Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for April, 2009
April 30, 2009 at 8:58 am · Filed under Congress, Pentagon
The Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee is holding a hearing this afternoon on “space system acquisitions and the industrial base”. One of the witnesses scheduled to testify, Josh Hartman, the Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, gave a preview of his planned testimony yesterday in a speech at the Responsive Space 7 conference in Los Angeles. His assessment should not be that surprising: “The current execution of major systems acquisition is going better than it was, but it requires continued improvement to serve the nation. Bluntly, though, I would suggest to you that in large part the system is still broken.”
He noted that, over the last several decades, there has been a trend towards bigger, more complex, and more expensive systems designed for a “one size fits all” approach. “The systems that we purchase have only become more complex and more unaffordable,” he said. “That model is a Cold War relic.” Today, though, changing needs means that one size doesn’t fit all. Different users have different data requirements, he noted, constellations that consist of just a few large, expensive spacecraft are particularly vulnerable.
“The solution is to change our business model,” he said, moving to multiple systems (not all of which necessarily are space-based) tailored to meet specific needs. This doesn’t mean large spacecraft won’t go away, but layered on to that would be smaller systems that can better meet certain needs better than large spacecraft. Such an approach would have a number of benefits, ranging from increasing the rate at which new technology is implemented in space systems to avoid disruptions in the space workforce by the long gaps between development of large systems.
This approach would seem to be highly compatible with Operationally Responsive Space (ORS), the central topic of this discussion at this conference, although Hartman cautioned that the ORS Office needs to deliver on that potential in the near future, such as with the upcoming launch of TacSat-3. “If you’re in the ORS Office, you need to show results.”
April 29, 2009 at 5:04 pm · Filed under NASA
The Dayton Daily News reports today that retired Air Force general Lester Lyles has removed his name from consideration for the NASA administrator job. Lyles, in Dayton for a meeting of a company on whose board of directors he serves, said that it would be “too big a financial penalty” for him and his family to take the job. Doing so would have required him to divest himself of stock holdings and end service on various corporate boards. Lyles said he was the administration’s “top candidate” for the job and that the White House had made additional appeals to try to convince him to take the job.
While getting official word from Lyles himself is useful (especially if he indeed was the administrator’s top choice to run the agency), it’s not surprising that he isn’t taking the job, since it was clear over a month ago that he didn’t appear that interested because of financial concerns. And so the search goes on…
April 29, 2009 at 10:07 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas issued a press release (not yet posted on her web site but available here) Tuesday triumphantly announcing that the House-Senate compromise version of the FY 2010 budget resolution includes $2.5 billion for NASA in FY 2011 for shuttle operations, should the remaining shuttle flights not be completed by the end of FY10. (The language is on page 36 of the conference report). “This budget is a significant step towards maintaining safety, minimizing the spaceflight gap, and preserving the highly skilled workforce at Kennedy Space Center and throughout Central Florida,” she said in the statement. “Kennedy Space Center is an economic engine for our community and I will not stand idly by while these jobs are at risk.”
Some media reports followed that line, like a Florida Today article that claimed that resolution “would eliminate a hard deadline for the retirement of NASA’s shuttle fleet.” Or, as the Washington Post noted, “NASA’s Congressional supporters appear to have bought some time in their efforts to ease the Space Shuttle program’s hard retirement date.” Others, though, emphasized that a budget resolution is not the same as an appropriations, and anything in the budget resolution in FY11 is, as most, guidance for appropriators next year. “Unfortunately for her [Rep. Kosmas]… the budget bill is what amounts to an advisory document. The real money decisions are made in appropriation subcommittees,” the Orlando Sentinel noted.
However, this does come just days before the expiration of the Congressionally-mandated moratorium that prevented NASA from taking steps that would preclude extending the life of the shuttle beyond 2010. Will this effort influence NASA or the administration on any decision to resume such work? Will it influence appropriators who will be taking up the FY10 budget request in the coming weeks? Or is it simply something that makes it look like members of Congress are taking action without any real influence on events?
April 27, 2009 at 9:10 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA, White House
Some space policy commentary and news from around the web:
In a column in Monday’s Florida Today, reporter John Kelly warns of schedule pressures of adhering to a September 30, 2010 deadline for shuttle retirement, likening it to the schedule pressure for completing the station that existed prior to the Columbia accident. While this argument is not new, Kelly doesn’t come to the immediate conclusion, unlike some shuttle advocates, that this means that the shuttle’s life should be extended. “[S]omeone must determine if all the flights scheduled are needed,” he argues. If it’s not fiscally possible to keep the shuttle flying beyond its current retirement date, “then it needs to be made clear that missions at the tail end of the schedule are optional and will be canceled if they can’t be flown safely by then.”
Kelly also note the need by the White House to find a nominee for NASA administrator, an argument echoed elsewhere. For example, former CNN space correspondent Miles O’Brien takes it up in a blog post at True/Slant, a new news site. He argues that even with a replacement for acting administrator Chris Scolese in place, decisions on topics like the retirement of the shuttle and the shuttle/Constellation gap would be the same, despite the consternation of the “Space Cadet Corps” who have complained about a lack of a nominee. (One trusts that O’Brien recognizes the somewhat pejorative undertones of a phrase like “Space Cadet Corps”.) “In short, you could put a dog in the 9th floor corner office at 3rd and E Street, SW and things would not be much different – which is to say, not very pretty.”
Among those things that are taking place with only an acting administrator is the drafting of a detailed FY2010 budget proposal, Aviation Week reports. That budget is scheduled to be rolled out in early May, with no guarantee of even a nominee for administrator announced by then. The details of that budget proposal remain under tight wraps.
Of course, this isn’t stopping the “Space Cadet Corps” from continuing to press for a NASA administrator nominee. Sen. Bill Nelson has certainly loudly pushed for a nominee (and one in particular, former astronaut Charles Bolden), and the Orlando Sentinel more comments by Nelson made last week about the situation. “NASA is adrift because it doesn’t have a vigorous leader, appointed by the Obama administration, to take charge; someone who understands space flight, who understands management, who understands aeronautics,” Nelson claimed. “NASA does not have a leader as yet who understands how to motivate people and capture the spirit of the American people, which is that we are explorers and adventurers by nature.” More from Nelson:
I personally know our President is a space aficionado. We have talked about it hours on end. I know he wants us to have a vigorous space program. I know President Obama understands how to accomplish the very thing he wants to do with young people, in getting them educated and particularly educated in math and science and engineering. Look to history. Look at what happened in the Apollo program when young people by the thousands starting going into math and science and engineering because they were challenged by what we were doing in the cosmos. We can do that again if the President will give the full support to the space program and if he will put the right leader in NASA.
April 27, 2009 at 8:51 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
The Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee will hold a hearing on NASA this Wednesday morning, the 29th, at 10 am. Appearing before the committee will be acting administrator Chris Scolese. (Thanks to a reader for pointing out this upcoming hearing.)
April 26, 2009 at 11:49 am · Filed under Congress, NASA, White House
Sunday’s Florida Today features its own take on NASA’s present situation, including a lack of non-acting administrator, including some choice comments from Sen. Bill Nelson, who has arguably played a major role in this situation. “There is some political center that is slow walking this, and I don’t know what it is, who it is or why,” he claimed. Nelson, of course, is continuing to promote his own favorite choice, former astronaut Charles Bolden. “I don’t know anybody else who is in serious contention,” Nelson said in an associated blog post.
Nelson said he’s asked John Glenn to call the White House “and weigh in on this”, although exactly who Glenn spoke with, and what he said, isn’t known. Nelson added that he saw another former astronaut, Sally Ride, earlier in the week, who told Nelson that “Charlie would be great”. (Interestingly, in the sidebar in today’s article, Florida Today mentions that Ride herself is often “mentioned in space circles” as a potential candidate, although how serious that discussion is, and whether Ride would be interested in the job, isn’t mentioned.) The article does at least mention that Nelson “helped torpedo” two previous candidates, Scott Gration and Steve Isakowitz, but doesn’t follow up on that with Nelson.
While how serious a power vacuum the lack of a permanent administrator really create has been discussed here recently, today’s Florida Today article does indicate that the perception of a lack of leadership, attention, and/or interest by the current administration does exist in Florida. “I think there’s tremendous angst in the work force. We’re hearing it from our members,” said Barney Bishop, head of the Associated Industries of Florida, a state business interest group. The article adds that Bishop is lobbying for a “financial ‘bailout’ of the shuttle”. Good luck with that.
April 24, 2009 at 9:08 am · Filed under Congress, NASA, White House
It’s become increasingly clear in recent weeks—indeed, even in recent days—that NASA and the White House will need to make some major decisions in the very near future about the agency’s future direction. At the end of the month NASA will be free to resume preparations to retire the shuttle as a provision in the NASA authorization act passed last year expires, and it appears current agency leadership will do so, despite efforts (or at least pleas) from shuttle supporters in Congress to at least allow the flyout of the remaining missions slip into 2011.
Then there are the problems with Constellation. AviationWeek.com reported Wednesday that Orion may only be able to carry four astronauts, not six, to the ISS because of weight issues. The same day the Orlando Sentinel reported that NASA had pushed back its internal date for the first ares 5 lunar flight from 2018 to 2020, putting in greater doubt the ability of NASA under the current architecture to return humans to the Moon by 2020. Meanwhile, an Aerospace Corporation study reportedly argues that an EELV-based system could launch Orion.
All this is taking place, of course, with only an acting administrator at NASA. And that has some people perturbed. “Yet the apparent indecision from Obama, which if nothing else suggests to NASA employees that they rate lower on the President’s priorities than choosing a dog, is now causing some significant programmatic problems,” writes Eric “SciGuy” Berger in the Houston Chronicle. (Nevermind that the administration reportedly had several candidates for the job only to have them opposed by key Senators. Or that, last I checked, the president’s dog is not a position that requires Senate confirmation.) Moreover, the NASA administrator rumor mill has been quiet of late: the latest report, in a NASASpaceFlight.com article published overnight, claimed that former NASA associate administrator Lori Garver “was expected to named [sic] the new NASA Administrator earlier in the week according to sources”. (The language makes it uncertain if Garver herself, previously considered a likely candidate for deputy administrator, was going to be nominated, or if she was going to be recommending someone.)
However, while we can agree that it’s better to have a NASA administrator than to not have one, it’s not at all certain that having one right now would ameliorate much of the uncertainty surrounding the agency’s future. A lot of big decisions NASA is currently facing, including whether to extend the shuttle and what to do about Constellation, have implications that would likely require at least coordination with, if not approval from, the White House. (And then there’s Congress, a whole other story.) And the administration is, apparently, examining those issues: the NASASpaceFlight.com report cited above also states that Garver will be leading a “major content review” of Constellation, with a separate review being led by NASA Ames director Pete Worden (the link between the two panels isn’t made explicit in the article.)
Another thing to keep in mind is that even if the White House nominated someone for the job today (hey, anything’s possible…) it would still be several weeks, if not a couple of months, before he or she would take office: besides a confirmation hearing and full Senate vote there’s always the possibility any Senator could put a hold on the nomination for any reason, even completely unrelated to the job, as what happened to John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco, OSTP director and NOAA administrator nominees, earlier this year. That suggests that it might be early summer at the earliest before a new administrator will be in office, by which time a decision may have already been made on the future of the shuttle and another all teed up regarding the future of Constellation.
April 23, 2009 at 6:57 am · Filed under Congress
A couple of upcoming hearings by the House Science and Technology Committee:
Today at 10 am the energy and environment subcommittee is holding a hearing on “Continued Oversight of NOAA’s Geostationary Weather Satellite System”. The hearing will discuss a new GAO report on the progress of the next-generation GOES-R satellite program, and feature witnesses from the GAO, NOAA, and NASA.
Next Tuesday the 28th at 2pm the space subcommittee will hold a hearing on “Keeping the Space Environment Safe for Civil and Commercial Users”, with presumably a focus on space debris and space situational awareness issues. Scheduled witnesses include USAF Lt. Gen. Larry D. James, NASA orbital debris chief scientist Nicholas Johnson, Richard DalBello of Intelsat General, and Scott Pace of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute.
April 22, 2009 at 8:12 am · Filed under Other
Often export control seems like the weather: everyone talks about, but no one seems to be able to do anything about it. ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations), the export control rules that govern the US space industry, are a frequent target of complaints, criticism, and calls for reform, such as recent efforts by Congressman Brad Sherman, chair of the trade subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. To date those efforts to reform ITAR has not resulted in success, but today there’s word of a small victory working within the current ITAR framework.
The Economist reports this morning that regulators have agreed that prospective spaceflight participants will not need any export control agreements to fly on US suborbital or orbital vehicles. There had been concern that non-US customers might need a technical assistance agreement (TAA) in order to legally obtain technical data about the vehicles they’re flying on, including basic information that would be neccesary for safety. Bigelow Aerospace asked for an exemption, arguing that, in the article’s words, “taking a passenger flight does not mean you can build an aeroplane”. The State Department apparently agrees, as Bigelow’s Mike Gold said they got “everything we could want” from the ruling, although citizens of some countries (China, Iran, North Korea, and Sudan) would be still not be allowed to fly.
In a related note, the AIAA is holding a half-day meeting titled “Entrepreneurial Space and Export Control: Red Tape in the Final Frontier” next Wednesday the 29th in Washington. Congressman C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger will be the keynote speaker, followed by panels providing the views of industry and government. Presumably this recent ruling will be one topic of discussion…
April 21, 2009 at 7:44 am · Filed under NASA, White House
I wasn’t at the Goddard Memorial Dinner last Friday night (a black-tie affair well above my pay grade). However, by Monday I had received a few copies of the speech that former NASA administrator Mike Griffin gave in acceptance of the Goddard Trophy awarded to him at the event. Griffin, who had been keeping a relatively low public profile in the last three months (beyond the news last week that he had been hired as a professor and “eminent scholar” at the Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville) used the speech in part to criticize the role of the Office of Management and Budget in carrying out (or interfering with) national space policy.
Griffin noted that the OMB’s recent “passback” of the proposed budget to the agency took $3.5 billion out of the exploration systems line over the next four years. “When combined with earlier reductions of almost $12 billion during the Bush Administration, well over $15 billion has been extracted from the Exploration Systems budget in the five short years since the new space policy was announced,” Griffin said, according to the prepared text of his remarks. He added that meant only $500 million was available to work on Ares 5 and Altair prior to 2015.
A little later in the speech Griffin took sharper aim at OMB:
Let me be clear. In a democracy, the proper purpose of the OMB is not to find a way to create a Potemkin Village at NASA. It is not to create the appearance of having a real space program without having to pay for it. It is not to specify to NASA how much money shall be allocated for human lunar return by 2020. The proper purpose of the OMB is to work with NASA, as a partner in good government, to craft carefully vetted estimates of what is required to achieve national policy goals. The judgment as to whether the stated goals are too costly, or not, is one to be made by the nation’s elected leadership, not career civil service staff.
As for whether the US could afford NASA’s plans, he had this to say:
We’re “investing”, if that is the word, hundreds of billions of dollars in entities whose claim to the money rests on the premise that they have failed to manage their enterprises properly, but are too important to be allowed to founder. This nation’s space program, both civil and military, has been one of the most successful endeavors in human history. On the platform of that success we ended the Cold War and built two generations of world technical and political leadership. Maybe we should consider funding more such success.
And he also came to the defense of the current exploration architecture that is, to large degree, his legacy at NASA:
I’ve grown impatient with the argument that Orion and Ares 1 are not perfect, and should be supplanted with other designs. I don’t agree that there is a better approach for the money, but if there were, so what? Any proposed approach would need to be enormously better to justify wiping out four years worth of solid progress. Engineers do not deal with “perfect”. Your viewgraphs will always be better than my hardware. A fictional space program will always be faster, better, and cheaper than a real space program.
Griffin’s comments did generate a rather mild reaction from the White House. “The president is very committed to human space exploration and believes that NASA has a critical role to play in pushing the bounds of human understanding and achievement,” OMB spokesman Kenneth Baer told the Houston Chronicle.
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