Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for June, 2010
June 10, 2010 at 8:32 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
When the Orlando Sentinel noted in its article about NASA’s memo about cutting back work on Constellation that the announcement “caps a bitter, three-month behind-the-scenes battle”, the first thought that ran through my mind on how Congress would react was a line from Animal House: “Over? Did you say ‘over’? Nothing is over until we decide it is!” And sure enough, members of Congress are making clear this decision does not “cap” this debate at all.
In a statement late today, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said NASA was “skirting the law” with its plan to cut back work on Constellation to comply with the Antideficiency Act. She cited the memo as the latest evidence that NASA was “working to subvert Constellation”, along with letters sent to contractors about termination liability and the reassignment of Constellation program manager Jeff Hanley. Hutchison also released a copy of an email sent to Hanley on May 21 that contained direction and even language similar to Bolden’s letter to Congress this week (although Bolden’s letter contained additional specifics about the impact of the plan on each element of Constellation.)
“At best, this demonstrates that, at least three weeks before briefing members of Congress about issues related to funding challenges, NASA’s leadership had already taken steps to implement a course that today leads to the loss of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of jobs,” she said, comparing this week’s letter with last month’s email. “At worst, it shows an agency that is willfully subverting the repeatedly expressed will of Congress. In either case, the result is the same. The leadership of the world’s preeminent space agency has strained its credibility to the breaking point and something has to change.”
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) also provided a statement to Huntsville TV station WAFF, included in an article about Constellation-related layoff notices Boeing plans to issue next month. “NASA is reprioritizing funding based on a future budget that has not been supported, or approved, by Congress,” Shelby said, adding that language included in a supplemental appropriations bill the Senate approved last month is a “reaffirmation of Congressional intent to continue Constellation funding”.
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) also made a brief statement about the Bolden letter prepended to a copy of the Sentinel article (which, I’m sure, Bishop’s office got permission to reprint.) The decision to cut back work on Constellation, he said, “is nothing more than a disingenuous legal maneuver to circumvent statutory language that was put in place to prevent this very type of action.
Bishop also issued a separate statement Thursday reacting to a comment in an interview with Elon Musk where the SpaceX CEO said that Utah is the “one state that is going to suffer from the Obama plan”. “Elon Musk is right that Utah will suffer under the Obama plan, but so will the rest of the country” because, among other things, the plan “severely handicaps our security and missile defense,” Bishop said. “In the end, all of us in America suffer under that scenario, and that is unacceptable.”
June 10, 2010 at 5:39 am · Filed under Congress, NASA, Other
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who doesn’t speak out much about space issues, issued a press release Wednesday congratulating SpaceX for last Friday’s successful launch of the first Falcon 9. Calling the launch “an enormous success” and “a glimpse of the future of space transportation”, she said it was a sign that “California will continue to lead the way for technological innovation and space flight”.
While NASA and other US agencies prepare to examine what programs they may have to cut in future budgets, the European Space Agency is facing a budget squeeze as well, Spaceflight Now reports. With ESA’s budget frozen for 2010 and 2011 at €3.35 billion ($4.05 billion), the agency is modifying contracts to stretch out payments and hasn’t ruled out delaying programs.
The mood on Capitol Hill regarding NASA “has shifted from seizing partisan advantage to pursuing at least some political pragmatism”, the Houston Chronicle reported yesterday. In a letter that will go to the White House later this week, a group of congressmen is asking for changes in the White House proposal to create a program “that continues our elite astronaut corps, preserves an irreplaceable workforce, protects our defense industrial base and ensures that the U.S. will leave low-earth orbit within the decade.”
June 10, 2010 at 5:22 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
This week Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) distributed a “Dear Colleague” letter to fellow members that included a copy of a letter he received last month from Roger Tetrault, who served on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB). In the letter (published by the Huntsville Times) Tetrault argues that for crew vehicles “safety must be the primary consideration above all other design parameters – including performance, cost, reusability, and advance space operations.” (emphasis in original) Constellation, he argues, was designed with that lesson in mind, but that is being rejected by the administration’s new plan for NASA. “There is no clear mission or direction given to NASA, and the use of proven-technologies [sic] is being shunned,” he wrote. “Further, the choice to commercialize our launch capability provides insufficient safety for the brave men and women that will be asked to ride these rockets.”
Another person who served on the CAIB disagrees with Tetrault, though. John Logsdon told Space News that Tetrault is making “an ideological judgment, not a technical statement” by concluding that commercial providers would provide “insufficient safety” for crewed launches. “You can’t make such a judgment in advance of something being done.”
June 10, 2010 at 5:01 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
Few people would have predicted about four months ago, when the White House released its FY2011 budget proposal, that a major battle about the future of Constellation would revolve around a fairly obscure contracting provision. Yet that’s what has taken place as NASA and Congress have sparred about contract termination liability and the Antideficiency Act, legislation that prohibits expenditures in excess of appropriated funds. NASA has argued that the law requires contractors to withhold funds to cover contract termination costs, while Constellation supporters in Congress, perceiving this as a way to get around a provision in the FY2010 appropriations act that prevents NASA from terminating any element of Constellation, have argued against efforts by the agency to force withholding of such costs.
The latest round in this battle came late Wednesday, when Space News and the Orlando Sentinel reported that NASA administrator Charles Bolden notified Congress in a letter that the agency estimates a shortfall of $991 million in the current fiscal year once contract termination liability costs are taken into account. “Given this estimated shortfall, the Constellation program cannot continue all of its planned FY 2010 program activities within the resources available,” Bolden stated in the letter to Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL). NASA, Bolden continued, “has no choice but to correct this situation”, and would do so by stopping funding on the Ares 1 first stage and descoping other contracts. That could result in the loss of 2,500 to 5,000 contractor jobs for the remainder of the fiscal year.
According to the Sentinel, ATK would be the hardest-hit company, with $500 million in contract termination costs it must reserve, followed by Lockheed Martin at $350 million. The Orion capsule, which the administration announced in April would be preserved as an ISS lifeboat, “would essentially remain in limbo” according to Space News. Over the weekend NASASpaceFlight.com reported that Lockheed Martin had moved 600 engineers off the project “due to fears relating to termination liability”.
June 8, 2010 at 5:02 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
NASA has been relatively sheltered from the freeze on most discretionary spending the White House imposed in its FY2011 budget proposal: the agency got a $6-billion increase over five years in the budget proposal released in February. However, the agency might be asked to cut some future spending in a very targeted fashion, according to a memo released by the White House Tuesday.
In a memo to heads of executive departments and agencies, OMB director Peter Orszag and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel wrote that “we must do more” to cut spending and “restore fiscal responsibility” to the country. In the memo, they ask that heads “identify the programs and subprograms that have the lowest impact on your agency’s mission and constitute at least five percent of your agency’s discretionary budget” and submit that information along with their FY2012 budget submissions to the White House in September, but as a separate exercise.
The memo makes clear that they’re not looking for agencies to simply make across-the-board cuts to achieve that five percent goal, but instead target specific low-priority programs. “To reach the five percent target, your agency should identify: (1) entire programs or subprograms; or (2) substantial cuts amounting to at least 50 percent of total spending within a program or subprogram,” the memo states. Selecting those programs, the memo notes, should be “based on their impact on your agency’s mission and relevant Presidential initiatives” and that “your agency should consider whether the program has an unclear or duplicative purpose, uncertain Federal role, completed mission, or lack of demonstrated effectiveness.”
The five-percent target is from what each agency received for FY2010 (excluding any supplemental funding); for NASA, which got approximately $18.7 billion in FY10, that means finding programs valued at $935 million or more. There’s no guarantee than any or all of those cuts would be included in the final FY12 budget proposal, but the request is raising eyebrows: as the Washington Post reported this morning, budget analysts said they couldn’t recall anything similar happening before, with agencies effectively being asked to volunteer their own programs for elimination.
In a separate budget guidance document for FY12 budget planning, the OMB directs agencies that “your overall request should not exceed a level of five percent below the discretionary total provided for your agency for FY 2012 in the FY 2011 Budget”. NASA projected a budget of $19.45 billion in FY12; the five-percent target means a cut of $972.5 million separate from the budget exercise described above. However, the memo adds that this is not necessary if “your agency has been given explicit direction to the contrary by OMB”; it’s not clear if NASA has received any such direction.
June 8, 2010 at 6:28 am · Filed under Congress, Other
SpaceX picked up Monday some congressional kudos for its successful inaugural Falcon 9 launch. The Republican caucus of the House Science and Technology Committee congratulated SpaceX on the launch in a statement. “I wish SpaceX continued success as they prepare for next month’s first-in-a-series of flight demonstrations for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program,” Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), ranking member of the committee, said in the statement. Separately, Rep. Bil Posey (R-FL), whose district includes Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, also issued a statement praising the company. “I have worked for years to promote commercial space efforts in Florida, and this launch is an important step for America’s commercial space leadership,” Posey said.
The Houston Chronicle, meanwhile, is worried about the lack of support the Houston area is getting relative to Florida to deal with impending layoffs with the end of the shuttle program and plans to cancel most of Constellation. “We smell the stench of political favoritism in the consideration lavished by the administration upon Florida, a presidential swing state, while facilities in Alabama and Texas, two reliable GOP strongholds, are ignored,” the paper claims in an editorial on Monday. That lack of attention, it claims, may mean local Democrats “may get some payback at the polls come November.”
The Planetary Society, one organization that has come out in support of the administration’s plans for NASA, announced Monday that Bill Nye will take over as executive director in September. Nye succeeds Louis Friedman, who announced earlier this year plans to step down after serving as executive director since the organization’s founding 30 years ago. Nye has spent the last five years as vice president of the organization.
June 6, 2010 at 9:27 am · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, NASA, White House
The same day that SpaceX was launching its first Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, the Presidential Task Force on Space Industry Work Force and Economic Development held a public session a short distance to the west, in Orlando, with the task force’s co-chairs, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, in attendance. Little news was made at the forum beyond a statement from Bolden that $30 million of the $40 million promised to the region by President Obama in an April speech would go “to spur regional economic growth”. The other $10 million will be used for job training activities. The task force is scheduled to complete their report for the president by August 15.
Two local members of Congress, Reps. Alan Grayson and Suzanne Kosmas, both Democrats, spoke at the event. In contrast to their often harsh assessment of the president’s plan for NASA in congressional hearings, the two were low key at the meeting: Grayson talked about the importance of America remaining the leader in human spaceflight, while Kosmas made a pitch for giving KSC one of the shuttle orbiters once retired. Not present at the meeting was Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), who claims he was uninvited from the event (which was open to the public). “I’m disappointed that the Administration chose to inject partisanship into what really should be a serious and non-partisan effort to help address the needs of Florida’s aerospace workforce,” he said in a statement.
While there’s been limited, and at best lukewarm, congressional reaction to Friday’s successful Falcon 9 launch, one candidate praised the launch. Scott Spencer, running for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate race in Delaware, told WDEL-AM that he “sees a lot of potential” in Falcon 9 and commercial space. Spencer, as you may recall, wrote a letter to President Obama in late April, also signed by former NASA JSC director Chris Kraft, asking for the shuttle program to be extended and that a plan be developed to begin human lunar missions by 2020. That letter made little reference to commercial vehicles.
Meanwhile, in Huntsville, advocates of Constellation are making plans to “turn up the noise” on Capitol Hill about the program. “The next 90 days is going to be pretty important for us,” Huntsville mayor Tommy Battle said at a meeting Friday of Second to None, a local group fighting to keep Constellation alive, the Huntsville Times reports. “There seems to be no support, or extremely little support, for the president’s proposed plan,” said Bud Cramer, the former congressman who is leading the Second to None initiative, based on meetings the group had in a recent Washington visit. “We believe we’ve got tremendous support on the Hill for Constellation, for human space exploration, but we need those members to define that support; we need them to react to that support,” he said, hence the need for the additional noise, which the article said will be accompanied by a social media initiative.
June 4, 2010 at 3:48 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It appears that the inaugural launch of the Falcon 9 was a success, in that it appeared to place its demonstration payload into orbit. (SpaceX hasn’t released full details about the 2:45 pm EDT launch yet, so we’ll have to wait until later to get confirmation the Dragon mockup is in orbit, and if so, its parameters. [SpaceX has now confirmed they came within about one percent of both perigee and apogee on the orbit.]) Some members of Congress didn’t waste time commenting on the launch, even if they weren’t necessary effusive in their praise.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, released a brief statement about the launch that might best be catagorized as “damned with faint praise”:
This first successful test flight of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is a belated sign that efforts to develop modest commercial space cargo capabilities are showing some promising signs. While this test flight was important, the program to demonstrate commercial cargo and crew transport capabilities, which I support, was intended to enhance not replace NASA’s own proven abilities to deliver critical cargo and humans to low Earth orbit. Make no mistake, even this modest success is more than a year behind schedule, and the project deadlines of other private space companies continue to slip as well. This test does not change the fact that commercial space programs are not ready to close the gap in human spaceflight if the space shuttle is retired this year with no proven replacement capability and the Constellation program is simultaneously cancelled as the President proposes.
Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), whose district includes KSC, released this statement (not yet on her web site):
The successful test launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is a significant step in the development of the commercial space industry. There is no doubt that commercial spaceflight will play an important role in the future of our efforts in space, and I believe private companies can bring new job opportunities for the Space Coast’s highly-skilled workforce. But we must both support the emerging commercial space industry and ensure a robust, NASA-led human spaceflight program in order to maintain our international leadership in space and keep our economy strong. I will continue fighting at every opportunity to minimize the human spaceflight gap, protect jobs, and ensure a bright future for the Space Coast.
Update 6pm: Elon Musk had this response to Sen. Hutchison’s statement in a post-launch teleconference with reporters. “I don’t understand why she’s trying to hurt a Texas company. We do all of our engine development and testing in Texas. We’re one of the fastest growing employers in Texas. Why is she trying to hurt a Texas company? That’s wrong, and the people of Texas ought to be aware of that.”
Musk also noted that the successful launch “bodes very well for the Obama plan. It really helps vindicate the approach that he’s taking.” He later qualified that a little bit, saying that the success “vindicates the president’s plan to some degree” but that “it doesn’t show with unequivocal accuracy that it’s correct.”
Update 7:30 pm: POLITICO has some feedback from Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), long a vocal critic of the commercial spaceflight focus of the new NASA plan. He doesn’t appear to be exactly convinced of SpaceX’s capabilities after one launch:
Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, whose state of Alabama is also a NASA stronghold, further decried the launch as a display merely replicating what “NASA accomplished in 1964.”
“Belated progress for one so-called commercial provider must not be confused with progress for our nation’s human space flight program,” Shelby said. “As a nation, we cannot place our future space flight on one fledgling company’s definition of success.”
The article also notes that the launch was praised by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), who said it showed that the company will be “full operation delivering cargo to the International Space Station a year from now.” Musk mentioned in the post-launch press conference that he received a call after the launch from Nelson, who was “very excited”, Musk said.
June 4, 2010 at 7:29 am · Filed under Other
Later today SpaceX is scheduled to launch its first Falcon 9 rocket, technical issues and weather conditions permitting, from Cape Canaveral. The last hurdle to the launch, certification by the Air Force of a flight termination system for the rocket, was overcome Thursday. Successfully launching a new rocket is a challenge in and of itself, but SpaceX has an additional burden now as well: they have become, as Alan Stern described it in an essay in The Space Review this week, “a proxy for the success of the commercial space flight industry” thanks to the new focus on commercial spaceflight in the White House’s new plan for NASA.
Musk acknowledged that additional attention in a teleconference with reporters on Thursday. “I feel like sort of a political punching bag, a whipping boy, I suppose,” he said. To some critics of the new plan, SpaceX has become synonymous with commercial space transportation, a comparison Musk said wasn’t fair. “The opponents of the commercial approach have taken a very calculated strategy of attacking SpaceX” while ignoring the record of success by United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets, he said.
The Falcon 9 launch, he continued, “should not be a verdict on commercial space. Commercial space is the only way forward” because of the unsustainably high costs of government programs. He later said that “if some company like SpaceX doesn’t succeed, then the future of space is not a bright one.”
Despite Musk’s comments, it’s likely that the Falcon 9 launch will be watched closely in policy circles. A successful launch—the odds of which Musk estimated yesterday at 70-80 percent—might deflect some of the criticism, but a failure, especially a spectacular one, would probably heighten the rhetoric against the commercial aspects of the new plan (one imagines that at least one senator has a press release ready to go in the event of such a failure.) That might not be fair to SpaceX or the commercial space industry, but it is predictable.
June 3, 2010 at 7:53 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
Yesterday’s announcement of a $15-million Dept. of Labor grant for displaced KSC shuttle workers has a few people riled up around the Johnson Space Center, the Houston Chronicle reports. “This is a political statement by the White House and an attempt by this administration to divide the states,” said Bob Mitchell, head of the Bay Area Economic Partnership. While saying that Florida deserved the money, “It is just unfortunate that this administration continues to play games with the fine men and women who have dedicated their lives to human space exploration.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Parker Griffith (R-AL), who lost his primary election Tuesday, said he would continue to flight for Constellation for the remainder of his term in Congress. “Obama is sending the wrong message to our young community, who is interested in space exploration,” he said, as reported by WHNT-TV in Huntsville. “Obama has made a serious, serious error there, and we will fight daily to correct that.”
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