Earlier this week House and Senate leaders announced the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009, which includes, in the words of the press release announcing the bill, “$550 billion in thoughtful and carefully targeted priority investments with unprecedented accountability measures built in.” (emphasis in original) The good news for NASA supporters is that bill does include $600 million in funding for the space agency. The bad news, at least for some, is that the legislation’s “thoughtful and carefully targeted priority investments” doesn’t necessarily match up with their priorities: $400 million for Earth sciences work, including both instruments and funding for scientists; $150 million for aviation safety of NextGen air traffic control; and $50 million for hurricane and flood repairs to NASA centers. In other words, no money for accelerating Constellation, extending the shuttle, funding COTS crew capabilities, or anything else that might address the shuttle-Constellation gap.
At least one member of Congress, though, is trying to change that. In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Congresswoman Susan Kosmas (D-FL), who took office this month after defeating Tom Feeney in November, asked them to add $2 billion to the stimulus package towards human spaceflight programs. “If the goal of this legislation is to stimulate our economy, support science, and maintain and create high-tech jobs,” she wrote, “there is no better place to dedicate resources than to our human spaceflight program.” She appears to be focusing exclusively on accelerating Constellation: her letter notes that that “infusion of funds will accelerate the Constellation program”, but doesn’t discuss any kind of shuttle extension or other uses for the funding.
Whether a member of Congress whose seniority is measured in days, not years, can have any influence on this bill, though, remains to be seen.
If $2B is added to the stimulus package towards NASA’s human spaceflight program, it should not be sent to Constellation. $2B would hardly help the Constellation program at all, as even its advocates have said.
$2B would be much better spent on something like COTS-D to encourage U.S. commercial transportation to and from the Space Station. That might be enough to get 2 or 3 companies to develop such services, compared to possibly completing Constellation a few months earlier (or reducing its delays by that amount, if more delays occur). This type of commercial transportation is important for long-term economic reasons, as it not only solves NASA’s ISS crew transport problem and generates economic activity while doing so, but it also enables new economic activity like space tourism and Bigelow-style space station development. Seeing his transportation problem being addressed might also encourage Bigelow to stay on track, helping keep a current business humming along.
“If $2B is added to the stimulus package towards NASA’s human spaceflight program, it should not be sent to Constellation. $2B would hardly help the Constellation program at all, as even its advocates have said.”
Very true. Even Griffin now admits that it would take an additional $4 billion to have a hope of accelerating Ares I/Orion operations by one year, from 2016 to 2015. See (add http://www):
.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6208583.html
Of course, that assumes that GAO’s 2017 projection for J-2X engine availability doesn’t push the whole schedule yet another year to the right.
FWIW…
Well thank God one of our Florida representatives is fighting for the state. She may be new, but if this is a sign that she’s willing to fight for the people in her district, this guy is sure going to vote for her again next time.
The rest of the Florida delegation are suspiciously absent from the proceedings.
Some (cough*Nelson*cough) are completely selling his own electorate down the river to get his golf-buddy Mike (or a simulacrum) back. Way to go; backing the lame horse that can’t successfully get out of the gate! Not to mention also getting in the face of, and annoying the new President, even before he takes office. Brilliant. That’s really going to help Florida! Thanks bub!
Of course, if you sell your own electorate down the river like this, they get a chance to get their own revenge on you a few years later. I will certainly be campaigning for the other guy because of this, and many of my colleagues here agree. Nelson’s next election campaign will come up in 2012, right in the middle of the ‘gap’ when times are worst for this area and everybody will know what he did. He hasn’t got a chance.
I wonder if any of the other delegates will figure out that 6,000 jobs lost around KSC results in 18,000 other related jobs also being lost? It will mean thousands more houses going into foreclosure, so house prices will get slashed yet again on top of the already bad economy. Way to go; the Flori-duh delegation!
I hope they all realize that not one of them won their seats by these sorts of numbers.
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