The Orlando Sentinel published yesterday a list of likely members of the human spaceflight review panel to be chaired by Norm Augustine. The names haven’t been formally announced and are subject to change (and aren’t complete, as the Sentinel’s list includes eight people, plus Augustine, for a planned ten-person panel.) However, presumably a final should be out soon, particularly because it’s been three weeks since the panel was announced to perform a 90-day review.
Many of the names on the list, like Lester Lyles and Sally Ride, aren’t surprising, given their backgrounds and previous experiences on such panels. One name that did stand out, though, was Jeff Greason, the president and founder of XCOR Aerospace, a NewSpace company. If that list is correct, it does put into a different context his speech at the International Space Development Conference in Orlando on Thursday morning. Much of his talk was about what XCOR is doing, particularly in the development of its Lynx suborbital vehicle, but he also did take some to talk about NASA and civil space policy.
“There’s been a lot of discussion over the years about what NASA is doing and what NASA should so, but there’s a question that gets asked far too seldom, which is why do we have NASA?” he said, adding that he was expressing solely his own opinions. “Why do we have a civil space program at all? What’s it for? Any discussion about what NASA should do or how it should do it—which is the thing we all do talk about a lot—presupposes an agreement on why we are doing it at all that I don’t think exists.”
(1) The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;
(2) The improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles;
(3) The development and operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies, and living organisms through space;
(4) The establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes;
(5) The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere;
That was crafted in the Cold War-fueled Space Race between the US and USSR, but he said that even today “this set of mission states does wrap around a key set of central objectives for NASA that makes sense.” Any discussion of NASA versus the private sector, he added, “totally misses the point that they are two halves of a common goal.” That is, he said, because the exploration that part of NASA’s mission helps the country prosper (as exploration has helped other civilizations prosper in the past), but only if people can do something with the knowledge gained from such exploration.
“That is the one thing we have lost sight of in our civil space program, and that’s the why we do what we do,” he said. “There is an infinitely large number of ways that you can go about exploring, but there is not an infinitely large subset of those ways which not only result in exploration, but would also result in a path left behind… and things being done in a way that the nation and the world can make use of what we have found.”
He said that, given the limited budgets available for NASA, the nation should focus on space exploration in such a way that “views it as an integrated whole”, so that it fulfills all the goals mentioned in the NASA “mission statement”. That includes item number 4, studying the potential benefits of these activities, something that he said he rarely hears discussed. “That’s a clarion call that we’ve missed for why we do what we do, and why we should do things differently going forward.”
May 29, 2009 at 6:15 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
Last week Sen. Bill Nelson made a vigorous defense of COTS Capability D (COTS-D) during a hearing with acting NASA administrator Chris Scolese, pressing Scolese on why NASA wasn’t funding Space Act agreements for COTS-D as directed by the NASA Authorization Act of 2008. Those comments stood out in broad relief compared to the criticism directed towards commercial ISS crew transportation made earlier the same day by Sen. Richard Shelby.
Now, the Orlando Sentinel reports, Nelson may be backtracking on that support, claiming that he wasn’t necessarily supporting COTS-D, despite his comments in last Thursday’s hearing. “Whatever you heard, I want to make sure you understand I wasn’t specifically pushing COTS-D,” Nelson told the Sentinel. “What I was pushing was launch complex 36 [at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station]. … COTS-D first off is a human-rated program and that has not been sanctioned by NASA yet.”
It’s hard to go back to Nelson’s statements last week and conclude that he was somehow referring to LC-36. One of the major criticisms of efforts to develop LC-36 into a new commercial launch facility, the paper noted, is the lack of customers for it, something that COTS-D would not address: SpaceX has its own site at Cape Canaveral; ULA has existing facilities for Atlas 5 and Delta 4 that would likely be used for any potential ISS crew transportation efforts; and Orbital Sciences, if it decided to pursue ISS crew transportation in the future (it’s not now), is investing in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia. The connection between COTS-D and LC-36 appears all but non-existent.
Meanwhile, in a panel on COTS at the International Space Development Conference in Orlando on Thursday afternoon, Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office, was asked by NASA didn’t fund SpaceX’s COTS-D option. Lindenmoyer suggested it was solely a matter of funding: that option was valued at $300 million, while NASA was only offering $150 million in stimulus funding for commercial crew programs. “We just simply don’t have the funding appropriated at this time to execute the option or pursue any other COTS-D capability at this time,” he said. That seemed to suggest that if they had $300 million available, they would have considered the existing option in the SpaceX agreement; Scolese, in the hearing last week, indicated that he felt they would need “several times” the $150 million available to demonstrate a commercial crew transportation capability.
May 28, 2009 at 7:33 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
Since Saturday morning’s announcement of the nominations of Charles Bolden and Lori Garver to the positions of NASA administrator and deputy administrator, respectively, the reaction has been almost uniformly positive. Members of Congress, industry organizations, and newspaper editorials have all endorsed the nominations, calling them a positive step forward for an agency that they felt was in desperate need of permanent leadership.
An exception to those accolades, though, is an editorial in Thursday’s New York Times. The paper is not opposed to Bolden and Garver necessarily, but unlike others is also not immediately won over by them. “Unfortunately, General Bolden lacks deep expertise in space science and engineering and his past ties with the aerospace industry will raise conflict of interest problems,” the editorial states. Garver, it adds, “has no technical background or major managerial experience but knows the agency and its issues.”
Besides Bolden’s previously-discussed ties to ATK and GenCorp Aerojet, the Times raises another potential conflict: “There is also concern that General Bolden may feel indebted to Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, one of his most outspoken backers, who tends to favor space activities that generate jobs and revenues in his home state.” Because of those potential conflicts, the editorial concludes, “The Senate needs to assure itself that General Bolden will be fiercely independent.”
May 28, 2009 at 6:18 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
A few minor notes on recent events and miscellaneous items:
Sen. Bill Nelson told the Orlando Sentinel that he wants to get Charles Bolden confirmed “quickly”, and that he was already making arrangements for a confirmation hearing. No word, though on when that hearing would take place. Nelson added that Bolden and President Obama “really clicked” in their White House meeting last week.
I talked briefly with Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) after she gave the closing speech at the Space Investment Summit in Orlando yesterday. She said that she had not had a chance to speak with Bolden since the nomination was announced, but assumed that Nelson had. She said she felt “way optimistic” about the nomination.
I also asked her about Norm Augustine’s review panel. She said she hadn’t been in touch with him since a telecon between him and members of Congress some time after the panel was announced three weeks ago. “We wanted to be sure that at the end of the review period that the budgetary aspects would be revisited,” she said, referring to potential fiscal impacts to NASA should the remaining shuttle flights slip past the end of 2010, “and he assured me that that would be the case.”
In an interviews with Aerospace Daily, Augustine said that the panel’s membership would not include any “zealots”. “By zealot I mean somebody who’s made up their mind and is just interested in selling their position, because that’s not our role. Our role is to listen and weigh,” he said. The report said the panel’s membership could be named “as early as May 27″, although yesterday came and went without an announcement.
Huntsville TV station WAFF scored an exclusive interview with former NASA administrator Mike Griffin recently, with the first part of the interview airing last night. Griffin, who in the past has said it will be “unseemly” for the US to have to rely on Russia to access the ISS, was even blunter in the interview:
“We should be mad as hell and not going to take it any more,” said Griffin on the gap left between the shuttle retirement and Constellation project. “I am tempted to use the word disgusting, but at the very least, it is unseemly.”
Griffin said extending the shuttle would be one way to avoid that gap, but would require spending an additional $3 billion a year, money that neither the current nor the previous administration seemed willing to spend. “So far, President Clinton, President Bush and now President Obama, not one of those presidents has raised their hand and said, ‘we should make sure to provide continuous human access to space,’” he said. He added that he was hoping that the upcoming review chaired by Norm Augustine would help: “Are we going to renew our commitment as a country to being a space-faring nation? I hope this review will settle that if anything can be settled once and for all. I hope that this review will do that.”
The Space Foundation issued a statement Saturday endorsing the nominations of Charles Bolden and Lori Garver to the NASA administrator and deputy administrator positions. “[T]he White House has demonstrated that it appreciates the importance of both of these key positions to the future of America’s space agency,” Space Foundation CEO Elliot Pulham said.
The Coalition for Space Exploration expressed a similar sentiment in its own statement endorsing the nominations. “We look forward to working with the new NASA administrator and his leadership team as we address the rapidly approaching human spaceflight gap following retirement of the Space Shuttle, the next generation Constellation program and full utilization of the International Space Station,” said Dean Acosta, chairman of the coalition’s public affairs team.
May 23, 2009 at 6:28 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
In a press release issued by the Senate Commerce Committee today, ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said the committee would work quickly to confirm the nominations of Charles Bolden and Lori Garver as NASA administrator and deputy administrator, respectively. “I believe the Commerce Committee will move expeditiously to consider this nomination, and that of the nominee for Deputy NASA Administrator, Lori Garver upon receiving their paperwork,” Sen. Hutchison said, adding that she spoke with Bolden today after the nomination was announced. “He and I agree that space exploration is essential for America’s future security and we look forward to working together to continue America’s preeminence in space.”
There’s no similar statement on the web site from the committee’s chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), but he did provide a statement to Bloomberg News, saying Bolden “will bring just the kind of leadership and management NASA needs”. He also said that he promised to move Bolden through the confirmation process “in short order”.
What is “short order”? In 2005 Mike Griffin was nominated on March 11 and had a confirmation hearing on April 12; he was confirmed by the full Senate the next day. The Senate is on recess this coming week for the Memorial Day holiday, and will also be on recess the week of June 29 for the Independence Day holiday. So if the process moves at the same speed as Griffin (which is pretty fast, given that earlier this year the average time from nomination to confirmation was over two months) it may be possible to get Bolden confirmed before the end of next month. However, any number of things can come up that could throw off that schedule.
May 23, 2009 at 1:20 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
The chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, Bart Gordon (D-TN) and the chair of the space subcommittee, Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), offered their comments on Bolden’s nomination in a joint press release, both welcoming the nomination. “I am impressed by Maj. Gen. Bolden’s resume, and I look forward to learning more about him during the confirmation process, and working with him in his new role,” Gordon stated. “We look forward to working with the Administrator, once he’s in place, to ensure that vital programs at NASA flourish,” added Giffords.
May 23, 2009 at 11:14 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
Not willing to settle for one of those old-timey press releases, Sen. Bill Nelson provided a video statement (below) about the nomination of Charles Bolden as NASA administrator. “When people get to know Charlie Bolden, you’ll see why the president picked him,” Nelson, Bolden’s leading advocate for the job, said. “He’s a patriot, a leader, and a visionary, and he understands the workings of NASA and the importance of America remaining a leader in science and technology through space exploration.”
Later in the statement: “I trusted Charlie with my life, and a lot of other people did so, and that’s why we feel so strongly about him,” Nelson said, referring to the STS-61C shuttle mission—the last shuttle mission before the Challenger accident—where Bolden and Nelson were crewmates.
“At NASA it’s no ordinary job: he’s going to face budgetary constraints, technical issues, the remaining shuttle launches and the pending retirement of the space shuttle,” Nelson continued. “He needs, and he has to, restore that wonder that space exploration provides, and he needs to carry out the president’s mission, and that is to have us on the Moon by 2020.”
May 23, 2009 at 9:09 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
The first official reaction to the official nomination of Charles Bolden to be NASA administrator appears to be from Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), whose district includes NASA KSC. It’s safe to say this is an endorsement:
(Port Orange, FL) – Today, Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas issued the following statement on the announcement that President Obama intends to nominate General Charles Bolden as the new NASA Administrator:
“The nomination of General Bolden to lead NASA is a positive sign for the future of our human spaceflight program. General Bolden’s background has given him the relevant management and technical experience to address the great challenges facing NASA today.
“Thousands of jobs at Kennedy Space Center and across Central Florida are at risk due to the impending spaceflight gap. Without direct access to the International Space Station, we will be forced to rely on the Russian Soyuz, sending billions of taxpayer dollars overseas and risking our national security interests.
“These challenges will have a lasting impact on our economy and our standing as the world leader in space, science, and technology. I look forward to working with our new NASA administrator to ensure a robust human spaceflight program and to minimize the gap in order to protect jobs and support America’s strategic interests. General Bolden is eminently qualified to accomplish this important mission.”
