Congress

Double jeopardy for commercial space next Wednesday?

The House Science and Technology Committee has released the witness lineup for its hearing next Wednesday, December 2, on “Ensuring the Safety of Human Space Flight”:

  • Mr. Bretton Alexander, President, Commercial Spaceflight Federation
  • Dr. Joseph Fragola, Vice President, Valador Inc.
  • Mr. Jeff Hanley, Program Manager, Constellation Program, Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, NASA
  • Mr. John Marshall, Council Member, Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, NASA
  • Mr. Bryan O’Connor, Chief of Safety and Mission Assurance, NASA
  • Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Thomas Stafford

I’m not familiar with the positions of some of the people on the panel, but right now the only person who appears to be a strong advocate of commercial human spaceflight is Alexander. (Others may support the concept, but not to the same degree.)

The hearing is scheduled for the exact same time (10 am December 2) as a hearing on “Commercial Space Transportation” by the aviation subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. No hearing information, including planned witnesses, has been released, although as previously noted here the chairman of the full committee, James Oberstar, has been critical of commercial space transportation laws and regulations in the past.

21 comments to Double jeopardy for commercial space next Wednesday?

  • I don’t see anyone from FAA-AST…

  • Robert G. Oler

    Apologies for putting this in this thread, but there was a thread on it.

    There are very interesting developments in the Texas Gov race. this is from Bill White’s facebook page

    “Since Friday a week ago Texans from all backgrounds and all regions have asked me to consider running to be our next Governor of Texas. Today I agree to consider running for Governor, and shall make a decision by Friday, December 4.”

    the reason I bring this up is the discussion that was had on Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R TX) who is running for Texas Gov.

    If Bill White gets into the Gov’s race, I consider it very unlikely that KBH will resign at any time unless she actually wins the Gov’s race.

    White is very very popular in Houston and the rest of the major metropolitan areas. Texas is trending “purple” run on by its major cities/counties (Bexar, Travis (of course), Harris/Galveston, Dallas, even Tarrant) and the area I call “Norte Mexico”. White is a moderate almost “non political”.

    How is that entertaining? KBH is in a tough primary fight with the sitting Gov Rick Perry. Perry won his last election under 50% and it is fair to say that his appeal is “Palinish” Ie rural, far right, less educated. KBH was counting on a heavy crossover vote of moderates and some Dems to get rid of Perry. In the last few weeks she has tacked “right” a bit. If White runs for Gov although he will have little opposition in the primary, some of those votes might not be there.

    KBH is not up for reelection in her Senate seat until 2012. There is in my view no chance she will resign until after the Primary…If she loses that then she wont. In my view her odds of winning go down a great deal if White Becomes a candidate for Gov.

    As a disclosure I am supporting Bill White for the Senate (volunteer/money etc) and have been supporting Kay for Gov. If White gets in that would prompt a reassessment. I have liked Bill White since I met him the night he introduced himself to the community association I was President (at the time of). I worked very hard in his campaign in Clear Lake…and he will carry Clear Lake as Gov (or Senator) just as he did for Mayor…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Apologies for putting this in this thread, but there was a thread on it.

    That is not an excuse for yet another long, rambling off-topic post.

  • mike shupp

    Ummm… It’s space-related, more or less, and there aren’t good ways for non-website owners to start threads at Space Politics or Nasa Watch or other websites that come to mind. So it’s semi-relevant.

    That said, since Robert does have much to say, it strikes me he’d be better served by starting his own website and starting his own comment threads rather than relying on other folk. It’s not that hard to start a blog, is it?

  • Jim Bennett

    To the extent that commercial spaceflight participant safety is the responsibility of the Federal government, the DOT is the entity designated by law to deal with it, and FAA/AST is the entity within DOT designated by executive process to carry out that function. You have to question why NASA is called on here and FAA/AST is not.

    Hopefully, Oberstar will be gone from the chairmanship after 2010.

  • It’s space-related, more or less, and there aren’t good ways for non-website owners to start threads at Space Politics or Nasa Watch or other websites that come to mind.

    Why is that Jeff’s (and our) problem? It is a blog in which Jeff posts topics that he hopes will be of interest to his readers. It is not a space, or even space policy bulletin board, and no one has an intrinsic right to start threads on it. And there was very little about the comment that had anything to do with space.

    it strikes me he’d be better served by starting his own website and starting his own comment threads rather than relying on other folk.

    We’d be better served, since we could avoid his ravings, without having to avoid this site. He’s obviously better served by doing it here, as long as Jeff lets him.

    It’s not that hard to start a blog, is it?

    It’s hard to start one that very many people read. I suspect that it would be even harder for Mr. Oler.

  • Chance

    Seems relevant to me.

  • Bill White

    Me too!

    Shorter Robert Oler: Kay Bailey Hutchinson shall remain in the Senate and that shall have an impact on space policy and politics.

  • It’s just barely relevant to space. It has nothing to do with the topic of the post.

  • Lol! A supercomputer could not count the number of times an off subject comment was made on this blog. (Slight exaggeration;))

    To get back on topic, I believe the panel will be discussing the safety of human spaceflight from a technological standpoint, not a regulatory standpoint. Therefore the panel are made up of persons who will discussing the launch systems and spacecrafts and how current space policy can insure technical safety.

  • @Bill White

    Robert is not talking about you is he? :)

  • Major Tom

    “the panel will be discussing the safety of human spaceflight from a technological standpoint, not a regulatory standpoint”

    The panelists will be discussing the safety of NASA’s human space flight programs. With the exception of Alexander, all those individuals are either NASA managers (Hanley, O’Conner) or review NASA programs (Fragola, Marshall, and Stafford).

    FWIW…

  • Robert Horning

    Any hint that this hearing is in relation to any specific legislation, or is it merely a “fact finding” hearing to bring in some “expert” opinions.

    From my own experience, even for congressmen and senators who have critical space development industries in their respective states/districts, they know astonishingly little about either the regulatory process that already exists for human spaceflight or even much less about significant issues that are constantly talked about on the space blogosphere.

    In a recent “townhall” meeting I asked my representative, Senator Bob Bennet (R- Utah) about the Ares I development and plans to continue or cancel the program to get his viewpoint on the topic. He conveniently ducked out of even answering the question by simply saying “I don’t know”.

    This is especially astonishing as he was present for the test-firing of the Ares I rocket booster at the ATK manufacturing plant recently in Promentory, Utah. Knowing that ATK recently laid off 5,000 of his constituents, you would think he would be a little more up on the economic issues involved regarding the Constellation program and at least have an opinion on the topic.

    I can only presume this is typical of most of those in Congress.

  • Dave Murrow

    Anyone who thinks a post about the future of KBH is irrelevant to Space Politics hasn’t been paying attention.

  • @Major Tom

    Happy Thanksgiving!

    @everyone else

    Happy Thanksgiving!

  • Major Tom

    “@Major Tom

    Happy Thanksgiving!”

    Uh, okay. Back at you.

    “With the exception of Alexander, all those individuals are either NASA managers (Hanley, O’Conner) or review NASA programs (Fragola, Marshall, and Stafford).”

    Actually, I forgot that Alexander is heading up the new commercial space panel on the NAC. So he also serves as a NASA program reviewer/advisor like Fragola, Marshall, and Stafford.

    FWIW…

  • Anyone who thinks a post about the future of KBH is irrelevant to Space Politics hasn’t been paying attention.

    I didn’t say it was irrelevant, I said it was barely relevant, and it was completely irrelevant to the topic of this post.

  • Jeff Foust

    Discussion of the Texas governors race is not relevant to this post. Please help keep the discussions here on-topic. Thanks.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

    Robert G. Oler

  • NASA Fan

    The Augustine Committee punted on evaluating the ‘safety’ pedigree of the competing ‘new rocket’ designs. (so sayeth many detractors of the panel) Perhaps this committee, loaded with HSF safety experts , seeks information on the ‘safety issue’ as it relates to the competing Augustine ‘recommendations’, because they will use this information to reach a conclusion on what thier recommendation will be regarding future of HSF once Obama speaks.

    Happy Thanksgiving everyone…and I for one love Robert’s ‘rants’!

  • Chance

    Happy Thanksgiving everyone…and I for one love Robert’s ‘rants’!

    Ditto. Jeff should make him a guest contributor.

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