As expected, the House passed on Thursday the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill largely along party lines, 247-163. After the series of amendments on Tuesday, including one that was approved that cut $126 million from NASA’s cross-agency support account, the remainder of the debate largely focused on other areas of the bill. Reps. John Tierney (D-MA) and Trey Gowdy (R-SC) did introduce an amendment Wednesday that would have transferred $10 million from the “Mars Next Decade” line in the budget (for NASA’s restructured Mars exploration program) to a loan repayment program for state prosecutors and public defenders, but the amendment was defeated 260-160. The full Senate has yet to act on its own version of the CJS appropriations bill, and a final funding bill may not come until after the November election.
Given the fight that The HOuse is picking over going back on the budget deal, this budget probably is dead on arrival. With no real enemies we are spending about as much money in constant dollars as we did in 1945 fighting a two front war…
and of course cutting defense spending was part of the deal, a part that the GOP came up with…so their word is useless.
at some point the election sorts this out RGO
Frank Wolf used the “If you hate NASA then maybe you should vote for this ammendment” line a few times. I knew it was going to backfire at some point. But whatever… downselect language is still present so I’m pissed. Why didn’t Rohrabacher have an amendment when he spoke out against downselect? Didn’t want to rock the boat too much since he wants to head the committee next term?
So which will be worse, an incoming DEM House looking to spend money on social issues or a reelected GOP House looking to cram old expensive NASA down every-bodies’ throat?
Why didn’t Rohrabacher have an amendment when he spoke out against downselect?
It’s not worth the effort. The down-select language is just report language, and has no legal force, and there will be another opportunity to fix it in conference, in the unlikely event that the Senate actually passes their own version.
“…on Tuesday, including one that was approved that cut $126 million from NASA’s cross-agency support account…” Meanwhile, MSM completely overllooks the massive waste by the Congress, spending $100 million to search for sites for a muiti-billion dollar missile defense systm along the East Coast the DoD keeps saying it doesn’t want. Of course, w/missile subs, and missile installations at Cape Canaveral and At Wallops, it’s simply an absurd piece of pork. And to cap off the day, MSNBC’s resident bumpkin, Joe Scarrborough hyped for three hours the pending appearance on his show of astronauts Neil Arnstrong and Mark Kelly from Scarrborough’s former constituency, Pensacola, to discuss the future on the space program— and of course, the media lightweight and former GOP congressman got it wrong- It was Gene Cernan,not Armstrong, with Kelly- on air for all of three or four minutes, chattering mostly about Kelly’s injured wife and the flight school they were there to promote. .
“So which will be worse, an incoming DEM House looking to spend money on social issues or a reelected GOP House looking to cram old expensive NASA down every-bodies’ throat?”
Obama’s no space cadet but at least he listened to the space cadets he hired. I would rather he get reelected, despite his faults, because he’d probably keep supporting Commercial Space somewhat. I suspect Romney wouldn’t care one way or the other and would let the congressional porkers and the lobbyists run the space program.
Unless the bill is fixed in committee to satisfy the whims of Obama, he is saying he’ll veto it. Will moving $126M from NASA to Cops placate the pres?
NASA is fading fast.
Hi DCSCA, RGO –
I don’t usually comment on military matters, but instead focus on manned space flight and the comet and impact impact hazard.
Particularly, I don’t comment on missile defense systems. And particularly in public forums. But in this case I will.
A $100,000,000 search for sites on the East Coast for a missile defense system which DoD says it does not want?
Now it may be that they know something that I do not know, and their judgment may be immaculate. But in this case…
You have to ask if it is a rocket based system, who intends to provide the engines/grains for that system, and how exactly they forced that system and that search onto DoD. Those are $100,00,000 dollar questions, but I don’t look for our general press to have the abilities or desire to answer any of them.
RGO, I think Obama should have gone with “domestic partnerships” and not “gay marriage”, or left it up to the states. “Don’t ask, Don’t tell”? My own policy is “I don’t want to know about it, and I don’t want to have to know about it.”
Rand – In dealing with the impact hazard Rohrabacher had a good democratic ally in Weiner. I’m still hoping that it was just a brag by Weiner about his parenting abilities that went horribly awry – but that just may be my naivety. As far as dealing with the impact hazard goes, I need to make sure that it gets handled in a bi-partisan manner, so I have to look for an east coast democrat in an area that has been hit by impact tsunami in the recent past. Or else find a crater from the Holocene Start Impact Event located in the US, preferably a crater located in a democratic district or state.
And do that with stroke damage and diabetes.
for “comet”, read “comet and asteoroid”
E.P. Grondine wrote @ May 12th, 2012 at 1:31 pm
almost nothing of the GOP House and to some extent the Senate has anything to do with an actual space (or military) policy anymore…its simply 1) feed money to the corporate industrial complex and 2) rhetoric for the “low information voters”.
More or less the space industrial complex has figured out it no longer can compete on the world market. This is why as soon As ULA could get a guaranteed hook up to the US government space launch market 1) they dropped the commercial launch market like a hot potato and 2) started jacking up their prices for no real performance increase to the government.
Cant do that in the private world, but then ULA has no real intent to workin such a performance driven market.
one reason the friends of “corporate space providers” are pushing so hard for a “down select” is that they want Boeing or maybe Lockmart to get the down select before (gasp) SpaceX or someone else starts actually providing the service (or a comparable one) because then the rhetoric becomes that much harder. Wont stop them, you can already see the push back “we need an experienced provider to work with NASA and take advantage of the synergy developed in shuttle” (Pete Olson) but if something is flying (see Dragon) then it gets harder.
In defense policy “reality” left the gate 15 or so years ago…right now we are in equivalent dollars spending near WW2 levels on “defense”…The GOP wants to go farther…Romney is running around the country talking about an “additional four carrier battle groups” (about 60 billion a piece once you get escorts and something to fly on them)…his defense budget in actual dollars is pegged to be 1.2 trillion by the end of his first term.
At best we are fighting people in caves…
A long time ago American industry found that if it could hook up to federal spending well that was great. The jobs are good (most have near federal health care), they are all cost plus, and its always “for a strong America”…they are the corporate welfare queens of our time.
The biggest GOP Real argument against Obama care is that it limits corporate profits.
ULA could not compete with Ariane or a commercial launch provider if it was the difference between them staying in business or going out on the street. they simply dont know how.
SLS? If you put that on a fixed cost contract…you would find all the “stakeholders” bail out.
Its just a wealth transfer system to corporations now.
As for Obama’s policy toward gay marriage…off topic…but a brave and good stand. We are a nation of individual rights. The folks who oppose it would have stood with the King in the Revolution.
RGO
@E.P. Grondine wrote @ May 12th, 2012 at 1:31 pm
“You have to ask if it is a rocket based system, who intends to provide the engines/grains for that system, and how exactly they forced that system and that search onto DoD.”
No. You have to ask if it’s necessary at all. It’s not.
It’s GOP porkers who pushed it through the House- and the silly waste of appropriating $100,000,000 to ‘search for sites’ is all the more wasteful.
For Jeff or whomever knows the answer … What was the bottom-line total for the NASA budget under the House version passed on Thursday? And what was the Administration’s proposed amount?
Thanks in advance.
Stephen
Stephen: the administration’s request for FY2013 was for $17.71 billion. The version that passed the House funds NASA at $17.45 billion (taking into account the $126 million cut in the Cross-Agency Support account).
Jeff Foust wrote:
Stephen: the administration’s request for FY2013 was for $17.71 billion. The version that passed the House funds NASA at $17.45 billion (taking into account the $126 million cut in the Cross-Agency Support account).
Thanks, Jeff. Just wanted to keep the numbers straight.
E.P. Grondine wrote @ May 12th, 2012 at 1:31 pm
And you have yet to present an argument linking those two that makes sense.
be immaculate. But in this case…
aka “separate but equal”. No.
He did.
In cas you hadn’t noticed, DADT was repealed after much stalling and hand wringing.
Surprise, you’re a bigot.
As far as dealing with the impact hazard goes, you need to come up with an idea that is actually supported by reality. You’ll also want to sidestep your country’s broken political landscape entirely and look towards private industry. I’d say they’re even a step ahead of you.
Good morning RGO, DCSCA –
“space industrial complex” and “GOP porkers” are pretty vague terms.
Care to be more specific about the ultimate intended beneficiaries of this particular $100,000,000?
E.P. Grondine wrote @ May 13th, 2012 at 9:48 am
The entire notion of SLS, F-35, ICBM missile defense (I am quite careful to separate this from AEGIS and a few other defense systems which work and I think are needed) is to maintain industries that otherwise sail off into irrelevance for lack of a client.
It is a self fullfilling prophecy, the best kind. We have to keep these companies going because other wise they and their expertise will disappear and they are essential for a strong America but of course the cost is high to keep them going but its worth it because the Chinese are going to do this or that, this is cheap this deters them.
Sometimes you have to replace Chinese with “godless Arab nation” but the point is still there. IN the case of missile defense. The North Koreans or Iranians do not have a missile that can carry a gadget that they do not have…and thats OK because the missiles in the leaking silos in Alaska (or at Fort Drum on the east coast where they want to put them) have proven one thing over the years…they cannot even hit a “target” that has a transponder attached to it. And besides even if the Iranians or North Koreans have a gadget that is on a rocket that works…why would they use it…(answer from the right wing…they dont mind being destroyed they would then use their one or two gadgets and risk being turned into a sea of glass because its better to be dead then red).
SAme with SLS…we could go through the various perturbations but we get to “who cares if the Chinese are going to the Moon”? How will them going and us not wasting the money on a government lead project make the US “less” of a country?
All these arguments are for the Winds and the Whittington’s and other right wing folks who think with not their brain but their other parts ….and they get convinced to support spending which is designed, back again to keep corporations going who otherwise couldnt do crap.
Meanwhile JP Morgan Chase is headed for a bailout after telling us that they didnt need regulating…RGO
E.P. Grondine wrote @ May 13th, 2012 at 9:48 am
Any GOP district along the EC vying for the pork just for the search funding for starts. It’s laughable. Worse, a GOP congressman from Ohio (not exactly an Eastern seaboard locale) stated Obama’s gonna get this ‘system’ ‘whether he likes it or not…’ In the grand scheme of things on government spending scales, it’s not a huge amount but it’s the mind set that’s disturbing, as, like Jamie Dimon’s JP Motgan Chase gambled and lost $2-$3 billion over a few weeks and simply says, ‘oops’ – nothing has changed. Like the Osprey, the DoD doesn’t want this system.
Seems pretty clear that the Congress Criters were thinking of Liberty when they were talking about a down select to 1.
ATK are pitching that if they get the entire Commercial Crew budget under a FAR contract they will get a capsule up there Real Soon. Plus protect jobs, plus reduce the cost of SLS….. There is also a free unicorn with 10 purchases.
Look for an attempt to redefine Commercial Crew requiring the use of items from STS/Constelation/SLS “to reduce cost” and “close the gap”.
Wouldn’t want to use “rocket hobbyists” from ULA, SNC, Boeing or Orbital, eh? Or that dangerously unreliable Atlas 5….
Remember – Failure is not an option. It is mandatory.
“….(gasp) SpaceX or someone else starts actually providing the service (or a comparable one)…”
Service?? LOL The only thing reliable about Space X is their unreliability.
DCSCA wrote @ May 13th, 2012 at 4:56 pm
LOL The only thing reliable about SLS/MPCV/JWST is their unreliability and that’s costing taxpayer dollars since it’s all cost-plus FAR contracting unlike SpaceX where it’s their dollar on the line. NASA only ponies up when the milestones are achieved.
cont’d
And hopefully they’ll have to pony up a bit more by the end of the month when Dragon returns to Earth after successfully berthing with the ISS. 19th May Dragon launch day/night depending on where you are.
Hi DB –
If agreeing with Elton John on this issue makes me a “bigot” in your eyes, so be it.
As far as the private sector goes, Planetary Resources is planning on launching a NEO telescope into orbit. They have their reasons for doing this, and they are proprietary trade secrets. About the only thing I want to say on this is that both the MPC and JPL will need better data processing systems.
Internationally, ESA’s SSA program is moving along, with the Spanish promoting an Atlas type system. The recent impact mega tsunami evidence from coastal Spain is one driver. The data processing is done in Italy, where the instantaneous disappearance of the entire population of Malta ca 2,360 BCE is a driver.
The head of the Russian space agency issued a statement on dealing with the impact hazard; there Tunguska and Sikote Ailian are drivers,
China long ago stated a policy, and their space leadership have made several more recent statements on the impact hazard. I’ve had a stroke, and can not follow China closely anymore.
Reality is what it is, the PR problem is making people such as yourself aware of it.
About 95% of the people living in North America died in an impact event some 13,000 years ago, and the people living here at that time remember it – one part of this problem is demonstrating that in the face of the psychological mechanism of denial.
There is a need to locate a geobleme or impact mega-tsunami, preferably in a Democratic district or state.
Hi RGO, DCSCA –
RGO, I don’t know if the ground effects of the Osprey are solvable, and I can’t follow it closely. If they are, then I think that that capability might be very useful, perhaps adopted in a stealth version.
IMO, there are other more immediate threats that $100,000,000 could be more wisely spent on, but that is just my opinion, and I’m a long way from DC.
There are people who are well paid to deal with those threats, while money for dealing with research into the impact hazard is nearly non-existent.