Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for March, 2010
March 31, 2010 at 12:52 pm · Filed under Congress
It should not be that much of a surprise, but Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) announced today that she will remain in the Senate for the remainder of her current term, backing off from an earlier plan to resign at some point this year. Hutchison, who lost the Republican primary for Texas governor earlier this month, had previously indicated that she would step down after the primary regardless of how it turned out; she said last year that she would resign during the primary campaign itself to devote her full attention to it, but decided to remain in the Senate. Her term runs through 2012.
“For family reasons, I had planned to begin making a transition home to Texas this spring,” Hutchison said in a statement. “But it is clear to me that the stakes in our nation’s capitol have never been higher. President Obama’s victory on health care legislation has emboldened those who want an even bigger and more intrusive federal government.”
Her decision is not that surprising because the day after losing the gubernatorial primary she formally introduced legislation that could extend the life of the shuttle and take other steps to preserve US access to the ISS, suggesting that she planned to remain in Congress at least long enough to try and shepherd her legislation through the Senate. She is also the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which will take up her bill as well as other NASA-related legislation.
March 31, 2010 at 6:49 am · Filed under NASA
In the eyes of many the new NASA exploration plan announced in the FY2011 budget proposal is a massive change, one that abandons the previous goal in the Vision for Space Exploration of returning humans to the Moon by 2020 and, some fear, human space exploration altogether. However, one NASA official said yesterday that the new plan doesn’t change the underlying goal for human space exploration.
The new plan represents “a change in approach and philosophy, but not a change in goal,” said Laurie Leshin, NASA deputy administrator for exploration, in a speech yesterday at a Marshall Institute event on space exploration policy in Washington. “The goal remains the same: to see human explorers out in the solar system.” The new focus on “sustainable and affordable” human space exploration isn’t that new, she said, noting that it was emphasized back in 2004 by the Aldridge Commission that evaluated the Vision for Space Exploration (a committee she served on when she was a professor at Arizona State University.) “We’ve come back to needing to have new and enabling approaches in order to make this a sustainable program for the future.”
To emphasize the need for technology development—one of the cornerstones of the new plan—to enable sustainable human space exploration, she put up a chart showing the mass needed to carry out the latest version of NASA’s Design Reference Mission for human Mars exploration. “If today, with today’s technology, decided we wanted to go to Mars, our mission would have a mass about 12 times of the space station,” she said. “It’s just impossible.” Various technologies, from reducing cryogenic boiloff to in situ resource utilization, can get it down to a more manageable level, she said. “It’s not that these technologies are nice to have, they’re absolutely required if we’re going to have a sustainable path out into the solar system.”
“This is obviously a very different approach to enabling future human spaceflight than we’ve been on,” she said, but added that so far NASA hasn’t been doing as good a job as it should in communicating the benefits of this approach. “I think the challenge before us now is to paint the picture better, frankly, than we have on how these actually feed into future human flights. And I will tell you, that this is the thing that we are working on today.” She said that “very shortly” NASA will be providing some opportunities for the space community to interact with the agency, in the form of requests for information and industry days. “It’s been a little bit frustrating so far, to me and I’m sure to you all as well, that we’ve had to be sort of hunkered down, and we’re coming out of our shell in the next couple of months.”
March 29, 2010 at 7:19 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
While her subcommittee’s hearing on the NASA budget last week as postponed, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) did get an opportunity to speak briefly about the agency’s new direction at the end of an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” program yesterday. Asked by host Candy Crowley about the president’s decision “to end all funding for manned missions to the moon”, Mikulski reiterated previous statements that her top concern was astronaut safety. She also said that “we need a lot more fact finding” about the plan, including the apparent lack of a destination for space exploration.
The relevant excerpt of the interview is below:
CROWLEY: Senator Mikulski, I want — because we are so running out of time here, and I wanted to get to a question that’s specific to a responsibility that you have in the U.S. Senate. And that is, the president’s decision to stop funding, to end all funding for manned missions to the moon. Do you support that?
MIKULSKI: Well, I support astronaut safety. The No. 1 concern I have is wherever we go, whatever means is astronaut safety.
The other is, I think it is very confusing now, because we don’t know what our space destination is, and, therefore, our space mission. I think we need a lot more fact finding. We need to know a lot more from the administration. But one thing we know, we will always do everything to keep our astronauts safe, whatever is the mode of transportation.
March 27, 2010 at 2:04 pm · Filed under NASA, Pentagon
If there was a key takeaway from Friday’s Space Transportation Association luncheon speech by Gary Payton, the deputy under secretary of the Air Force for space programs, it’s that there’s no room for error when launching key military spacecraft. “We’re at the point now where our programs are so critical to the warfighter that we cannot afford a launch failure,” he said. Payton noted in particular four “first of their kind” spacecraft are scheduled for launch this year: the first GPS Block 2F satellite, the first Space Based Surveillance System (SBSS) satellite, the first Advanced EHF communications satellite, and ORS-1, the first Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) operational satellite. “So I need four good launch vehicles,” he said.
That means no cutting corners on launch costs. “I am paying extra for mission assurance on all of our launch vehicles, but to me that’s great,” he said. “I would love to save $10 million on a launch, but if it costs me—if that launch vehicle fails and I splash a $2-billion satellite—then I’ve been pushing on the wrong end of the lever.” He continued: “Launch reliability is my top priority. Our constellations for any of our missions cannot tolerate a launch failure.”
However, he said he’s still concerned about launch costs and looking for ways to reduce them without affecting reliability. NASA’s plans are having a ripple effect, he said, but it’s not all due to NASA’s current plans to cancel Constellation. He said he started to see price increases for engines last summer as production of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) wound down with the impending retirement of the shuttle. “We’ve known that for many, many months and we’ve been working with independent cost estimators and ULA, United Launch Alliance, to mitigate those predicted cost increases.” One possibility would be to do a bulk buy of vehicles, something he said that would require the ability to do a multi-year procurement.
He also discussed the impact to the solid rocket motor industrial base caused by the shuttle’s retirement and plans to cancel Ares. The bigger impact of that, he said, is on the Minuteman and Trident ballistic missiles, and not the strap-on motors used by EELVs. Still, he said, “we very intelligently have to walk down the path of the potential reduction in the solid rocket motor industrial base.” He said he had met just earlier in the week with NASA administrator Charles Bolden to discuss “how the Air Force, NRO, and NASA will work together as the future unfolds” with respect to the industrial base and other issues.
March 27, 2010 at 9:03 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
Last week a group of senators led by Sen. George LeMieux (R-FL) introduced an amendment to the FAA reauthorization bill defending Constellation. That amendment reiterated an earlier provision in the FY2010 appropriations bill preventing NASA from terminating any part of Constellation and related measures. That amendment, though, was never taken up, and the FAA legislation was passed without it.
That, though, has not deterred LeMieux and his colleagues. On Thursday he introduced S. 3180, a bill that contains the same provisions as his earlier amendment, including requiring the GAO to perform an assessment of Constellation and providing “assurance” that the remaining payloads on the shuttle manifest will be launched. It also waives provisions of the Anti-Deficiency Act so that they can’t “be utilized as a basis for the termination or elimination” of any part of Constellation. The bill has six cosponsors, similar to that his earlier amendment but with one key difference: Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) is replaced by Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). That could be important as the bill has been referred to the Senate Commerce Committee, where Sen. Hutchison is the ranking member.
March 27, 2010 at 8:48 am · Filed under Congress
In comments yesterday at a Space Transportation Association luncheon introducing Gary Payton (the subject of a separate, later post), Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) had something of a confession to make: despite living in the Houston area, his favorite NFL team is not the Houston Texans but rather the Green Bay Packers. (“It’s a long, long story,” he said.) However, it gave him an opportunity to cite comments by that team’s legendary coach, Vince Lombardi. Asked about finishing second, Olson recalled, Lombardi said, “I don’t ever want to finish second again. There’s a second-place bowl game, but it’s a game for losers played by losers.”
Olson used that as inspiration for his goal of keeping the United States first in human spaceflight, a position he said it’s held for half a century but is put “in extreme risk” by the FY2011 budget proposal. “And if I have anything to say about it,” Olson continued, “the United States is not going to be a loser in space. We’re going to be number one until Jesus comes back.”
March 26, 2010 at 7:25 am · Filed under Congress, White House
Earlier this month, in a speech at the Ex-Im Bank in Washington, President Obama announced that an export reform proposal was in the works and would be released by Defense Secretary Robert Gates “within the next couple of weeks”. It’s been a couple of weeks since that speech and the reform proposal hasn’t been released yet, although it is expected “imminently”, according to some. Also, it’s just one front of several in the effort to reduce obstacles for the domestic space industry to compete in the global market.
Another effort is HR 2410, the State Department authorization act. The legislation gives the president the authority to remove satellites and related components from the US Munitions List (USML), hence removing them from the jurisdiction of ITAR. (It would not, though, allow the export of such items to China.) Other provisions of the legislation would direct an ongoing review of the USML “to determine those technologies and goods that warrant different or additional controls”, which could benefit the space industry even if the White House didn’t exercise the provision to remove satellites and related components from the list wholesale.
The legislation passed the House last year, but for several months has been sitting in the Senate, raising fears they may never consider it. But speaking on an ITAR panel at the Satellite 2010 conference last week, David Fite, a staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee but speaking only for himself, said things were going “somewhat on schedule” compared to authorization bills in previous Congresses. That schedule would have the Senate passing its version of the authorization bill by the summer and a conference report reconciling the differences between the two in September or October.
The other front for reform is a Congressionally-mandated study underway by the Defense Department, known as the “1248 review” after the section of the FY2010 Defense Department authorization act that ordered it. The legislation requires DoD and State to “carry out an assessment of the national security risks of removing satellites and related components from the United States Munitions List”. That report, which will feature input from industry and other government agencies, will include recommendations of what space-related technologies should remain on the USML as well as other improvements to space export control policies and processes. “With all the export control reform efforts that are ongoing, we see what we’re doing as consistent with those activities,” said Jay Walding of the DoD’s Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA) at the Satellite 2010 panel. That report is due to Congress in late April.
Do these multiple efforts improve the odds for some kind of long-awaited relief from current export control policies? “We are in an election year,” cautioned Fite. In his 11 years on Capitol Hill, he said, “I have never seen an environment that has been this partisan.” Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, concurred. “The danger is that this will become a political issue in an election year, which means it’s not going to be addressed on its merits, it will be addressed by slogans.” That will make it harder for reform to make its way through Congress and could also hurt the administration’s other reform efforts. Separately, he warned, the administration has to win over “the bureaucracy” that will implement any reforms, but have differing ideas of how to do it. “These are complicated issues,” Reinsch said. “People are going to have different ideas of how to do them.” In other words, while the prospects for reform are better than they have been since satellites and related components were put on the USML over a decade ago, actually enacting change is no sure thing.
March 25, 2010 at 7:22 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
Appearing before the space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee yesterday, former Lockheed Martin executive Tom Young, a veteran of a number of space-related committees and reviews in the last decade, described his issues with the NASA budget proposal. During his testimony he made several references to a “plan A”. “A plan A is needed which is absent from the proposed fiscal year 2011 budget,” he said. “The availability of a plan A will facilitate informed decisions relative to funding and affordability of a human spaceflight program that will be in place for decades.” This “plan A” would be funded in part from the money in the budget proposal for commercial crew transportation, robotic precursor missions, Constellation closeout, and an unspecified portion of money planned for technology development.
But what exactly would “plan A” be? Young didn’t explicitly describe it, but his testimony suggests it would be a lot like the so-called “program of record” NASA is currently implementing, perhaps with some tweaks. “I believe the most logical path forward is to commit to a transportation system based upon the Ares 1 investment,” he said, with “consideration” given to evolving it into a heavy-lift system, although not explicitly mentioning Ares 5. He also endorsed Orion: “Significant investment has been made in Orion and it should be the basis of a capsule to support space station operations and be the basis for initiating exploration beyond Earth orbit.” Or, to put it bluntly: “Constellation should not be cancelled.” Later, in response to a question by Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX), ranking member of the subcommittee, Young said, “No alternative strikes me as being as credible as Ares 1/Orion as the basis for a space transportation system to low Earth orbit and to the space station.” Deviating from that program at this time “would be a mistake.”
Young showed a little more flexibility on where humans should go beyond low Earth orbit. On one hand, he stated that “I believe human exploration must have ‘boots on the ground,’” he said, expressing concerns that the Moon might be bypassed. Later, though, he acknowledged that “deferral of the lunar option may be required depending upon available budget” and that a human asteroid mission “may be less challenging and expensive” than a lunar landing.
Young also made it clear that there was no room in his plan A for commercial crew transportation. “I believe we are a long way from having a commercial industry capable of satisfying human space transportation needs,” he said. “The commercial crew option should not be approved.” He repeated that sentence for emphasis in his opening statement. Instead, he spoke of the need for a “national” system that combines the strengths of government and industry to develop human space transportation systems. He drew parallels to the problems with military space programs in the 1990s when the government took a more hands-off approach to program management, which led to major cost overruns and program failures.
“I do not think there is a sufficiently high probability that commercial crew will be successful,” Young said later in the hearing. “So I think we’re looking at decades with no exploration” under the proposed plan. Young then mentioned his seven-year-old grandson’s interest in space. “How do I tell him, that if this program is implemented, the next time NASA flies in space, he could well be 30 years old?”
March 25, 2010 at 6:34 am · Filed under Congress, NASA, States
Hoping to raise awareness and attention to their concerns, Space Coast officials are planning an April 11 rally to protest the NASA budget proposal. Organizers are working with everyone from churches to businesses and hope to get 5,000 people to attend the event, scheduled for four days before the presidential space conference at the Kennedy Space Center. (Florida Today, in addition to reporting on the planned rally, is also encouraging people to attend through its editorial page.) Among those scheduled to attend is Florida Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp, who has challenged President Obama to a debate on space issues. Good luck with that.
While some Florida legislators are seeking to extend the life of the shuttle, others in New York, including Democratic senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, are also interested in the shuttle. Not extending it, mind you, but securing an orbiter for the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City when the fleet is retired. Schumer tells the New York Daily News that he thinks the Intrepid’s bid is in “very, very good shape” after a meeting he had Wednesday with NASA administrator Charles Bolden.
However, not mentioned in the article is a provision tucked into legislation introduced earlier this month that could shortcircuit the bid by the Intrepid and many other cities seeking to land an orbiter, from Seattle to Tulsa. The “Human Space Flight Capability Assurance and Enhancement Act of 2010″ (S. 3068 and HR 4804) states that, once the shuttle fleet is decommissioned (several years later than planned), the orbiters would be awarded to institutions under a competitive process like the current one, but with “priority consideration given to eligible applicants meeting all conditions of that plan which would provide for the location, display, and maintenance of one Orbiter at or near the Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas, and one Orbiter at or near the Kennedy Space Center near Titusville, Florida.” With one orbiter already expected to go the National Air and Space Museum, that would shut out the Intrepid and anyone else.
March 24, 2010 at 7:52 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
Late today the Senate Appropriations Committee announced that Thursday’s scheduled hearing of the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee on the NASA budget proposal has been postponed. The reason for the postponement is the series of votes on the Senate floor dealing with the health care reconciliation legislation. According to Space News the hearing has been rescheduled for April 22, a week after President Obama’s space conference in Florida.
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