Obama: “pushing NASA to revamp its vision”

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 […]

House appropriators swing the budget axe

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 […]

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

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 […]

Still waiting on an SLS

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 […]