According to THOMAS, HR 3819, the commercial launch indemnification regime extension, was signed into law by the president on Monday. The Senate approved the bill by unanimous consent last week, two months after the House passed the legislation. The bill extends the current system, where the federal government indemnifies commercial launch providers for any third-party damage that exceeds a pre-determined amount the provider must insure against, through the end of 2012.
Late Wednesday evening the Senate took a break from the health care reform debate long enough to approve by unanimous consent HR 3819, legislation that extends the commercial launch indemnification regime by three years, to the end of 2012. The non-controversial legislation was quickly disposed of near the end of Wednesday’s session, as the Congressional Record illustrates. The House passed the same bill two months ago, so it will go on to the President for his signature, and just in time: the current indemnification provision expires on December 31.
POLITICO is reporting today that Congressman Parker Griffith of Alabama will switch party affiliations from Democrat to Republican. As the article notes, while the timing of the announcement may be a surprise, Griffith has been one of the most conservative members of the Democratic caucus and critical of his party on issues ranging from health care to missile defense. On space, he has cited on multiple occasions in recent weeks, including an STA breakfast in early December and a hearing the following week his frustration at the White House for not yet making a decision on space exploration policy. He also expressed his disagreement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about her comments that she’s not a “big fan” of space exploration and that any additional funding for it would have to be weighed against alternative programs for job creation.
It’s unclear right now whether his party switch will allow him to continue to be a member of the House Science and Technology Committee and its space subcommittee. When Ralph Hall of Texas switched parties in early 2004 he did maintain his seat on the committee (ironically, he was the ranking member of the committee at that time when he left the Democratic Party; he’s now the ranking member again as a Republican.)
Update: Griffith mentioned support for NASA as one of the reasons why he switched parties in his official announcement:
I have also been very concerned about support in Congress for our Defense and NASA programs. These programs are not only important to our community they are critical for the future of our nation. Since election to Congress I have fought hard to educate other members on the importance of a strong National Missile Defense program and that we must give our NASA programs more support if we are to maintain our lead in space. And while there are some great Democratic supporters of these programs I increasingly find that my allies in fighting for these initiatives come from within the Republican Party.
A likely battle in Congress in 2010 will revolve around the budget deficit and attempts to reduce it, given the massive deficit accumulated in FY2009. At the same time it appears that Congressional space supporters, and perhaps the White House, will be seeking additional funding for NASA in FY2011. Are these two efforts on a collision course?
In his WAAY-TV interview yesterday, Congressman Parker Griffith (D-AL) mentioned both NASA and deficit reduction as priorities. Asked at the end of the interview about what his priorities were in 2010, he said, “It’s the continuing funding of Ares 1 and Ares 5, pushing our job creation here, but, most important, America needs to reduce its deficit and retain and maintain its dominance in space and in our military.”
Griffith isn’t the only space supporter also positioning himself as a deficit hawk. In an op-ed in The Hill earlier this week, Congressman Pete Olson (R-TX), ranking member of the House Science and Technology Committee’s space subcommittee, complained about the willingness of the White House and Congressional leadership to spend. “In a recession with extremely limited resources, Congress has gone on a spending spree writing costly checks that taxpayers simply cannot afford to cash,” he wrote. And Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) introduced legislation in October to require a balanced budget. (The release notes that Shelby has “introduced similar legislation in every Congress since 1981″, which should give you an idea of its odds of success.)
Of course, NASA is a tiny part of the overall federal budget (just over half a percent in FY 2010), and increasing its budget, by $1 billion or even $3 billion, does little to budget deficits hundreds of times larger. (Likewise, cutting NASA alone doesn’t do much for deficit relief.) However, if Congress does get serious in 2010 about deficit reduction, any program that’s proposed to get an increase is likely going to come under special scrutiny. Are the agency’s supporters in Congress—particularly those who also cast themselves as fiscal conservatives—prepared to respond?
When Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi suggested that she wasn’t a “big fan” of human spaceflight and that any additional spending proposed for NASA would have to be compared to alternative projects “in terms of job creation”, it’s not surprising it didn’t sit well with space supporters, particularly in places where NASA does provide a lot of jobs. An example is a Florida Today editorial on Friday, which declared that Pelosi “clearly doesn’t get it” on the importance of the space exploration. “Pelosi is flat-out wrong in her skepticism about NASA’s job creation power,” the editorial claimed. It added: “She should come to the Space Coast to see for herself what’s about to happen unless President Obama and Congress support retooling NASA,” a reference to potential job losses in Florida’s Space Coast once the shuttle is retired.
Late Friday Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) issued a press release responding to Pelosi’s comments, including a copy of a letter Kosmas said she sent to Pelosi. The letter outlined some familiar economic and workforce issues linked to NASA, both in Florida and nationwide. “I urge you to join me in supporting a robust human space flight program that will provide long-lasting scientific, technological and economic benefits for our nation,” Kosmas’s letter to Pelosi concluded.
Congressman Parker Griffith also responded to Pelosi’s comments on Friday in Huntsville, where he spoke to Marshall Space Flight Center employees. “I appreciate the Speaker’s comments. I think as she informs herself more, becomes more acquainted with manned space flight, sees that we are in a space race with China, she’ll understand that this is not just about an event that takes place on TV in someone’s living room,” he told WAAY-TV there after his MSFC appearance. “This is about dominance of national security, research and development, space exploration, and manned space exploration is absolutely critically important. And I think as she understands that, knows a little bit more about it, I think her comments will change.”
We’ll see how persuasive a couple of freshmen members can be with the speaker…
The White House and NASA reacted Friday to reports, such as the Science blog post late Thursday, that decisions had made about NASA’s future during Wednesday’s meeting between NASA administration Bolden and President Obama. Both organizations were clearly reading from the same script:
“The meeting with Bolden was informational, not decisional,” White House spokesman Nick Shapiro told Spaceflight Now.
“This conversation (between Obama and Bolden) was not decisional at all,” Morrie Goodman, NASA assistant administrator for public affairs, told Florida Today. “It was informational.”
“The meeting was informational, not decisional,” NASA deputy assistant administrator for public affairs Bob Jacobs posted on Twitter, in response to a comment by NASA’s Wayne Hale. “I know that’s a lot of ‘al’s.’”
Yes, that’s a lot of als, but the point’s clear: no decision has been made. Yet.
In July Virgin Galactic announced that it had sold 32 percent of the company to Aabar Investments, an Abu Dhabi-based fund, for $280 million; Aabar would also provide an additional $100 million for the development of a smallsat launch system. Aabar would get exclusive regional rights to host Virgin Galactic flights. The press release included a throwaway line common to such deals: “The transaction is subject to obtaining regulatory clearances in the United States and elsewhere.”
That provision, though, appears to be tripping up the deal, at least temporarily. The Times of London reported early this week that the deal was being held up and even jeopardized by US regulators, specifically the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS). The deal was undergoing scrutiny by CFIUS, the Times reported, raising concerns among bankers that it could be blocked or called off. Why CFIUS was giving so much attention to the deal wasn’t made clear, although it seemed likely it had something to do with the protection of launch-related technologies that could also have military applications.
Today’s New York Times provides more details, including the fact that the companies agreed to withdraw and resubmit their application to CFIUS to give the arm of the Treasury Department more time to review it. The administration’s concern, as expected, is “whether sensitive rocket and missile launching and fabrication technology might be shared with foreign governments as a result of the transaction”, according to the Times, as well as making sure the deal wouldn’t violate the Missile Technology Control Regime. A Virgin spokesperson told the paper that the companies remained confident that the deal would eventually be approved.
Virgin isn’t the only NewSpace company that will be getting some regulatory scrutiny because of foreign deals. Yesterday XCOR Aerospace announced a deal to supply a South Korean organization with suborbital flight services using the Lynx Mark 2 vehicle the company is developing. While no investment into XCOR is involved, the company will still have to secure export control approvals to transfer the Lynx to South Korea. “To our knowledge, this is the first time that a US commercial suborbital launch vehicle will undergo the export licensing and approval process,” XCOR CEO Jeff Greason said in the statement announcing the deal. “We believe there is no better pathfinder than with our partners at the South Korean Yecheon Astro Space Center.” It still likely won’t be easy, though.
The White House might be waiting for weeks—up until the FY11 budget proposal release in early February—to formally announce it plans for NASA’s future, but details are starting to leak out. Science magazine reports on its ScienceInsider blog this evening that the administration favors scrapping Ares 1 and 5 and instead developing a “simpler” heavy-lift vehicle that could enter service in 2018.
What that heavy-lift vehicle would be isn’t clear. The three versions of the Flexible Path option included in the Augustine committee’s final report had different options for heavy-lift: an “Ares 5 Light”, an EELV-derived heavy-lift vehicle, and a shuttle-derived heavy-lifter. None of them, though, had the heavy-lift vehicle ready to enter service until the early 2020s.
“The decision is not going to make anyone gasp,” a White House source told Science. However, it’s bound to make some—particularly supporters of the current Constellation architecture—cry out.
An Orlando Sentinel report about yesterday’s Bolden-Obama meeting includes some new details about separate meetings the NASA administrator had on Capitol Hill earlier yesterday. Bolden reportedly told members and staffers that the White House was “favoring” including a $1 billion increase in the agency’s budget in the FY2011 budget proposal to be released early next year. That increase would be roughly consistent with what the Augustine committee proposed in its “less constrained” budget in 2011, but whether that increase would be sustained beyond 2011 (as it is in the Augustine proposal) isn’t mentioned.
The Sentinel report also mentions that the agency has prepared four white papers for the administration: a general report about the agency, technology development, the “challenges” of human Mars exploration, and “the risks of developing commercial rockets and a new heavy launcher”. Bolden also mentioned at the Congressional meetings that he did not expect an “immediate decision” on NASA’s future plans from the White House.
Update 8 pm: a Space News article this afternoon has some more details, including the plans that NASA is proposing to the White House. According to the report, NASA prepared four options for the White House to consider prior to Bolden’s meeting with the president, all of which were variations on the Flexible Path option from the Augustine committee report. And there’s more:
Government and industry sources told Space News that the option favored by senior administration officials would add $1 billion to NASA’s annual budget beginning in 2011, with most of the money designated for human spaceflight programs. It would also scrap the Ares 1 rocket in favor of outsourcing space operations in low Earth orbit to the private sector. Among the other scenarios Bolden went to the meeting prepared to discuss with Obama, these sources said, were options that ranged from either cutting the agency’s budget slightly or holding it flat to giving the agency a $3 billion-a-year increase.
The Senate Commerce Committee, as expected, reported out of committee a bill extending commercial launch indemnification, according to a committee press release. HR 3819 would extend the existing regime, which indemnifies commercial launch providers for third-party damages that exceed a “maximum probable loss” level that they have to insure against, for three years, to the end of 2012. The relatively non-controversial bill now goes to the full Senate, which will have to squeeze it in, perhaps by unanimous consent, while debating health care reform.
The published opening statement of committee chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) did devote a brief portion to HR 3819:
And last but certainly not least, HR 3819, the Commercial Space Launch Indemnification Extension. Since 1984, the federal government has provided commercial space launch providers with liability protection for catastrophic events. This has been extended four times, and the latest expires this month.
Normally I do not support indemnifying the private sector for liability, but I recognize that our commercial space industry needs this federal protection in order to compete with others around the globe.
Today’s legislation extends that liability protection for another three years into December 2012 and I expect we will reassess the market before that time to see if the commercial space industry is ready to assume full risk and responsibility.
