Congress, NASA

Senate NASA appropriations hearing postponed

Thursday’s scheduled hearing by the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee on the NASA budget, scheduled for Thursday, has been postponed, according to the committee’s calendar. NASA administrator Charles Bolden was scheduled to testify. The hearing has been rescheduled for Thursday, May 5th, at 10:30 am. No reason for the postponement was announced.

A reminder that a hearing on NASA’s exploration program by the space subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee remains on for this morning at 10 am. The witnesses are Doug Cooke, NASA associate administrator for exploration; Scott Pace of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute; and Jim Maser, chairman of AIAA’s corporate membership committee and also president of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. The hearing will be webcast.

54 comments to Senate NASA appropriations hearing postponed

  • DCSCA

    More free drift.

  • Paul

    Geraldine Ferraro’s mass is Thursday in NYC. That may account in part for the postponement.

  • An early transcript of today’s hearing:

    Rep. A: “Where’s my pork?”

    Rep. B: “Where’s my pork?”

    Rep. C: “Where’s my pork?”

    Wouldn’t it be fun if one of the witnesses said, “Rep. C, Reps. A and B have your pork” then sit back and watch them turn on each other.

  • The hearing has been rescheduled for Thursday, May 5th, at 10:30 am. No reason for the postponement was announced.

    It just goes to show how “important” NASA is to the professional politicians, in spite of what we space cadets spew about.

    Also get ready for a government shutdown after April 8th; http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/who-wins-in-a-government-showdown/2011/03/29/AFEGbZzB_blog.html

    It doesn’t look good for a NASA budget this fiscal year.

  • Robert G. Oler

    It is OK…as long as the GOP Tea Party folks are arguing over 30 billion dollars of cuts in a trillion plus deficit it is pretty clear that we are not in an environment to make any serious decisions.

    But remember…Commercial space keeps moving forward…and the end of the shuttle era keeps coming

    Robert G. Oler

  • But remember…Commercial space keeps moving forward…and the end of the shuttle era keeps coming

    Yeah, but Robert with only CRs, the commercial companies won’t get any part(s) of the $200 million apportion for this year will they?

    They’ll be only able to carry out the existing contracts for COTS, right?

  • Robert G. Oler

    dad2059 wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 8:28 am

    we are at a sad time in American political history where the political parties which are so important to our political system…have completely stopped functioning Both sides are sort of like the reactors in Japan just slowly melting down, going through one containment vessel after another as the workers try and pour water to cool it down …and nothing works.

    We have been here before and come through it, but in the end you sort of sense that the political parties are just imploding

    Robert G. Oler

  • The webcast is live … or “webast” as it’s described on the page. Thanks for the link, Jeff.

  • Robert G. Oler

    dad2059 wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 9:02 am ..

    the way this is working is that the trick is to keep the options “you” want alive and figure out how to let “events” kill off the options one does not want.

    As long as SpaceX is “making progress” and flying more and more in incremental steps, they are doing better then either Cx or the Shuttle derived vehicle or whatever else is stuck on view graphs. I suspect that SpaceX is going to give a go at a “station flyby” and that will be very very important.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Dennis Berube

    You know if our Congress critters, were voting on a big pay raise for themselves, it would have already been accomplished!

  • Major Tom

    “Yeah, but Robert with only CRs, the commercial companies won’t get any part(s) of the $200 million apportion for this year will they?

    They’ll be only able to carry out the existing contracts for COTS, right?”

    Nope, the usual rule is that you can’t start a new, unappropriated program (like SLS or MPCV) under a continuing resolution. But you can continue spending on an existing program with prior appropriations (like commercial crew, which started in FY 2010, IIRC) under a continuing resolution, as long as you don’t exceed the rate of expenditure from the prior fiscal year (FY 2010, in this case).

    So NASA will be able to make commercial crew awards. It’s just a question of how they phase the milestones in FY 2011 so they don’t exceed the spending in FY 2010. But NASA can’t start spending on SLS or MPCV until they have appropriated budgets in FY 2011.

    That said, exceptions (called “anomalies”) are written into continuing resolutions all the time, so you have to read the actual CR language to know for sure.

    FWIW…

  • I listened to only the first few minutes before I had to go. Rep. Hall, the committee chairman, said there was no more need to study SLS, it’s time for NASA to go build it!

    These guys really are lost in space.

  • common sense

    Could it be it was postponed because by now they (should?) already knew Charles Bolden’s answers to the SLS/MPCV?

    And the famous headless chicken to run in circles, run in circles, in circles…

    Oh well…

  • Alan

    There is always COTS-D for SpaceX and COTS-C and COTS-D for OSC… They do have existing contracts.

  • Alan

    * Capability level C: Internal pressurized cargo delivery, return and recovery

    * Capability level D: Crew Transportation.

  • Nope, the usual rule is that you can’t start a new, unappropriated program (like SLS or MPCV) under a continuing resolution. But you can continue spending on an existing program with prior appropriations (like commercial crew, which started in FY 2010, IIRC) under a continuing resolution, as long as you don’t exceed the rate of expenditure from the prior fiscal year (FY 2010, in this case).

    Thanks MT, I couldn’t remember if the $200 million appropriation was FY2010 or ’11.

    …Rep. Hall, the committee chairman, said there was no more need to study SLS, it’s time for NASA to go build it!

    Not without a budget of some kind NASA isn’t and unless Mr. Boehner learns how to herd cats (TEA Partiers) real soon, nobody else is going to get one either.

  • amightywind

    Rep. Hall, the committee chairman, said there was no more need to study SLS, it’s time for NASA to go build it!

    I said the same thing earlier this week when I declared that it was, “time to cut metal.” Great minds think alike. The political compromise has been made. It is time for Bolden to salute and say, “yes, sir!” It should come naturally to him. This country needs a new space fleet, a fleet of very large rockets.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Yeah, but Robert with only CRs, the commercial companies won’t get any part(s) of the $200 million apportion for this year will they?

    Starving the beast is more important than funding commercial crew. The Shuttle political industrial complex, once dead, will stay dead. By contrast, there will always be opportunities for stimulating commercial manned spaceflight. And even if the outcome were no government funded manned spaceflight at all, then that is not necessarily a bad thing, since the case for public funding is weak to begin with.

  • Justin Kugler

    This country needs a set of goals for its space policy and a budget to implement that policy, so NASA can go do the trades and analysis to determine the best technical solutions to meet those goals. We do not need Congress telling us to go build big rockets just because they say so.

  • Joe

    “Martijn Meijering wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
    Starving the beast is more important than funding commercial crew.”

    So destroying is more important than building. Thanks for stating that explicitly.

  • Martijn Meijering

    So destroying is more important than building.

    Not in general of course, but in the case of the Shuttle political industrial complex, yes. It is an obstacle to all progress. There can’t be any building until its gone.

  • Coastal Ron

    Joe wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 3:20 pm

    So destroying is more important than building.

    You say destroying, I say ending.

    However, you see retaining a 30-year old set of technologies, plus their cost structures, as the best & least expensive way to move forward? Explain.

  • Das Boese

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 10:58 am

    As long as SpaceX is “making progress” and flying more and more in incremental steps, they are doing better then either Cx or the Shuttle derived vehicle or whatever else is stuck on view graphs. I suspect that SpaceX is going to give a go at a “station flyby” and that will be very very important.

    I still hope that they combine the flyby and berthing demo on Dragon’s next flight. Both SpaceX and NASA have hinted at the possibility, but there haven’t been news about this in recent weeks.

  • Aberwys

    FWIW, he was double-booked and had another speaking engagement. Somehow that trumped the hearing?!

  • Joe

    “Martijn Meijering wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
    So destroying is more important than building.

    Not in general of course, but in the case of the Shuttle political industrial complex, yes. It is an obstacle to all progress. There can’t be any building until its gone.”

    The “Shuttle political industrial complex”, it would be truly interesting to know what General Eisenhower would think of all the uses to which that phrase (actually the “Military Industrial Complex” when he originated it) has been stretched to cover.

  • Coastal Ron

    Das Boese wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 4:31 pm

    Both SpaceX and NASA have hinted at the possibility, but there haven’t been news about this in recent weeks.

    The last ISS briefing I saw on NASA TV, the NASA guy (not Suffredini) said that they were still in negotiations with SpaceX on the matter.

  • Martijn Meijering

    The “Shuttle political industrial complex”, it would be truly interesting to know what General Eisenhower would think of all the uses to which that phrase (actually the “Military Industrial Complex” when he originated it) has been stretched to cover.

    There are many corrupt interconnections between various sectors of the economy and the government. It happens in your country, in mine and all over the world. Eisenhower (or his advisers) coined a memorable phrase to describe it. Shuttle political industrial complex is an accurate description and an apt application of Eisenhower’s term.

    More importantly, it needs to go. I look forward to the day when most of the current members of the Shuttle workforce will start contributing to the future of manned spaceflight.

  • Joe

    Martijn Meijering wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 5:27 pm
    “Eisenhower (or his advisers) coined a memorable phrase to describe it. Shuttle political industrial complex is an accurate description and an apt application of Eisenhower’s term.”

    Yeah, well I have to admit I am not a clairvoyant, so I cannot channel the General so I guess I will just have to take your word that it “is an accurate description and an apt application of Eisenhower’s term”.

    By the way, since it seems to confuse a good number of people around here that was sarcasm.

  • Bennett

    @Martijn and Joe

    The way I’ve heard it, the original phrase was “military-industrial-congressional complex” (how perfect) but was changed to the shorter form used in his speech.

    According to wikipedia, there isn’t any evidence that this is the case.

  • By the way, since it seems to confuse a good number of people around here that was sarcasm.

    Actual sarcasm confuses few — it’s failed attempts at it that end up being misquotes that result in problems.

  • Coastal Ron

    Joe wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 5:39 pm

    By the way, since it seems to confuse a good number of people around here that was sarcasm.

    Maybe you’re not good at it if you have to tell people you’re doing it… ;-)

  • Coastal Ron wrote:

    The last ISS briefing I saw on NASA TV, the NASA guy (not Suffredini) said that they were still in negotiations with SpaceX on the matter.

    A SpaceX employee came into our history center a couple weeks ago and pretty much said the same thing, although he seemed to be optimistic they’ll get to combine the test flights.

  • Das Boese

    Coastal Ron wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 4:57 pm

    Good to hear it’s still on the table!

  • DCSCA

    @Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 10:58 am

    “As long as SpaceX is “making progress”…”

    … at going no place fast. First quarter of 2011 is coming to a close. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

  • Joe

    Rand Simberg wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
    “Actual sarcasm confuses few — it’s failed attempts at it that end up being misquotes that result in problems.”

    Thanks “Captain Quotation Marks” (here I am quoting myself, so I assume you will not try to make me stand in the corner) its good to know you are maintaining your obsession for trivia since you apparently have nothing better to do.

    Coastal Ron wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 6:40 pm
    “Maybe you’re not good at it if you have to tell people you’re doing it… ”

    Or maybe if you were not so dense. :)

  • Coastal Ron

    Joe wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    Or maybe if you were not so dense.

    Hey, I’m not the one that has to alert people when I’m mocking them… ;-)

    But now that you have that out of your system, are you ready to get back to space-related topics?

  • Or maybe if you were not so dense

    No, pretty clearly CS has the better explanation. Judging by the number of supporters as opposed to critics you have in comments, anyway…

    Have you ever heard the advice about drunks in bars…?

  • NASA Fan

    @ Justin K: “This country needs a set of goals for its space policy and a budget to implement that policy,”

    You have hit the nail on the head. The problem is, as Robert points out quite a bit, is there is no alignment between all the stakeholders of HSF on what the purpose for HSF (goals) is. Congress is split with itself, to the point that their own authorization language self contradicts. Joe six pack doesn’t give a dang. The WH wants it all to go away. States with a NASA Center want something, and states w/o want to fund thier pork with NASA money.

    The last time there was alignment of the stakeholders, sufficient to sustain large budget over time to do some real new development was Apollo. And that ended the moment it was clear we would land on the moon.

    The only thing most are aligned on, is how embarrassed we’d look if we canceled the ISS. So it keeps going to avoid looking bad, vs. keeps going because it’s making a significant scientific difference for the republic.

    And since I don’t see any thing that any space advocate could communicate that would galvanize enough of the stakeholders to achieve some alignment, the future of Manned space flight will look pretty much like it does now: in dis array, a jobs/pork program, lost in space, leaving the true believers cynical about government.

    If JWST fails, and the dunderheads in Congress ask ‘how come we can’t go and fix it with Astronauts’, then maybe folks will see a need for Astro’s in space: to be a backstop against a $6to 7B lost in space , science mission.

    Other than that, it all makes for a great museum of American Space History

  • Vladislaw

    “The political compromise has been made. It is time for Bolden to salute and say, “yes, sir!” “

    General Bolden is under the executive branch, he salutes the Commander in Chief not congress.

  • Beancounter from Downunder

    DCSCA wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 8:46 pm
    @Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 30th, 2011 at 10:58 am

    “As long as SpaceX is “making progress”…”

    “… at going no place fast. First quarter of 2011 is coming to a close. Tick-tock, tick-tock.”

    Faster than Congress and their rocket that’s for sure. Check you clock DCSCA, I think the mechanism’s jammed.

  • Bryan R

    @ Justin K: “This country needs a set of goals for its space policy and a budget to implement that policy,”

    While I agree, and also agree with most of what NASA Fan writes, the problem as I see it is just as much and maybe more an internal problem. The Vision of 2004 gave NASA the ownership and responsibility to define the way forward. As Justin K says, why would a bunch of politicians proscribe what the rocket engineers need to build?

    We saw one NASA leader, Dr.Griffin, come up with a plan that was not only not supportable and affordable, it really lacked a goal other than repeating Apollo. We have had a lot of wonderful leaders for the last decade-people like Bill Gerstenmaier, or Wayne Hale, John Shannon, Mike Suffredini, Doug Cooke, Laurie Hansen, Charlie Stegemoeller, Mike Coats, Robert Lightfoot, along with the top level managers of Boeing and Lockheed and USA…and dozens of others.

    Not a single one of these ‘leaders’ has put forward a plan. In fact all of them do nothing but parrot “we just do what we are told and what we are given money for”. These are the titular leaders of our space program, Not a single one has ever led a damn thing. A few are reasonably competent technical managers; some kept the Shuttle flying after Columbia, but some of the same were directly responsible for not having fixed the problems that caused the accident in the first place; they just were not in the wrong chair at the wrong time. Several of these people have never done that much good for their programs or for the nation. Leadership? Where? No signs of it.

    When NASA and the space industry come up with a supportable, affordable, meaningful plan, that is when the public and Congress might begin to see some reason. People then might get behind the program. The kind of people I name here are the ones who have a voice; they’ve had it for a long time. If they speak out, someone might listen and hear. All of them have been top level managers for a decade or longer. They have never offered a meaningful plan. They were the first to fall in line behind the Griffin debacle.

    If they do not do the job, and there is no reason to expect, after a decade, that they can or will do anything different than what they have been doing, then it is time for the young turks to rise up and offer the alternative.

    What we need first is competent leadership.

  • Dennis Berube

    Heres a question: If and when the James Webb flys, should it need servicing, could a craft like the CST-100 and or Dragon caarry out the procedure? Congress and NASA should consider all of these options. Add to that, could Soyuz. Wasnt a Soyuz flight looked at the refurbish the Hubble at one time?

  • Das Boese

    Dennis Berube wrote @ March 31st, 2011 at 8:25 am

    Heres a question: If and when the James Webb flys, should it need servicing, could a craft like the CST-100 and or Dragon caarry out the procedure? Congress and NASA should consider all of these options. Add to that, could Soyuz. Wasnt a Soyuz flight looked at the refurbish the Hubble at one time?

    JWST is not designed to be serviceable.

  • amightywind

    Wasnt a Soyuz flight looked at the refurbish the Hubble at one time?

    A Soyuz isn’t large enough for the occupants to carry their lunch, let alone new HST instruments. Also, once docked the occupants have no way to get out! That aside, I am sure Soyuz is being given full consideration for the mission by the progressive thinkers at NASA.

  • Justin Kugler

    I hear ya, Bryan. Unfortunately, many engineers look on the political side of our profession with distrust and disdain. There are very few people that are willing and able to bridge those two worlds.

  • Manny Bergstrom

    I agree with Kugler, Bryan and NASAFan. Show me some space program leaders who have shown even the slightest amount of initiative and creativity; the ability to think outside the box. Those are the kinds of leaders we need. I have not seen any of that since the Vision.

  • Dennis Berube

    Well whether James Webb could be serviced if something went really wrong, remains to be seen. However I am sure Soyuz was considered as an approach to fixing Hubble. My memory isnt that bad. As to egress from Soyuz, I thought the orbital module had two hatches, one for the docking area, and its own separate, one for cosmonauts to egress for space walks. Seems to me that was planned on at one time, on one of the missions, where the crew would transfer from one Soyuz to the other, not utilzing the docking port. Oh well.

  • pathfnder_01

    Denis, Capsules in general are bad at servicing things. Soyuz can not get into the same orbit as Hubble and can only support a crew for 4 days. I am not sure if the current version of soyuz supports space walks.

    Orion would be your best bet for service the telescope as it is planned to have 21 days worth of life support. Orion however lacks airlock (have to depressurize the whole capsule) and robot arm. JWT I think has a grapple for a robot arm but no more. It is not built to be serviced. Hubble can be docked with now but that is the limit of it.

    CST100 probably does not support spacewalks at all. Future versions of Dragon might but space X is unclear as to those plans. Dreamchaser likewise lacks an airlock or clear ability to support spacewalks.

  • common sense

    @ Bryan R wrote @ March 31st, 2011 at 8:14 am

    “In fact all of them do nothing but parrot “we just do what we are told and what we are given money for”. These are the titular leaders of our space program, Not a single one has ever led a damn thing. ”

    You need to understand (?) how some one, any one, behaves in order to climb the corporate ladder and that is key to your comments. It is NOT about leadership. It has everything to do with supporting, emulating the immediate supervisor, be it even a CEO, or NASA Admin…

    When you actually lead you tend to make waves, you tend to put yourself but also others in the spotlight. Even though this is great behavior I believe it also is not so good for your career. Such is life. Usually a great leader does not belong to any corporate structure such as NASA or Boeing or any of those giants. A great leader, whether we like it or not, would be people like Steve Jobs or Burt Rutan, or even Elon Musk. But they do not belong to government supported corporate structures. Neither would survive in such a place.

    We always hear about changing the mentality or culture at NASA. Well you CANNOT. It is the way the system works, the way people climb into management position. In order to change the culture you would have to, for example, merge NASA with, I don’t know, SpaceX, Masten, XCOR? And put some of these companies leaders in charge. But the inertia would make the change very long. You will not do it otherwise well unless you close NASA down and rehire people from a really diverse background. Also and more importantly you need to remove or replace the holders of the purse, the customers, in that case Congress. The management chain only is responding to its share holders, the Congress.

    So bottom line is you will never, ever see the leadership you seem to crave for at NASA. Note further that in that regard I am finally inclined to believe that Charles Bolden is doing just what is needed. It may not be spectacular but who cares if it is effective.

    FWIW.

  • Dennis Berube

    Pathfinder, yes American capsules had to depressurize the whole cabin in order to open to space. As to Dragon I dont know. Probably the CST-100 will be able to, just as Apollo and or Orion do and did, the whole cabin. As to Soyuz, not being able to make Hubbles orbit, with a kicker stage it can go to the Moon. There is even some talk of that now. Soyuz was originally intended for lunar flights, so I think its longevity for lunar missions is still a go, if Russia wanted it! I do believe that the Soyuz in its original design could be exited via a separate hatch in the orbital compartment. The orbital compartment on the Chinese version also has an egress hatch, as has been already demonstrated on past flights. This egress hatch is speparate from its docking nose area.

  • Manny Bergstrom

    Common sense-you are probably right. But the top leadership, Mr. Bolden, who had been away from NASA for a long enough time, needs to take a serious look at the organization, the products, the process, and the budget, and he’d better start some serious changes, or else NASA’s human space program will end. It might be good for others like some of the NewSpace companies, but NASA needs a major overhaul yesterday. If I were Bolden, I’d roll a lot of heads in order to establish a new leadership model.

  • common sense

    @ Manny Bergstrom wrote @ March 31st, 2011 at 6:47 pm

    I hear you and I thought he would do so but it is more complicated than just firing people. See for example, Constellation is still ongoing whether we like it or not. Why would you get rid of its current leadership, those who know it best? Who would replace them? Who would take the helm of a cancelled program? Those in the pipeline are those who followed the corporate structure at NASA which means you would most likely get more of the same behavior.

    Thanks to Congress, not Bolden, not Musk, not even ATK, but thanks to Congress NASA HSF is on the brink of extinction. The status of Constellation was well known even before this WH came to power. No one acted. I mean no one but Griffin who pushed it as far as it would go and now it’s looking at the precipice.

    Another point I’d like to make. In the end it’s of benefit to nobody if NASA HSF sinks. “Newspace” will not gain if NASA takes a nose dive and I don’t think they wish for that much.

    NASA has been kept as a Cold War relic by the Congress and we can all hear the nonsense of the national security argument. No one wanted it to change so long the money was flowing. Well times are achanging now…

    Oh well…

  • pathfnder_01

    CST100 does not support space walks at all. It would only have a 48 hour lifetime in orbit. The current version of Soyuz does not support spacewalks and is not lunar capable but it is possible to make Soyuz lunar capable again (i.e. build and test upgrades) and previous versions did support spacewalks through a side hatch in the orbital module.

    Having airlocks at the ISS pretty much gets rid of most reasons why a capsule would spacewalk and capsules are at their best transporting people from place to place. They are bad if you need to do work in space(i.e. Fix Hubble or JWT) or be in space long term(months).

    As for lunar Soyuz with a kick stage, yes that is possible in fact I really like the idea but changing planes in LEO is very costly more costly than looping around the moon. ISS and Hubble are in different planes. Only way Soyuz can get there is if they launch out of Gaina and again current version only has 4 days orbit. The shuttle can stay 13-16 days in space (if they ever rebuilt the extended duration kit lost with Columbia) or about 10 days without it.

    CST100, Orion, and Soyuz can be stored at a space station for months but have limited time when they can support a crew in orbit by themselves. Of these Orion can support a crew the longest at 21 days.

    Orion,CST100, Dragon, Cygnus, Dreamchaser, New Sheppard and Prometheus won’t be a shuttle replacement. They won’t be a large general purpose spacecraft capable of acting as a pseudo space station and returning large items from orbit. They are smaller more specialized crafts. The ability that will be lost with the shuttle is the ability to return large objects.

    You could design some sort of disposable airlock/robot arm kit for say Orion but that is the limit of its ability to repair anything.

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