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(Washington, DC September 10, 2010) — The National Space Society (NSS) is today reaffirming its longstanding and unwavering commitment to further space exploration and development, by calling on the Executive and Legislative branches to incorporate their various proposals into a Unified Space Policy so that the United States can once again begin to move beyond low Earth orbit. Congress and the Administration need to work together to determine the best path forward relative to our space program, including how best to leverage the necessary partnership between the public and private sectors relative to launch capabilities and how best to maintain a skilled work force.

The NSS emphatically requests that the House of Representatives adopt the Senate version of the NASA Authorization Act of 2010.

NSS believes that the Senates bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2010 represents the most promising of the options that have been proposed to date. The Senate bill provides a framework for compromise, which will be required in order to obtain the widespread political support necessary to pass and fund a set of programs that together will enable the United States to once again move beyond low Earth orbit. Significantly, the Senate bill seeks to make use of the work force and infrastructure made available by the imminent retirement of the Space Shuttle by speeding the development of a new Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV), which the bill specifies should be in service by 2016. The Senate bill tasks NASA with developing and building an evolvable system which can incorporate emerging technological advances, and also demands that NASA and Congress work together to accomplish this task within a specific, affordable, and sustainable budget.

In addition, the bill also preserves the primary initiatives included in the Administration’s budget proposal, such as support for using commercial providers to transport cargo and crew to and from the International Space Station, funding for technology development programs, and a firm commitment to science. Indeed, the Senate bill specifically authorizes development of in-space capabilities such as refueling and storage technology, orbital transfer systems, innovative in-space propulsion technology, communications, and data management. Although the amounts allocated in the Senate bill for commercial crew and technology development are less than the amounts proposed by the Administration, they still represent a significant increase in funding for and commitment to both commercial space and technology development.

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NSS Action Alert:
NASA Authorization Act

NSS has emphatically requested that the House of Representatives adopt the Senate version of the NASA Authorization Act of 2010. See below for the NSS statement.

The vote on this issue is now imminent!

Please call your Congressman today and let them know how you stand on this issue and what you would like them to do.

Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Representative.
Or, use the following link to find their numbers directly http://www.congress.org/congressorg/officials/congress.
Remember that telephone calls are usually taken by a staff member, not the member of Congress. Ask to speak with the aide who handles the issue about which you wish to comment. After identifying yourself, tell the aide you would like to leave a brief message, such as:

“Please tell Representative (Name) that I support adopting the Senate version of the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and request that he/she do so as well.”

Also state reasons for your support of the bill. You may email them a copy of the NSS Press Release. You may also request a written response to your telephone call.

The legislative wrestling match, at times irrational and incoherent, is slowly and painfully shedding an inadequate architecture and business model. What replaces it is anyone’s guess until an appropriations bill is sent to the Oval Office.

Space advocates of most stripes can see Mike Thomas as a sideshow. Certainly a lot of worthy efforts come from NASA below the radar, in aeronautics, remote sensing, et al. It is the HSF, space tech, commercial and robotics on the congressional game board, not the whole of NASA.

Supporting the program that goes nowhere slowly might keep on a few more years, but a history of over promising and under performing, mixed with the approaching budget climate, might simply leave NASA with a virtual in-house POR, while it contracts for actual LEO services, with increasing frequency and superb results.

That will be the NASA the next generation grows up with, and that NASA will more easily find the now elusive public support they sought for a parade of unsupportable proposals in the past.

Mike Thomas just takes the easy road of slogans and ridicule. When those of us that have worked with Charlie Bolden read that he is “Ballast” we know that Mike Thomas has no idea what he is talking about. Charlie has one of the more difficult jobs in history but no one in their right mind would think he is ballast.

Now we do have to admit that even the Senate bill underestimates the difficulty of the road ahead of us, but it is a start.

Now we should all dream that one day Charlie Bolden meets Mike Thomas behind the VAB, with no press watching. Perhaps Mike would find out that Charlie is a warrior and a tough, determined leader. Not some dilettante who sits in his comfy office and makes fun of people who are do some amazing things in a very difficult environment.

If you read this… I don’t know Isakowitz but when I read his bio I was really impressed and I thought this is my first choice, as if I had a say… Anyway I think you aptly describe the current state of the affairs at NASA when you describe the selection of the NASA Admin. The mingling of Congress with the choice of the Admin is outrageous. At this stage I am not sure what to think about Charles Bolden though. I think he did the right thing in the middle east for example but I don’t quite understand what I read such as HEFT. What the “heft” is that? Could not resist sorry. Another plan with no cash to support it. Even more ambitious than the former Constellation.

Here is my crystal ball prediction: If NASA chooses to pursue HEFT, vocally (not financially mind you) supported by (any) Congress bill then NASA HSF will disappear. The gap will be in forever until someone will switch off the lights. Bottom line is that the WH plan is the best plan for NASA today. Plans are meant to be changed over time. Constellation died because it could not change the destination, the launchers, could not change anything.

I think the WH put their best effort behind the plan if not the roll out. But hey we’re the nation of Hollywood so we have to have a roll out for the plan, never mind whether it is good or bad. It has to be spectacular so that the failure will be as much. But no. Constellation was spectacular and it ended without even a puff.

So yeah let us support stupidity. High stupidity: The House. Low stupidity: The Senate. The choice is between stupid and stupid. Great.

What is it going to be?

there was a moment, Rich might still recall it, we were on our bikes together riding…when one just figured out that the entire management infrastructure of the agency was not all that much dedicated to what was done in space, but what empires/etc were built on earth…and the dogged opposition to anything that did not start with “the shuttle payload bay” sort of made it for me.

At the end maintaining the program (now its Cx) has become more important then what the program does. If you look at NASA’s theories on how to explore an asteroid…it is just the latest effort at yet another Battlestar Galactica program…

And like everything else in our country now the people who will get screwed are not the folks who made the wrong decisions, but the ones who do the work.

Robert G. Oler

Re.: Shuttle-C and Shuttle-Z,

It is something of a ‘what if…?’ for me, a favored passtime that does little harm. How different might have the shuttle program been if, along with the orbiter, there had been a cargo launcher with similar capabilities to the one currently being proposed by JSC? The ISS certainly would have been finished earlier. It is unlikely that there would have been as many ‘make-weight’ shuttle missions so that satellites could be launched from the payload bay. We may even have seen lunar missions with the side-mount delivering the lander & EDS to LEO and the shuttle supplying the ERV and crew!

Oh well…