Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for February, 2009
February 27, 2009 at 9:00 pm · Filed under NASA
You may recall a couple of weeks ago reports that the Obama Administration had narrowed down its list of candidates for NASA administrator to several, perhaps four, names. This afternoon the Orlando Sentinel reported who its sources say are those four. Three of the names have already come up in previous weeks: retired generals Charles Bolden, Scott Gration, and Lester Lyles. The fourth, those, is a new name to this race but a familiar name for many: Steve Isakowitz, the current CFO of the Energy Department and a former NASA and OMB official. (Some will also recognize him as the founding author of the International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems, a popular reference guide to launch vehicles whose fourth edition was published in 2004 with Isakowitz as one of three co-authors.) The Sentinel adds that Isakowitz is the “frontrunner”, but doesn’t indicate when the race for that job will end: after all, a number of other frontrunners, including the three other names on the list, were all considered frontrunners at some point in the past but haven’t (yet) gotten the job.
February 27, 2009 at 7:17 am · Filed under Congress, NASA, White House
Granted, there’s not much in that FY10 NASA budget summary released yesterday, but there’s just enough—both the topline budget number and the statements that commit the agency to retiring the shuttle in 2010 and returning humans to the Moon by 2020—to warrant a variety of reactions from the space community. Some highlights:
In a brief statement, acting NASA administrator Chris Scolese calls the proposal “fiscally responsible and reflects the administration’s desire for a robust and innovative agency”. The budget also gets a thumbs-up from the Coalition for Space Exploration, calling it a “vote of confidence for NASA by the President” and hoping that future budget specifics “address some of the fiscal challenges that NASA faces in future years.” Similarly, the Aerospace Industries Association expresses its support for NASA and other aviation and defense budget proposals. “In this remarkably difficult economic atmosphere, we are encouraged to see a budget proposal that recognizes the importance of our national security and invests in space and aviation priorities,” AIA president and CEO Marion Blakey said in the statement.
Not everyone is happy, though. “The budget proposal for NASA represents a disappointingly small step in the right direction,” said Space Foundation CEO Elliot Pulham in a statement. “Combined with the lingering absence of a NASA administrator, we are missing a golden opportunity to lead and inspire at a time when leadership and inspiration are crucial.”
Former NASA official Chris Shank, speaking with Space News [subscription required], is pleased with the near-term budget but has reservations about the future. Buried in a chart in the summary tables section of the budget outline [page 18 of the PDF document] is that the administration is projecting flat budgets for NASA after FY10: $18.6 billion in fiscal years 2011, 2012, and 2013, and $18.9 billion in 2014. “More money sooner is always better for program and project planning, but in 2012 to 2013, the consequence of that flatlined budget translates into $1 billion less than was previously planned.” he said, referring to Bush Administration outyear projections that had NASA’s budget growing at 2.4 percent a year.
In Florida, the apparent decision not to extend the life of the shuttle didn’t go over well with some. “We cannot fly the shuttle forever, but conducting shuttle launches on an arbitrary deadline is unsafe and unnecessary,” Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), whose district includes the Kennedy Space Center, told Florida Today. She said that the administration also “must provide additional resources to minimize the gap between the shuttle program and Constellation in order to protect jobs at Kennedy Space Center and throughout Central Florida”. However, in a statement provided to the paper, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) was happy to see the administration endorse existing plans to return to the Moon and “to extend the shuttle if needed to complete work on the International Space Station”, a claim not necessarily supported by the language in the budget summary.
The budget proposal also gets words of encouragement from Alabama’s senators: both Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions said they were “encouraged” by the size of the proposed budget. However, the Huntsville Times article curiously claims that “NASA will receive $1.4 billion extra next fiscal year for a variety of lunar missions”, although there is no breakout yet of how the $18.7 billion would be spent.
And what about the lack of specific references to Ares or Orion in the budget document? John Logsdon tells New Scientist not to read too much into that just yet. “I wouldn’t interpret the absence of the words ‘Constellation’, ‘Ares’, and ‘Orion’ one way or another. That’s really up to the new management team, when it gets there.”
Finally, this dispatch from the Department of Wishful Thinking, not about the FY10 budget but the stimulus bill passed earlier this month: a Deseret News article about whether any of that stimulus money will go to the Ares 1 development. “NASA has received $400 billion specifically earmarked for the space shuttle replacement. But it is not clear yet if any of those funds will be available to ATK for its portion of Ares.” [emphasis added, of course; the actual amount is $400 million]. Presumably for $400 billion you could get one heck of a “shuttle replacement”. Maybe.
February 26, 2009 at 11:46 am · Filed under NASA, White House
The Obama Administration released this morning its FY10 budget outline, including a two-page section on NASA’s budget request. The document contains little additional information than what Aviationweek.com reported last night: only a topline figure of $18.7 billion is included in the document. The document emphasizes support for Earth sciences, aeronautics, ISS, and human and robotic exploration, without getting too deep into specifics.
The budget document does stick to the plan to retire the shuttle by the end of 2010, noting that “an additional flight may be conducted if it can safely and affordably be flown by the end of 2010″ as Congress requested in the 2008 NASA authorization bill. Also, the document does not mention Ares or Orion by name, instead stating that by retiring the shuttle, funding will be freed up “to support development of systems to deliver people and cargo to the International Space Station and the Moon”, including “private-sector development and demonstration of vehicles that may support the Agency’s human crew and cargo space flight requirements,” a reference to COTS and ISS commercial resupply.
February 26, 2009 at 7:28 am · Filed under Congress
Four out of four experts agree: there need to be reforms to the nation’s export control policies in order keep the US competitive in science and technology, particularly in space. That was the theme of a hearing Wednesday by the House Science and Technology Committee that explored the issue. Based on the statements by the four witnesses, as well as press releases from the full committee and the Republican caucus, most everyone is in agreement that there need to be changes so that regulations balance the need to ensure national security while allowing US companies a greater latitude in selling components overseas and collaborating with foreign companies and organizations. The exact path forward isn’t clear, although committee chairman Rep. Bart Gordon said that he hopes that an OSTP-led study of the effects of export control regulations, which was in the House version of the NASA authorization act of 2008 but dropped from the final version, will be carried out by the office anyway in the near future.
(Favorite quote from the committee press release, by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords: “Export control is not a subject that Americans discuss around the dinner table, but it does affect every one of us.” In the space industry, it seems, export control reform is discussed pretty much everywhere, including around the dinner table. Doing something about it, though, is another matter.)
However, one member of the committee, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, used a Wall Street Journal report [subscription required] about European satellite operator Eutelsat reportedly signing a deal to launch a satellite on a Chinese booster as a warning not to go too far in export control reform. In a statement released by his office, he agreed that ITAR reform is necessary but “we need to remain vigilant that our advanced technology doesn’t end up in the hands of nations who proliferate weapons of mass destruction”—specifically, the Chinese. Noting that Eutelsat sells communications services to the Defense Department, he claimed that “this is the beginning of a game of chicken between Eutelsat and the Obama administration. If the Obama administration does nothing, the message is clear—transferring technology to proliferators of weapons of mass destruction like the Peoples Republic of China is a perfectly acceptable business model.”
The flaw in this argument is that while the satellite Eutelsat plans to launch on a Chinese booster might contain technologies on the US Munitions List had they come from US companies, the satellite in question is most likely a so-called “ITAR-free” satellite built by Thales Alenia Space (such as the W3B satellite Eutelsat ordered from Thales last year) that contains no US-built components that would fall under the jurisdiction of the ITAR. It, in effect, becomes an argument for ITAR reform: since these components are now commercially available outside the US, controlling the ability of US companies to export the same components does little to ensure national security, and can even be counterproductive.
February 25, 2009 at 8:59 pm · Filed under NASA, White House
On Thursday the Obama Administration is scheduled to release the “outline” of its FY2010 budget proposal (the complete budget proposal won’t be ready until late March or early April). Aviationweek.com reports that the administration will propose $18.7 billion for NASA for FY10. That would be nearly $1 billion more than what they agency is likely to get in the regular FY09 omnibus appropriations currently being considered by Congress. However, when the $1 billion in stimulus funding is added, it works out to about the same (although the stimulus money will remain available to the agency through the end of FY2010). This issue—how FY10 budgets would stack up to FY09 plus the stimulus package—had caused some concern in the scientific community in general: some worried that a one-time bump from the stimulus would lead to starting programs that could not be sustained over the long haul. At least for NASA this appears to be less of a concern.
The Aviationweek.com article adds that the budget proposal “sticks with the goal of returning humans to the moon by 2020″. This is not necessarily surprising, since that had been part of the campaign’s space policy document, which stated that Obama “endorses the goal of sending human missions to the Moon by 2020.” What the article doesn’t say, though, is whether the administration endorses the current exploration architecture, the multibillion-dollar question occupying much of the civil space community in recent months. Given that the budget document released tomorrow is only an outline of the complete budget—and that the administration has yet to announce a nominee for NASA administrator—such details may not be forthcoming for some time.
February 24, 2009 at 6:58 am · Filed under NASA, White House
As John Holdren stated in his nomination hearing this month, the Obama Administration is committed to fulfilling a campaign pledge to re-establish the National Space Council (or National Aeronautics and Space Council). Exactly what form that council will take, and when it will be created, isn’t yet known, but the concept has the support of NASA advocates in Congress like Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) who believe the agency “becomes the handmaiden” of OMB and thus needs an advocate within the White House.
However, in an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review, Taylor Dinerman is skeptical that a reconstituted space council will do much to help space policy. He fears a return of the clashes between the National Space Council of the George H.W. Bush administration and NASA, particularly during the brief life of the Space Exploration Initiative. “The last thing this new administration needs is a protracted and unnecessary fight over space policy and bureaucratic turf,” he writes. “A strong administrator with clear guidance, and backing from the president, is by far the best outcome.”
February 24, 2009 at 6:37 am · Filed under Lobbying
Right now the National Space Society and the Space Exploration Alliance are wrapping up their 2009 Legislative Blitz, where groups of activists visit Congressional offices to promote space exploration. Next month the AIAA will be running its Congressional Visits Day, again with people making stops at Congressional offices. And, in a similar vein, there is Prospace’s venerable March Storm (although the organization announced just this weekend that there will be no March Storm this year because of “resource and time limitations”).
All these events are predicated on the belief that it’s effective to speak in person with members of Congress (or, more likely, their staffers) to press their concerns or promote legislation, and proponents of these efforts point to legislation that has been enacted or funding that has been provided based on this lobbying. But is it really that effective? One member of Congress suggests they’re not that useful. Speaking at the AAAS meeting in Chicago earlier this month, Congressman Bill Foster (D-IL), a former Fermilab physicist, said that he’s “inundated” with meetings. “I typically have between 10 and 15 meetings a day; walk-in 15-minute meetings,” he said. “If you don’t come into the job with attention deficit disorder, you rapidly develop it.”
Foster suggested that people meet with their members of Congress in their home districts, rather than go to Washington. “There’s no way they can mistake you for just another special interest,” he said. “You can often get a half an hour discussion with them and actually let them know that you really care about what you’re saying.” That alternative, he said, “is much more effective than this sort of ‘let’s go down and walk on the Mall in Washington a
February 23, 2009 at 9:32 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
Congressman David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, introduced an omnibus FY09 appropriations bill Monday for those agencies whose FY09 budgets had not yet been passed by Congress, including NASA. Those agencies have been operating on a continuing resolution since October 1; that resolution runs through March 6, meaning that Congress is likely to act on this omnibus bill quickly.
The section of the bill dealing with NASA begins on page 67 of this PDF document. When compared to the proposed FY09 budget released just over 12 months ago, NASA get pretty much all that it asked for, plus a bit more, at least at the overall account levels. The table below compares the original budget proposal with the omnibus budget levels:
| Account |
FY09 Proposal |
FY09 Omnibus |
Diff. |
| Science |
$4,441.5 |
$4,503.0 |
$61.5 |
| Aeronautics |
$446.5 |
$500.0 |
$53.5 |
| Exploration |
$3,500.5 |
$3,505.5 |
$5.0 |
| Space Shuttle |
$2,981.7 |
$2,981.7 |
$0.0 |
| ISS |
$2,060.2 |
$2,060.2 |
$0.0 |
| Space and Flight Support |
$732.8 |
$722.8 |
-$10.0 |
| Education |
$115.6 |
$169.2 |
$53.6 |
| Cross-Agency Support |
$3,299.9 |
$3,306.4 |
$6.5 |
| Inspector General |
$35.5 |
$33.6 |
-$1.9 |
| TOTAL |
$17,614.2 |
$17,782.4 |
$168.2 |
[All values above in millions]
There are more details in the accompanying statement (starting on p. 132 of the 12.8 MB PDF file), including breakdowns of the spending for the various programs within each account. I only had a chance to skim through it this evening, but at first glance I saw no major surprises.
Note that the budget figures here are separate from the additional money NASA received in the stimulus package, which gave the agency an additional $1 billion for FY09.
February 20, 2009 at 1:15 pm · Filed under Congress, White House
Last week the Senate Commerce Committee held a nomination hearing for John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco, the nominees for director of OSTP and administrator of NOAA, respectively. In his opening statement (in both written and verbal forms) Holdren mentioned space as a critical area of investment in science and engineering:
In today’s time of economic crisis, we have to resist the temptation to reduce our investments in these foundations of our propserity. In this connection I want to give special mention to the importance of R&D in our space program. Maintaining and expanding our capabilities in space is sometimes regarded as a luxury that we should do less of in the face of more pressing earthbound concerns. I think that would be a false economy. Space is crucial to our national defense; it’s crucial to civil as well as military communications and geopositioning; it’s crucial to weather forecasting and storm monitoring; crucial to observation and scientific study of the condition of our home planet’s land, vegetation, oceans, and atmosphere; and it’s crucial to scientific study and exploration looking outward. As with the rest of our fundamental and applied research enterprise, investments in space are a bargain.
Later, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), the ranking member of the full committee, asked Holdren about plans to reestablish the National Space Council to address issues like the Shuttle-Constellation gap and access to the ISS to permit research to continue there. “Will you make NASA and science in space a priority?” she asked. “Do you have any thoughts about the National Space Council being a part of the White House to look at the overall focus of NASA?” Holdren’s response:
The short answer… is yes, it is a priority. We have been looking at what the best way to resurrect the National Space Council in the White House would be. I think that’s going to happen. There’s no question that the gap in our capacity to put people in space is a matter of great concern with the shuttle program coming to an end and its successor program not yet ready. We are looking at that very carefully and I would look forward to working with you and Sen. Nelson and other members of this committee on how we can shrink that gap. It’s going to be a great challenge, of course, particularly in these difficult budget times, but we are committed to figuring that problem out because it is very important.
Holdren was then later asked by Sen. Nelson if he had anything more to add on the subject, noting that, as a candidate, Obama promised to reinstitute the council. Holdren:
Well, I’m certainly happy to reiterate that the president remains committed to that pledge. As I mentioned before, we are in discussion about the best way to do it, but I have no doubt that it’s going to happen.
Nelson was pleased:
That’s great, because one of the failings in the past, and not just with this immediate past administration, but previous ones, is that NASA becomes the handmaiden of the Office of Management and Budget. And that’s not the way to set policy, by having some green eyeshade person over there determining what the policy is, whether we’re talking about NASA or NOAA or whatever it is. But that’s the way it’s been in the past, and therefore another reason at the high councils of high government policymaking to have such a council right within the White House.
February 19, 2009 at 12:06 pm · Filed under NASA
Last week I noted here the mixed reception from former astronauts to a the recent policy paper by George Abbey and Neal Lane, one that proposed foregoing a return to the Moon in favor of more of an emphasis on energy and environment research, as well as long-term planning for missions to near Earth objects. What other response has that report generated?
I had an opportunity last weekend at the AAAS conference in Chicago to ask Lane, after a panel session about the future of the OSTP (Lane was President Clinton’s science advisor), what sort of feedback he’d received. “Mostly favorable,” he said. He alluded to Cernan’s opposition to the proposal that was published by the Houston Chronicle, but wasn’t surprised since Cernan is “still kind of a space nut. He wants to go go go, out to Mars.”
Lane, by comparison, doesn’t think the nation is interested in human missions to the Moon and Mars. “It would be fine to go to the Moon if there was a reason to go to the Moon, and the people wanted to, but they don’t,” he claimed. “People don’t care about going back to the Moon and there’s no rationale for going back to the Moon. I would really like to see NASA go forward in a big way and have a larger and more exciting space program. But right now there’s not the support for it, and NASA’s flailing.”
That’s why, he said, he and Abbey decided that NASA would be better advised to focus on “solving the energy problem” and build public support for the agency that could be leveraged for other missions in the future. “If we keep blowing all our money on Constellation there will be nothing left,” he said. “Our hope was to put something out there that would actually be good for NASA, helpful, and give it a solid foundation to build from again until the American people get excited again about space exploration.”
Lane said he hasn’t gotten any feedback from the Obama Administration about the study, but he believes that the administration will change course from the current exploration architecture. “I think it’s clear since Mike [Griffin] left that they don’t intend to go down the same road,” he said. “If you were going to just continue, why not keep him in, right?”
So who might replace Griffin as administrator? Lane said he didn’t have any insights. “They’ve looked at some capable people. I don’t know if they’re going down a long list and having trouble finding anybody willing to do it, or if it’s something with the vetting, or something else. I don’t really know what’s going on right now. With [presidential science advisor] John Holdren in place now I suspect he’ll give a high priority to finding somebody, because he certainly cares, and he knows the agency needs leadership.”
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