Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for October, 2009
October 16, 2009 at 9:34 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA, White House
Last week the Orlando Sentinel reported that Florida’s Congressional delegation was considering a call for reallocation of stimulus funds to NASA much like the Texas delegation has requested. On Friday the office of Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas announced that Florida’s delegation has done just that, requesting in a letter to President Obama that he shift “at least $3 billion” to NASA’s human spaceflight program. “Given the ARRA’s goals of stimulating our economy, supporting science, and maintaining and creating high-tech jobs,” the letter reads, referring to the stimulus bill’s official name, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), “we believe there is no better place to dedicate these funds than to our human space flight program.”
The letter is signed by both of the state’s senators (Bill Nelson and George LeMieux, recently appointed to serve out the remainder of Mel Martinez’s term) and 13 of the state’s 25 representatives, a lower turnout than Texas, which got 26 of its 32 representatives to sign on. The 13 are 8 Democrats (including Kosmas) and 5 Republicans (including Bill Posey, whose district also includes part of the state’s Space Coast.) All five Republicans who signed the bill voted against the stimulus bill when the House approved it earlier this year.
So with a majority of two states’ delegations asking for the redirection of funding, is this a sure deal? Not necessarily. As Fox News reported today, some members of Congress see unspent stimulus funds as “untapped resources” for a variety of proposals, from a source for a one-time $250 Social Security payment to $245 billion for Medicare. The article states that it’s “unclear” if the administration would support any reallocation of stimulus money, and that it would be up to Congress to make any decision.
October 16, 2009 at 7:15 am · Filed under Congress, NASA, White House
An editorial in Friday’s Florida Today offers a warning—or maybe a threat—to President Obama: increase NASA’s budget or “it will come back to haunt him at Florida’s ballot box”. The editorial claims that “among the reasons Obama won Florida last year was his NASA promise gained him votes in the critical Central Florida corridor.” Yet Obama lost Brevard County, the heart of the Space Coast, by 11 percentage points, and it seems unlikely space played a role in his much larger victories elsewhere in central Florida, like nearby Orange County, home to Orlando. The editorial also fails to point out that while Obama can propose a budget increase, there’s no guarantee that Congress will follow through, and most of the Congressional supporters cited in the editorial haven’t demonstrated much influence among appropriators on this topic.
Compare that to an op-ed in Thursday’s Washington Examiner by Douglas MacKinnon, who’s worried that once the shuttle is retired the US won’t be able to launch humans “for quite possibly a decade or more to come” because, as he puts it, “President Obama and most Members of Congress don’t consider our human spaceflight program to be a tangible vote-getter. As simple and as destructive as that.” MacKinnon goes on to complain that the White House and Congress don’t appreciate spaceflight in the same way John F. Kennedy did nearly a half-century ago, and then criticizes the Augustine committee (for concluding that a human return to the Moon by 2020 is unaffordable) and new NASA administrator Charles Bolden (for “weakly” offering rationales like lowering the cost of spaceflight and using the Moon as a testbed for new technologies, rather than channeling JFK.)
David Hill, a Republican pollster, offers a solution in a column this week in The Hill: Republicans and Democrats should work together to endorse “the continuation of the manned spaceflight program”. A great idea, except that space is already largely a bipartisan issue, with supporters on both sides of the aisle whose talking points are often identical (such as the request to divert $3 billion in stimulus money to NASA, something back by members of both parties.) That hasn’t been very successful—at least, not yet.
October 15, 2009 at 9:33 pm · Filed under NASA
Back in late August a group of former astronauts published an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle in support of human space exploration in general and Constellation in particular. (The link to the original op-ed is now broken, as the Chronicle has apparently moved it to its archives, never to be read again.) The piece was somewhat supportive of commercial options for human space transportation to low Earth orbit, saying such ventures could “possibly” transport cargo and crew if they’re able to meet NASA crew safety requirements.
The Wall Street Journal published online late Thursday another op-ed by another group of former astronauts, led by Buzz Aldrin, that takes a stronger stance in favor of commercial crew transportation. “While it’s completely appropriate for NASA to continue developing systems and the new technologies necessary to take crews farther out into our solar system, we believe that the commercial sector is fully capable of safely handling the critical task of low-Earth-orbit human transportation,” the op-ed states. Not surprisingly, they support the emphasis on commercial options in the Augustine committee summary report. “NASA should put its unique resources into pushing back the final frontier and not in repaving the earth-to-orbit road it cleared a half century ago. Commercial human spaceflight is not competitive with NASA. It is complementary.”
October 15, 2009 at 9:17 pm · Filed under Other, White House
The Washington Times reported today that the Obama Administration has quietly moved to shift authority for approval of missile and space technology to China. Under a presidential determination issued on September 29, the president delegated authority to the Secretary of Commerce “the functions of the President under section 1512 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999 (NDAA).” That section of law, part of the Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act for FY1999, requires that the president certify to Congress at least 15 days before any export of “missile equipment or technology” to China that the export does not hurt the US space launch industry and that the technology “will not measurably improve” China’s missiles and space launch capabilities.
The Times article, by Bill Gertz, gets plenty of quotes from conservative experts convinced that the decision is a “step backward”, “foolish”, “dangerous”, and even “shocking”, while Commerce Department officials say the move won’t cause the controls on such exports to become looser. What isn’t answered by the article, though, is why the administration made the move. Gertz speculates that the move “appears aimed at increasing U.S.-China space cooperation” but leaves it at that.
This moves comes while export control reform for space issues is being debated and discussed (and working its way through Congress). Is this move by the White House a step towards greater reform, or is an unrelated move with other intentions?
October 15, 2009 at 1:10 pm · Filed under Other
Any day now, either later this week or early next week, the Augustine committee is set to release its final report. Around that time a couple members of the committee will be making public appearances inside and outside the Beltway, hopefully providing a little more background and detail about their work now that the report is complete.
Greason and Lyles have already been speaking about the committee’s work, Lyles at a forum at GWU’s Space Policy Institute and Greason at the Space Investment Summit 7 in Boston at the end of September. Depending on the timing of the final report’s release, they may be free to talk in additional detail about the report’s findings at these later events.
[Disclosure: I had a cameo role in organizing the WSBR-WIA luncheon with Lyles by suggesting that the two organizations work together to plan a joint event rather than do separate events.]
October 13, 2009 at 7:29 am · Filed under NASA
While the Augustine committee wraps up its final report, NASA hasn’t been standing still waiting for it. In an article in Monday’s issue of The Space Review, I wrote about Bolden’s statements in his Space Transportation Association speech on Thursday about what NASA’s internal planning:
While the Augustine committee did its work this summer, Bolden said that a NASA “leadership team” has also been studying exploration, focusing initially more on “why” rather than “how”. That team, including associate administrators and center directors, has been meeting by telecon for the last couple of months, three days a week for up to three hours at a time. “We started with asking the question ‘why’: why do we do this?” he said. “Why do we risk human life in the exploration of space?”
Bolden didn’t say what answers the team came up with during the meetings, but did state that the team has moved on to the question of how to carry out human space exploration. That, he said, was a different approach from the Augustine committee, which he felt focused more on technical architectures than on the reasons why (although the committee did take up the question internally, as Jeff Greason, a committee member, recently noted.) “When you get stuck with architecture, you can do bad things,” Bolden said. “You really want to find out why you want to do something, and then ask yourself if this is what we want to do, how do we best accomplish it?”
Bolden said the team has been “migrating to a position that we want to recommend to the president,” without offering any specifics about what that might be.
While Bolden didn’t mention any specifics in Washington, he did let slip a few details about what might be included on Monday at the IAC in Daejon, South Korea, Flightglobal.com reports. Bolden was clearly interested in developing a heavy-lift vehicle, saying that NASA was “costing” such a launcher, which the report believes is the Ares 5 “Lite” vehicle mentioned in the Augustine committee report instead of a shuttle-derived alternative or even simply re-estimating the development cost of the Ares 5 itself. He was also cool to using EELV-derived vehicles, saying that they “are not man-rated [and] they are middle class”, according to the Flightglobal.com report.
October 12, 2009 at 7:12 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
More members of Congress are talking about the need to increase NASA’s budget. But how much action is really taking place?
On Friday Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), chair of the House Science and Technology Committee’s space subcommittee, reiterated her call for additional NASA funding in a presentation at the Sea Space Symposium in Washington. The Augustine committee, she said, “performed a valuable national service by making it clear that ‘you can’t get there from here’ under the budget plan included in NASA’s Fiscal Year 2010 budget request.” (She was far less charitable about the committee’s work in last month’s hearing.) “I believe that it provides an opportunity for President Obama to step up and embrace a robust budget for NASA and use our civil space program to both inspire and benefit all of our citizens.”
Another member pushing for a NASA budget increase is Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who tells the suburban Cleveland newspaper News Sun that he wants a $3-billion-a-year increase to “restore research ‘so badly damaged’ under the Bush administration.” Kucinich, though, isn’t a fan of commercialization: he warns that such ventures “would lead to more privatization of government functions and loss of civil-service technical jobs.” Kucinich said he’s made his funding request in letters to NASA administrator Charles Bolden and presidential science advisor John Holdren.
Meanwhile, Rep. Parker Griffith (D-AL) played up a meeting last week with Bolden about the future of the space program and the role that the Marshall Space Flight Center, located in Griffith’s district, will play. “As we await the full release of the Augustine Commission Report, we know that the Ares program is our best option to provide our nation with reliable access to space,” Griffith said in the statement, although it was unclear who he meant by “we”. Griffith added that Bolden “possesses a perfect mix of realism and ambition” for the job. “Commitment from the administration is our only concern at this point.”
And in today’s Florida Today, John Kelly reads between the lines of recent statements to conclude that the White House is considering raising NASA’s budget. Kelly cites statements last week by the president about spending more on science (statements he also made months ago, prior to the creation of the Augustine committee) as a sign that he’s considering boosting NASA’s budget.
“Certainly, there’s been more talk in Washington of significantly hiking space spending in the past week or so than there has been in a very long time,” Kelly writes. But even in Washington talk will only get you so far—and action to increase NASA’s budget is still lacking.
October 9, 2009 at 5:16 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
Days after the majority of the Texas Congressional delegation pushed for diverting stimulus funding to NASA to support the agency’s exploration efforts, members of Florida’s delegations are making similar calls. In a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, Sen. Bill Nelson also asked for a transfer of $3 billion of stimulus funds to NASA, adding that his staff “has identified other possible revenue sources for future years”, without mentioning specifics. Besides the usual arguments about maintaining US leadership in space, inspiring youth, and more, Nelson mentioned the ability of that funding to, well, stimulate the economy:
The Augustine Commission notes that the time may finally be upon us when commercial space companies can begin to carry some of the burden of our access to space. Many of these companies are already developing capabilities to enable the commercial resupply of the International Space Station.
This ability, according to Augustine, is critical to ensuring our ability to operate the Station beyond 2016 and to maximize the return on what has become a substantial investment.
But these commercial endeavors serve another equally important function: they create whole new industries, and with that, new jobs for Americans.
Opening up to the private sector what has historically been limited to the realm of the government will enable economic growth, stimulus, and prosperity for many Americans.
The Orlando Sentinel reported that Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) is arranging a request for stimulus funds from the Florida delegation that’s similar to the Texas letter. Left unanswered is where the stimulus funding would come from (while unspent, it’s not unallocated, and Congress would have to reappropriate it) and how NASA would spend it.
Meanwhile, Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) gave a speech on the House floor Thursday about space. Most of the three-minute speech, part of special order speeches at the end of the day before a mostly empty chamber, focused primarily on the spinoffs generated by NASA. Only towards the end did make a general request to help the president keep his promises to keep his promises to close the shuttle-Constellation gap and remain first in space. He didn’t make any specific calls for additional funding, only that Congress should do “our level best” to keep those promises.
October 8, 2009 at 1:29 pm · Filed under NASA
Last night David Letterman’s top ten list was “Top Ten Signs The Head of NASA Is Nuts”. While timed to the impending lunar impact of NASA’s LCROSS mission, the list came out just after NASA administrator Charles Bolden appeared at the White House, and just before he spoke at a Space Transportation Association (STA) breakfast on Capitol Hill. And while it’s clear he’s not nuts—there was no lunar rover parked outside the Rayburn House Office Building this morning, and he was not wearing a space helmet—his talk (a video of which is available, courtesy of SpaceRef) revealed that he does think a little differently than conventional wisdom in Washington.
“I think I can make a difference, but I can’t do anything if we don’t change the way we operate,” he said in his speech. He recounted a time in the early 1990s, when the future of space station was on the line, when he met with Congressman John Lewis to lobby him to vote for the project: a 15-minute visit that stretched on to an hour where Lewis, as Bolden recalled, did all the talking. “He talked to me for an hour about the importance of human spaceflight and the importance of exploration and what it will do for our nation,” he recalled. Yet Lewis said he wouldn’t vote for the space station because NASA didn’t do anything in his home district, and that he felt he would risk his seat if he voted for the station.
“I learned a valuable lesson,” he said. Members of Congress didn’t spend their time trying to figure out “how to screw NASA today” or other programs, for that matter. He also recalled the “lapel pin fiasco” from last year’s presidential campaign, when whether or not candidates wore American flag lapel pins on their suits got media attention. “We pick trivial things about which to make critical decisions,” he said. “What I hope to do here in my tenure as NASA administrator, no matter how short it is, is to try to unite people in something that I think is critically important.”
A little later in his speech he made similar comments. “I’m not here to get used to this culture. I don’t want to get used to this culture. But if you will allow me to do the job you asked me to do, I’ll do it and I do it well.” Also: “I won’t talk about politics. I don’t do politics. For those of you who want to teach me, I don’t want to learn.”
Bolden revealed in his speech that when he initially turned down the job of NASA administrator. “When the president asked me to take this job, I told him I didn’t want this job.” He said he was later convinced by “his vision” when he met with Obama face-to-face, including the story about a young Obama waving at Apollo astronauts when they arrived in Hawaii after their missions. “He gave me one instruction when I finally said yes. He said, ‘I want you to make NASA inspire young people again,’” he recalled. “I made a deal with him: if, a year from now, Sasha and Malia [the president's daughters] don’t have an interest in science and math, you can fire me.”
On some key issues, notably the Augustine committee’s work, Bolden had much less to say. He noted that when the Augustine committee went into their work the ISS “was off the table” as something that wasn’t worthwhile. They were convinced otherwise, he said, by testimony from both the international partners and US businessmen. Most of the options contained in the committee’s summary report now extend the life of the ISS to at least 2020.
The final report should be out soon, he said, noting it might come out next week while he’s in South Korea for the International Astronautical Congress. It will be up to the White House to then take the results and make policy decisions. Bolden said he’s had “a number of meetings” with John Holdren, the presidential science advisor, on the topic, but offered no timetable for any policy decision.
“I know you’re frustrated,” he said. “Let me tell you, I’m frustrated. But that’s just the way the process works around here.”
October 8, 2009 at 6:31 am · Filed under NASA
A reminder that the Review of US Human Space Flight plans committee will be holding a telecon today at 1 pm EDT for the “finalization of scoring of options” contained in their summary report. The telecon will be streamed online for those who can’t get into the limited phone bridge.
Meanwhile, the manager of NASA’s Constellation program, Jeff Hanley, had a strong and negative reaction to the Augustine committee’s summary report, Florida Today reports. Hanley wrote a 3,376-word email to JSC director Mike Coats complaining about several aspects of the committee’s report, including its treatment of crew safety and its emphasis on commercial launch options. At one point, in response to a section of the report that states that development of the Ares 1 under the current plan would delay development of the larger Ares 5, Hanley wrote, “This paragraph demonstrates either an intentional mischaracterization of the facts or a clear lack of understanding of Constellation.” Neither NASA nor committee members responded to the inquiries about Hanley’s email.
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