Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for July, 2009
July 31, 2009 at 6:44 am · Filed under NASA, Other
Earlier this week the Houston Chronicle ran an op-ed by former congressman Nick Lampson, who sings the virtues of commercial spaceflight. In particular, he called on the Augustine committee to recognize the role commercial space can play in NASA’s future human spaceflight plans:
The Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, the blue ribbon panel chartered by President Obama, met this week in Houston. Their recommendations in August could well shape the course of future U.S. human space exploration and affect U.S. competitiveness in science and technology. It is critical that we support the development of commercial space flight capabilities over the next decade for reliable, affordable access to low Earth orbit for both people and cargo. The provision of additional commercial services in space will free NASA resources for exploration and ensure that we meet our science and technology goals as a nation.
(This op-ed was highlighted by Next Step in Space, a coalition of companies and other organizations established earlier this month that is pushing for support for human commercial spaceflight.)
It’s interesting to compare that with a passage in a Wall Street Journal article this week (subscription required) about Virgin Galactic’s deal to sell a stake to an Abu Dhabi fund:
However, a NASA official cautioned that venturing into space is extremely costly, dangerous and difficult.
“Everyone has the opinion ‘we can do this’ but I’ve seen so many fail,” he said, adding that running a shuttle costs at least $3 billion a year.
All this is true: spaceflight is difficult and not cheap, and many ventures who have tried it before have failed. But what does the operating cost of the shuttle have to do with a suborbital space tourism system? The article doesn’t identify the “NASA official” who provided the quote nor explain why he wasn’t identified. It’s not surprising some people have seen this as a bit of FUD.
July 30, 2009 at 8:40 am · Filed under Congress
It had been widely assumed for some time that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) would resign from the Senate later this year to devote herself full-time to running against incumbent Gov. Rick Perry in the Texas GOP gubernatorial primary next year. Yesterday Hutchison confirmed those plans, saying that she would step down in the “October, November” timeframe, several months before the March 2010 primary. Her resignation will mean the loss of one of the stauncher NASA advocates in the Senate, where, among other things, she worked with Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) in recent years to add an additional $1 billion to NASA’s budget. She also serves as the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has oversight of NASA.
July 30, 2009 at 8:27 am · Filed under Events, Lobbying
Later today dozens of Mars advocates will be swarming Capitol Hill for the 2009 Great Mars Blitz, an afternoon of lobbying in the same vein as March Storm, the NSS Space Blitz, and related events. The purpose of the blitz, according to the site, is “to tell members of Congress and their staff why the United States needs to commit to an ambitious human space flight program that will get us to Mars in the 2020s”, although they don’t mention any specific legislative measures they’re pushing for. The Blitz is part of the Mars Society’s annual convention, running today through Sunday at the University of Maryland in College Park. The society ran a similar event in 2006, the last time the organization held its annual conference in the DC area; Chris Carberry, who organized the Blitz (and is now executive director of the organization), wrote a summary of that 2006 event in The Space Review, complete with a tale about some $2 bills…
(I’ll also note that I’ll be appearing on a panel Friday evening at the conference about “Reporting Space”, moderated by ex-CNN space reporter Miles O’Brien.)
July 28, 2009 at 7:20 am · Filed under Events, NASA
Three days! Three cities! It’s not a rock band tour but the Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee (aka Augustine Committee) schedule this week: they are holding public meetings today in Houston, tomorrow in Huntsville, and Thursday in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Today’s meeting starts at 10 am CDT (11 am EDT), according to schedules released last week, and features presentation by JSC director Mike Coats, a “Congressional perspective”, overview of Constellation, and a briefing by the committee’s ISS/shuttle subcommittee, chaired by Sally Ride.
On that last point, NASASpaceFlight.com reported this morning that Ride’s group is looking at shuttle extension options that would stretch the current manifest and/or add more missions, and that “draft NASA authorization language is currently being worked on behind the scenes in Congress” for the latest NASA authorization legislation that would appear to endorse an option to extend the shuttle into 2012.
July 24, 2009 at 8:45 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
Earlier this week the House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring the crew of Apollo 11 on the 40th anniversary of that historic landing. Well, a little later this week two senators introduced a resolution of their own, S.Res. 222, to honor an astronaut: not any members of the Apollo 11 crew, but Chris Cassidy, a member of the STS-127 crew currently at the station. Cassidy’s claim to fame, besides being an astronaut, is that he is considered the 500th person to fly in space, a somewhat arbitrary distinction since he is one of four rookies on this mission, and there had been 498 people in space before it.
Cassidy is from Maine, and the resolution was introduced by the state’s two senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. “As our nation celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission and the first man on the moon, Lieutenant Commander Cassidy’s journey to space marks a new era, with Chris becoming the 500th person to venture beyond earth’s gravity,” said Snowe in a statement. “I commend Chris for his heroic contributions and commitment to advancing science and human understanding.”
July 24, 2009 at 1:16 pm · Filed under Other
While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got a lot of attention this week about her remarks on North Korea (and the North Koreans’… odd reaction) she also visited India and signed several agreements between the two countries. One of them, as described in a State Department press release, is a Technology Safeguards Agreement and “associated side letters” for US-licensed components on spacecraft to be launched by India. “Practically, the agreement will facilitate the launch of U.S.-licensed spacecraft components and safeguard protected technologies and data of both countries,” the release notes. “The side letters commit the United States and India to enter into consultations regarding the market for commercial space launch and satellite services.”
That last sentence is key: the agreement, as the joint US-India statement notes, covers only “civil or non-commercial satellites” with US components to be launched by India. That greatly reduces the practical impact of this agreement, although there have already been cases of Indian spacecraft launching with US components: the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter did carry NASA instruments, for example. Before India can enter the commercial launch market for US payloads (or payloads with US components), a commercial launch services agreement is needed, something that there are still “major differences” on between the two countries, according to a report this week in The Hindu. This week’s agreement, though, is the latest in a series of moves over the last several years towards improved relations between the two countries in space.
July 23, 2009 at 1:14 pm · Filed under NASA, White House
It’s been known for some time that the administration is embarking on an overall review of national space policy, one that goes beyond the current Augustine committee review of NASA’s human spaceflight plans. That’s not unprecedented: previous administrations have done similar reviews and updates of national space policy, which can last for several years (in the case of the previous administration, stretching well into its second term.) With new NASA leadership finally in place, the space agency is now finally learning its role in that review. Aerospace Daily reported yesterday that new administrator Charles Bolden and deputy administrator Lori Garver went to the White House on Tuesday to meet with science advisor John Holdren to “establish their agency’s role in the White House review”. That top-level review is led by National Security Advisor James Jones—like Bolden a retired Marine Corps general—with no set date for its completion.
July 23, 2009 at 1:03 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA, Other
This week the House and the Senate passed HR 2245, the “New Frontier Congressional Gold Medal Act”, which awards Congressional gold medals to the Apollo 11 astronauts and, for good measure, John Glenn. (The legislation passed in the House on a 390-0 vote, and by unanimous consent in the Senate.) The House also passed on Monday H.Res. 607, a resolution honoring the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11; a copy of that resolution was presented to the Apollo 11 crew in a ceremony Tuesday on Capitol Hill.
While Congress may have been generous in its praise of the mission, at least one member got “dissed” by an astronaut, in the words of Roll Call. According to the article, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi approached Neil Armstrong for an autograph—and got turned down, as he does autograph requests in general. “The Speaker would go to the moon and back to try to get what her grandson asked for,” a spokesman for the speaker told Roll Call. “But he learned a valuable lesson: You can’t always get what you want.”
July 20, 2009 at 12:20 pm · Filed under NASA
Late Sunday the Review of US Human Space Flight Plans (aka the Augustine committee) issued a call for comments for a document called “Exploration Beyond LEO: Process and Progress”. (I had separately heard about this a little earlier Sunday from an alert reader.) The short document—just over two pages—is key because it hints at what the committee, or at least the subcommittee of the overall committee looking at exploration beyond LEO, is considering right now. The document states that the committee is looking at five scenarios, and has asked NASA to document the current program as another scenario. The key paragraph:
The first subcommittee-defined scenario, Lunar Base, is a close derivative of the current program, with some simplifications. Lunar Global is a scenario in which a base or outpost is not assembled on the Moon, but instead the Moon is explored by a coordinated series of extended duration human sorties and robotic exploration. In both these cases, implications for subsequent Mars exploration will be considered. Moon to Mars, or more completely Moon on the way to Mars, is a scenario in which the primary objective is Mars exploration, and all systems are designed for Mars. Only when it is beneficial to use the Moon as a true test bed for these Mars exploration systems will flights to the Moon be conducted. Mars First is a plan to exclusively pursue human exploration of the Mars as fast as possible, without using the Moon as a first destination. Finally, Flexible Path is a scenario that allows humans to visit a wide number of inner solar system bodies, objects and locations, but not go to the surface of those with deep gravity wells. Destinations besides Moon and Mars would include the Earth-Moon and Earth-Sun Lagrange points, near-Earth objects (NEOs) and the moons of Mars. There is nothing implied in this scenario that surface exploration might not follow, simply that exploration would first exploit all that could be done without landing on a planetary surface.
The document also includes a set of questions that need to be answered for each scenario, from how to coordinate human and robotic exploration to the strategy for engaging the commercial sector.
July 17, 2009 at 6:41 pm · Filed under NASA
While there hasn’t been a formal release by NASA, multiple reports state that Charles Bolden and Lori Garver were officially sworn in this morning as NASA administrator and deputy administrator. (NASA does have an image of Bolden arriving at his new office.) There will apparently be a more formal ceremony or other event to welcome the two to their new jobs, although nothing has been announced beyond an address to NASA employees at noon EDT Tuesday (on NASA TV).
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