September « 2009 « Space Politics

Brief notes

By Jeff Foust on 2009 September 29 at 7:56 am ET

At yesterday’s meeting on the Space Coast, speakers said Florida must demand that president fund an “ambitious” space exploration program, in large part to protect jobs there. Or, as Florida Today put it, “President Barack Obama is in for an earful from Florida elected officials and space industry leaders”. The event referenced the Save Space […]

Can a letter-writing campaign save Florida jobs?

By Jeff Foust on 2009 September 28 at 7:17 am ET

That’s the hope of a new effort on Florida’s Space Coast that’s launching today. Save Space, an effort led by Brevard County’s board of commissioners, is encouraging Floridians and other Americans to write letters to President Obama in support of the space program. The draft letters on the web site ask the president to:

add […]

Another year, another hurricane satellite bill

By Jeff Foust on 2009 September 27 at 10:21 am ET

On Friday Congressmen Ron Klein (D-FL) and Charlie Melancon (D-LA) introduced HR 3654, the Hurricane Satellite Modernization Act. The bill would authorize $3 billion for NASA and NOAA in fiscal years 2010 through 2027 (!!) to build and launch a series of spacecraft called the Extended Ocean Vector Winds Mission (XOVWM, an acronym that looks […]

Compelling reasons, or lack thereof

By Jeff Foust on 2009 September 27 at 9:55 am ET

When I mentioned in an earlier post that the discovery of lunar water wasn’t a reason itself for human exploration of the Moon but improved the prospects if advocates could establish a “compelling case” for doing so, it raised a debate in the comments on what would constitute such a rationale. For a government-funded (or […]

Differing takes on a GAO report

By Jeff Foust on 2009 September 25 at 9:21 pm ET

This afternoon the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a new report on the status of NASA’s Constellation program. That report was requested by Congressman Bart Gordon, chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, who issued a press release about the report right after it came out. The GAO report, according to Gordon, demonstrated that […]

Lunar water and space policy

By Jeff Foust on 2009 September 25 at 7:34 am ET

The discovery officially announced yesterday of more, and more widespread, water on the lunar surface has potential implications on space exploration policy: does it improve the case for the US—or someone else—to send people to the Moon? It’s a question addressed in a couple of pieces in The Times of London and The Independent, both […]

“Unconvinced that there is a guiding vision”

By Jeff Foust on 2009 September 24 at 7:21 am ET

That’s part of a quote from a member of Congress who met with NASA administrator Charles Bolden Wednesday and came away with that sense of uncertainty about the future of NASA’s human spaceflight program. “I left the meeting unconvinced that there is a guiding vision for the future of manned spaceflight in the United States,” […]

“Nagging doubts” about Space Florida

By Jeff Foust on 2009 September 23 at 7:25 am ET

An editorial in today’s Orlando Sentinel discusses the current state of Space Florida, the state space development agency. For those who missed the events last week, a search committee picked former NASA deputy administrator Shana Dale as the agency’s new president, a decision that caused consternation among some Space Coast officials, who backed interim president […]

A different kind of debate about NASA

By Jeff Foust on 2009 September 22 at 7:43 pm ET

Many space advocates complain about the lack of attention NASA gets in Congress or elsewhere in politics. Well, they should check out the Houston City Council, where two councilmen are arguing about who’s the bigger NASA supporter, according to KTRK-TV. An at-large council member, Peter Brown, sent around a memo to the mayor and other […]

Congressman Hernandez?

By Jeff Foust on 2009 September 20 at 5:03 pm ET

NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez, back on Earth after competing the STS-128 shuttle mission to the ISS earlier this month, is contemplating his future, a Stockton (Calif.) Record article today notes. He tells his hometown paper that he hopes to get assigned “to a space mission aboard a Russian aircraft”, which is likely the paper garbling […]

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