neither Mrs. Griffin’s email nor a copy of the book [see update in the comments].)

Worth noting: As of Friday morning the “Keep Mike” petition had garnered over 2,275 signatures. While initial signatures were heavy with astronauts and other space industry officials, it’s now spread to a more general—and perhaps less sophisticated—audience: a couple of recent signatures heaped praise on “Dr Griffith” and “Mr. Griffen”.

According to the Hunsville Times, the new administration’s space priorities won’t be clear until the FY2011 budget submission in early 2010, or over a year after taking office. Scott Pace, head of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington Univ. and a former NASA official, said he expected a “flat” budget in 2010. One complicating factor not mentioned in the article, though, is that NASA doesn’t yet have a final FY2009 appropriation: the agency, like much of the federal government, is operating under a continuing resolution through early March. If the FY09 budget is that late, that would seem to imply there’s flexibility to make changes for FY2010 rather than wait until 2011, if the administration so desires (and Congress is willing to go along.)

Finally, it seems like Bloomberg tried to get on the bandwagon of articles about the incoming administrations’ potential interest in replacing elements of the existing NASA exploration architecture with EELV-desrived vehicles with this article, but didn’t do a good job. “President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.’s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China,” states the article’s lede, adding that “Obama has said the Pentagon’s space program… could be tapped to speed the civilian agency toward its goals.” I’m not familiar with any statement made by Obama himself on this issue, and if you read the article the Pentagon is actually interested in getting NASA, which already is a major EELV user, to help pick up a bigger part of the EELV tab if the administration decides to pursue an EELV-based exploration architecture. Mixed into all this are old claims that China will land humans on the Moon before 2020, which also gets tied somehow into claims China is developing space-based anti-satellite technology.

15 comments to New Years roundup

  • aremis

    Wow, quite a stretch for Bloomberg. I’ve seen some of the half-cocked moon hoax conspiracies that offered better ‘evidence’. One more example of the media, even well-respected media, having hardly a clue about space science or politics.

  • red

    “As of Friday morning the “Keep Mike” petition had garnered over 2,275 signatures. While initial signatures were heavy with astronauts and other space industry officials, it’s now spread to a more general—and perhaps less sophisticated—audience: a couple of recent signatures heaped praise on “Dr Griffith” and “Mr. Griffen”.”

    The spike and reduced space program familiarity of the signers is from the story hitting top national news sites with convenient links to the “Keep Mike” petition. Some of these stories also had links to the “Don’t Keep Mike” petition, but only buried in the comments as far as I’ve seen like this:

    http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/RemoveMikeGriffinNow/
    http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/KeepMike/

    Here are some interesting signatures besides all of those astronauts:

    – almost a whole page of names that spelled something to the effect of “Keep Mike’s Job – Becky”

    – Seemore Butz and a whole family of similar signatures that I won’t repeat here (I’ll give some hints: Haywood J***, Connie L***, Sue S***, etc)

    – Robert Zubrin, who sharply opposed working on Ares 1 instead of Ares V this decade, but who of course really wants that Ares V

    – Daniel Saul Goldin

    – a commenter that said something like: “If Merv Griffin can make a TV show, he can run NASA!”

    Many of the petition signatures have actually been critical of Griffin. It’s been reported (I don’t know if it’s true) that the criticisms have been removed but the signatures have remained.

    I’d say that the petition shows even less about the “will of the American people” than it normally would for several reasons:

    – the “Keep” petition had such organization and national media help behind it, whereas the “Don’t Keep” petition doesn’t (what’s 2 or 3 thousand out of many 10s of millions that saw the article?). The “Don’t Keep” petition is not easy to find.

    – many people will be reluctant to sign a “negative” petition, since it’s “negative”, and since some may be worried about their jobs

    – both petitions can be signed by anyone, not just U.S. voters

    – the “Keep” petition has reportedly been edited, and many of the signatures are obviously jokes or completely unfamiliar with the space program except for what the petition said (one said “he sounds like he’s doing a good job”)

    – there’s some evidence that there’s more criticism of Mike out there than you’d think just by comparing the petition numbers. For example, a Huffington Post article on the subject has 551 comments that are mostly against Mike (in many cases because he’s from the Bush Administration, given the political slant of that publication, but often just on grounds that the job-keeping effort is unseemly or such)

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/31/dont-fire-my-husband-nasa_n_154575.html

    For the record, although I’m sharply opposed to the Ares approach and, associated with that, many of Griffin’s cutbacks and missed opportunities in other areas, I do agree with a number of his decisions (eg: Shuttle management and holding the line on ending it, Hubble decision, JIMO cancellation).

  • Habitat Hermit

    I noticed the Bloomberg article on Google’s news page, the headline and blurb is atrocious enough to realize it’s a concoction of errors, perhaps made as cheap filler. One can only hope few people read it.

  • Al Fansome

    FOUST: I am sufficiently unimportant that I received neither Mrs. Griffin’s email nor a copy of the book

    Jeff,

    I wonder who would be on the list of recipients?

    Does this constitute “lobbying” or “marketing”, both of which are prohibited?

    I think that a FOIA of the names who received a FREE book on the U.S. taxpayers dole, at a cost of $6.75 in postage per person, might be justified.

    IMO, this can NOT be justified as “education”, unless they are sending all 2,500 copies to students and/or teachers.

    When you consider that NASA could have saved $50,000 in taxpayer funding by publishing all these speeches online, and thereby allowed EVERY American citizen to read his collected speeches, I do not see how this can be justified.

    Publishing these collected speeches online would have constituted education. (It is also a resource that I personally would have used. I actually would like to have a NASA website that published all the speeches of NASA’s Administrators in an easily accessible digital format.)

    Is this just me?

    Can anybody supply an appropriate justification for this expense by NASA?

    FWIW,

    – Al

    “Politics is not rocket science, which is why rockets scientists do not understand politics.”

  • Jeff Foust

    Publishing these collected speeches online would have constituted education.

    As it turns out, Administrator Griffin’s speeches are already published online:

    http://www.nasa.gov/news/speeches/admin/index.html

    So are, for that matter, Deputy Administrator Dale’s:

    http://www.nasa.gov/news/speeches/deputy/index.html

    Not having seen the book, I don’t know how many of Griffin’s speeches on the web site are in the book, or if the book contains any speeches not published online. Also unclear is what will happen to these speeches once Griffin and Dale leave office.

  • Jeff Foust

    Actually, about 10 minutes after I wrote the comment above, the UPS guy arrived at my door with a package containing that book of speeches, Leadership in Space. (My copy was shipped by UPS Ground rather than Priority Mail, it appears.) Paging through it, the one difference that stands out between the book and the collection of speeches online is that the latter is organized chronologically while the book groups the speeches (a subset of the online collection) into three sections: “Exploration and Our Future”, “NASA, Science, Commerce and Engineering”, and “Getting There from Here”. Also, they’re technically not all speeches: there are a couple of op-eds included as well.

  • Keith Cowing

    Everyone is getting a copy except for me :-(

  • Actually, over 99.99999% of the world’s population didn’t get a copy. Including me. Frankly, I can live without.

  • Al Fansome

    Jeff, congratulations on making the “Friend-of-Mike” list!

    I still wonder …

    1) How many Members of Congress are getting a copy, and

    2) How many people in the Obama-Biden transition team are getting copies.

    3) Who is Griffin asking to hand-deliver a copy to the President-elect.

    BTW, the existence of the online edition changes nothing about my procurement question.

    Spending $50k to print 2,500 books, plus the cost of postage, seems (to me) to be a lot of taxpayer money for something we can get online.

    – Al

    PS — The biased distribution of tax-payer-funded books to some members of the space media, but not to others, is another question. Keith, maybe you should pay them in kind, and do a FOIA to get the list distributees?

    • Jeff Foust

      Jeff, congratulations on making the “Friend-of-Mike” list!

      Actually, I think what happened is that they also sent out the book to the standard list of people who get review copies of NASA History Office publications (which I’m on). That would explain why I got it, rather than a seemingly unlikely promotion to any”FoM” list…

  • Keith Cowing

    Oh well, I already published all of Griffin’s and Shana’s speeches online any way … As for a FOIA if the list – I doubt that it really matters – and besides anyone can submit a FOIA …

  • Ryan Yamada

    Jeff, as always, thanks for this blog.

    I read the Bloomberg article. I think the most interesting thing about it is (1) its claim that military space assets would be used to bridge the gap between the Space Shuttle and Constellation, and (2) that the effort is directed against China. If anything, it seems like Russia, not China, is the real reason to make sure there is a manned space option after 2011. (I assume an INKSNA exemption to pay billions a year to a country that invaded a democratic, if erratic, ally is not going to pass.) Thoughts?

  • I think the most interesting thing about it is (1) its claim that military space assets would be used to bridge the gap between the Space Shuttle and Constellation, and (2) that the effort is directed against China.

    Both claims are nonsense. This is not what the incoming administration is planning. I’ll probably have a piece up debunking it, with transition team input, tomorrow at Pajamas Media.

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