Is Huntsville’s “best friend” for NASA a freshman Democrat?

By Jeff Foust on 2011 June 14 at 7:33 am ET

On Friday Huntsville’s “Second to None” task force, a group of local officials who lobby on space and defense issues, met with a member of Congress. Not the area’s own representative, Mo Brooks (R-AL), but with Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL) from Birmingham. And afterwards local officials declared her their newest ally in supporting NASA, and […]

Filed under: Congress, Lobbying, NASA | 11 comments

Gingrich and Pawlenty debate space policy in New Hampshire

By Jeff Foust on 2011 June 13 at 11:28 pm ET

Space policy made a cameo appearance in Monday night’s Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire, with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich arguing for greater privatization of the space program while former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty said that the space program should be “refocused” but not eliminated.

The discussion was kicked off by a […]

Filed under: Campaign '12 | 145 comments

A “pretty bleak picture” for a weather satellite program

By Jeff Foust on 2011 June 10 at 8:34 am ET

Later this morning a Delta 2 rocket is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, carrying the Aquarius/SAC-D earth sciences satellite to orbit. That mission, designed to study ocean salinity and its effect on global climate, has not been immune to the delays that affect many satellite programs: it was originally […]

Filed under: Other | 23 comments

President Obama: “I believe in the space program”

By Jeff Foust on 2011 June 9 at 1:15 pm ET

Earlier this week reporter Leon Bibb of Cleveland’s WEWS-TV briefly interviewed President Obama at the White House. About halfway through the wide-ranging ten-minute interview, Bibb asked Obama about the future of NASA, with a particular emphasis on the future of the agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. “With the space shuttle program cutting back now, […]

Filed under: NASA, White House | 107 comments

Briefs: strange space bedfellows, human spaceflight poll, Mars mission budget squeeze

By Jeff Foust on 2011 June 8 at 8:09 am ET

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a Tea Party group saying it’s in agreement with a pair of Democratic senators. Florida-based TEA Party in Space (TPIS), part of the larger Tea Party Patriots coalition, announced Monday that it has “publicly praised” a letter from Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to NASA […]

Filed under: Lobbying, NASA, Other | 34 comments

Competing heavy lift

By Jeff Foust on 2011 June 5 at 12:35 pm ET

As first reported by Space News last Thursday, California’s two senators have asked NASA to hold an open competition for the development of the Space Launch System (SLS), the heavy-lift vehicle Congress directed NASA to develop in the 2010 NASA authorization act. In their letter to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and […]

Filed under: Congress, NASA | 115 comments
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