Obama: “pushing NASA to revamp its vision”

July 7, 2011 at 5:53 am · Filed under NASA, White House

Yesterday the White House hosted a “Twitter Town Hall”, where President Obama answered questions directed to him though Twitter. (Unlike the questions, the president’s answers were not restricted to 140 characters.) While much of the forum dealt with economic issues, one of the questions–perhaps not surprisingly, given that the final shuttle mission is set to launch on Friday–dealt with space policy: “Now that the space shuttle is gone, where does America stand in space exploration?”. The president’s response, from the official transcript:

We are still a leader in space exploration. But, frankly, I have been pushing NASA to revamp its vision. The shuttle did some extraordinary work in low-orbit experiments, the International Space Station, moving cargo. It was an extraordinary accomplishment and we’re very proud of the work that it did. But now what we need is that next technological breakthrough.

We’re still using the same models for space travel that we used with the Apollo program 30, 40 years ago. And so what we’ve said is, rather than keep on doing the same thing, let’s invest in basic research around new technologies that can get us places faster, allow human space flight to last longer.

And what you’re seeing now is NASA I think redefining its mission. And we’ve set a goal to let’s ultimately get to Mars. A good pit stop is an asteroid. I haven’t actually — we haven’t identified the actual asteroid yet, in case people are wondering. (Laughter.) But the point is, let’s start stretching the boundaries so we’re not doing the same thing over and over again, but rather let’s start thinking about what’s the next horizon, what’s the next frontier out there.

But in order to do that, we’re actually going to need some technological breakthroughs that we don’t have yet. And what we can do is for some of this low-orbit stuff, some of the more routine space travel — obviously no space travel is routine, but it could become more routine over time — let’s allow the private sector to get in so that they can, for example, send these low-Earth orbit vehicles into space and we may be able to achieve a point in time where those of you who are just dying to go into space, you can buy a ticket, and a private carrier can potentially take you up there, while the government focuses on the big breakthroughs that require much larger investments and involve much greater risk.

That’s a summation of previous policy on space, including his speech at the Kennedy Space Center in April 2010. While the president argued that NASA needs to stop “using the same models for space travel” that date back to Apollo, the NASA authorization act he signed last fall does include some elements, like the Space Launch System and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, that harken back to those old models and technologies. And as for his focus on technological breakthroughs, at almost the same time as he spoke, House appropriators released a draft FY12 appropriations bill that would cut the administration’s proposed spending on NASA’s space technology program by over 60 percent.

Comments (28)

House appropriators swing the budget axe

July 6, 2011 at 2:19 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA

The House Appropriations Committee released its draft Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill today, and the news is by and large not good for NASA. The committee is proposing $16.81 billion for NASA in FY12, nearly $2 billion less than the $18.724 billion in the president’s FY12 request. Here is an account-by-account comparison between the president’s budget request (PBR) and the House Appropriations Committee (HAC) draft bill (all values in millions of dollars):

Within Exploration, the House bill includes $1.063 billion for the MPCV and $1.985 billion for the SLS, both slightly higher than the administration’s request. In addition, although the text of the legislation doesn’t specifically mention it, the press release accompanying it states that the bill terminates funding for the James Webb Space Telescope because it is “billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management.” The CJS subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to mark up the bill tomorrow, with the full committee to take it up the following week.

Comments (68)

Americans want to be leaders in space exploration. But what does that mean?

July 6, 2011 at 5:28 am · Filed under Other

The Pew Research Center released poll results yesterday that concluded that Americans wants the US to remain leaders in space exploration. Fifty-eight percent of those polled said they agreed it was “essential” that the US “continue to be a world leader in space exploration”. Slightly higher positive responses came from people with family incomes in excess of $75,000, and somewhat more Republicans said yes than Democrats or independents; there was little differentiation based on education.

This is the first time that Pew has asked this question, so there are no comparable previous poll results. (Pew asked in the same poll if the shuttle program had been a good investment for the country, and 55% said yes; that sounds good until you see that in previous polls in the 1980s that number had been as high as 73%.) However, one problem with the question is that the poll doesn’t define what it means for the US to be a “world leader” in space exploration. Does it mean having any kind of human spaceflight program? One that is oriented to going to the Moon? to Mars? to a near Earth asteroid? One that relies exclusively on its own government-owned and -operated crewed spacecraft, or one that purchases flights to at least low Earth orbit? Or, perhaps, one that places a much greater emphasis on robotic planetary exploration over human spaceflight altogether? Different people can have very different reasons for answering yes. Perhaps more telling, though, is that no matter how you define leadership in space exploration, nearly two in five Americans polled don’t think it’s essential.

Comments (26)

Still waiting on an SLS

July 2, 2011 at 11:08 am · Filed under NASA, Other

Going into Friday afternoon’s speech at the National Press Club, there was little expectation that NASA administrator Charles Bolden would make any major announcements, including on the agency’s plans for the Space Launch System (SLS). And that’s how it turned out: his speech was focused on the agency’s general plans for life after the space shuttle, and for a more general audience.

Bolden specifically sought to counter the belief in some quarters that the end of the shuttle program was tantamount to the end of human spaceflight or even the space program itself. “Some say that our final shuttle mission will mark the end of America’s 50-year dominance in human spaceflight,” he said. “As a former astronaut, as the current NASA administrator, i’m here to tell you that American leadership in space will continue for at least, at least the next half-century because we’ve laid the foundation for success, and for us at NASA, failure is not an option.” A little later in the speech, he was even more to the point. “So, when I hear people say, or listen to the media reports, that the final shuttle flight marks the end of US human spaceflight, I have to tell you: you must all be living on another planet.”

(The only news that arguably came out of the address had nothing to do with Bolden or NASA: in brief comments at the end of the luncheon, retiring astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, knocked down rumors that he was eying a political career. “My main focus right now, and for the foreseeable future, is Gabby’s recovery and also spending some more time with my kids,” he said, referring to his wife’s continuing recovery from a near-fatal shooting in January. Rumors about him potentially running for Giffords’ House seat or the open Senate seat in Arizona in 2012 had been in the media in recent weeks, although based almost wholly in speculation and not on anything Kelly had said or done. At least one news outlet tried to keep the story alive, though: “Giffords’ husband rules out run for public office — at least for now” was the headline in The Hill.)

In his speech, Bolden said little about plans for the SLS, other than “we’re nearing a decision” on it and “we’ll announce that soon”. While not surprising, the lack of a formal announcement about the agency’s SLS plans–or even the specific timing of that announcement–has disappointed industry. “We had been hearing a few weeks ago that the plan was to get all this done and make some sort of formal announcement on or before July 8,” when Atlantis is set to launch on the final shuttle mission, Jim Maser, president of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR), said in an interview earlier Friday. Now, though, he said he’s not certain an announcement will come by the scheduled launch.

Maser, who made clear in March his desire for a decision on NASA’s future programs, including the SLS, still has that same sense of urgency, if not greater. “Now that the shuttle is finally ending, there’s a huge sense of urgency in industry” to know what those plans are, he said, adding he wasn’t concerned about the specifics of the plan so much as having a firm direction for industry: “We need a plan, the direction where we’re going.” He said his company would be “fine” with some of the rumored SLS designs leaked in recent weeks that would use Space Shuttle Main Engines and the J-2X, both manufactured by PWR.

Maser said in the interview that he’s had to give layoff notices to about 300 PWR employees, but some of those notices could be rescinded if a decision on SLS comes soon. “I don’t think we can wait any longer than the end of this fiscal year,” or the end of September, he said. “We’d like to see something in July.” He noted that the end of July will mark a year and a half since the administration’s original announcement that it was canceling Constellation without a firm replacement plan in place. “The only word I have for that is pathetic.”

Comments (120)