April « 2010 « Space Politics

Krafting an alternative plan

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 30 at 6:47 am ET

Scott Spencer is something of an underdog running for the Democratic nomination for Delaware’s sole House seat against former lieutenant governor John Carney. And Delaware isn’t known for its space industry outside of perhaps ILC Dover. Those items alone, though, aren’t the only things that make curious a letter to President Obama from the candidate […]

Briefly noted: Bolden, Griffith, and “too big to fail”

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 28 at 7:14 am ET

NASA administrator Charles Bolden, in an op-ed in today’s Houston Chronicle, says that even before he was approached last year to run the agency “it was obvious to me we had serious problems in balancing our priorities” under Constellation and that “it would take courageous action on the part of the president and NASA leadership […]

Huntsville comes to Washington

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 27 at 7:42 am ET

While space industry professionals from around the world are in Huntsville this week for the SpaceOps 2010 conference, 175 people from the greater Huntsville area are in Washington for an annual lobbying visit organized by the local Chamber of Commerce, and atop their agenda is trying to win support to save Constellation from the administration’s […]

ULA finds it hard to get some local love

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 25 at 11:46 am ET

One of the interesting aspects of the reaction to NASA’s new human spaceflight plans is the strong opposition to it from Alabama’s congressional delegation, in particular Sen. Richard Shelby: while plans to end Constellation will have impacts on the Marshall Space Flight Center, that will be partially, if not completely, offset by other work there, […]

Inhofe’s not a fan of NASA’s new plan

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 25 at 11:15 am ET

One of the VIPs at Saturday’s QuikTrip Air and Rocket Racing Show in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK). (He was more than a guest, though: he flew one of the planes at the show.) When he wasn’t flying, he was talking up the prospects of Tulsa getting one of the shuttle orbiters once […]

Senators want more details about NASA’s new direction

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 23 at 4:32 am ET

If NASA and the White House thought that President Obama’s speech last month outlining his vision for the future of the agency’s space exploration plans would be enough to satisfy members of Congress, they get a strong reality check Thursday in a hearing by the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies subcommittee of the Senate […]

Olson: “willing to work” with the White House on NASA

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 23 at 3:37 am ET

Congressman Pete Olson (R-TX), who has expressed his strong opposition to the administration’s new plan for NASA, said Thursday he would be willing to talk with the White House to fashion some kind of compromise. “I just want the opportunity to sit down and talk with the administration and work though some of the things,” […]

Nelson makes a move for heavy-lift

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 21 at 8:26 pm ET

After President Obama spoke at the Kennedy Space Center last week, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) said that while he supported the president’s plan in general, “weâ€™ll change some things” in Congress, suggesting that accelerating development of a heavy-lift vehicle would be one of them. “I think we can make the decision much sooner” than 2015, […]

Astronomers exercise the nuclear option

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 21 at 1:05 pm ET

While officials from dozens of nations met in Washington last week for a summit on nuclear security, astronomers were also getting riled up about nuclear issues, albeit of a very different kind. The American Astronomical Society (AAS) sent out an “Action Alert” to its members last Monday, asking them to contract Congress about restarting production […]

Another step forward for export control reform

By Jeff Foust on 2010 April 21 at 12:52 pm ET

On Tuesday the administration took another step forward in efforts to reform export control policy in the US, a source of considerable distress for many in the space industry. The goal of the new plan, as laid out in a speech by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in a speech, is to simplify the current […]

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