Yesterday, as part of a broader piece on budget uncertainty, we noted here that the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee had introduced continuing resolution legislation to continue funding the government at post-sequester 2013 levels through December 15, or the first two and a half months of fiscal year 2014. The bill includes juts a few adjustments to those spending levels, including a non-NASA space-related provision “allowing funding flexibility to maintain weather satellite programs, ensuring the continuation of data for weather warnings and forecasts, including forecasts of severe weather events.”
The original intent of House leadership was to bring the CR to the house floor for a vote on Thursday. However, POLITICO reported Wednesday that House leadership pulled the bill from Thursday’s schedule, meaning it won’t be taken up until at least next week. The report blamed the delay on “continued Republican divisions over how far to go to challenge President Barack Obama on healthcare reform,” and not any specific issues with the CR itself.
The GOP position on defunding Obamacare got an unexpected boost from its natural allies in the AFL-CIO. It is this rift in the democrat party that will delay the CR. Shut ‘er down, I say.
If the full faith and credit of the U.S. takes a hit because of a shutdown, and the debt service numbers spike by 250+ billion a year, wonder who is going to claim credit for that? You?
A general suggestion that everyone not take the troll bait. The troll wants not only to divert your attention away from space advocacy, but mainly to draw attention to itself.
This isn’t the Affordable Care Act blog. Let’s move on and deny the troll the attention it craves.
The original post contained an off topic partisan accusation, which I refuted. The government shutdown is a germane topic. I think a spike in the cost of debt service would be a good thing for the country. It would ween the country from unsustainable borrowing, and people who rely on interest income would benefit from the higher rates.
So what you propose is to kill the United States’s credit rating and send the costs of debt service .. twice as high as the costs of the ACA? Now there is some brilliant thinking….
“I propose to kill a 100 billion a year program by increasing the debt service costs to 250 billion a year.”
No. I would cut spending to compensate for the increase in debt service, just like anyone with a large credit card bill would, or at least like they used to.
amightywind said:
“It is this rift in the democrat party that will delay the CR.”
If the Republicans in the House can’t get their act together on a CR, it doesn’t matter what problems the Democrats may or may not have in supporting one.
And since a CR or a shutdown affects the SLS and MPCV programs far more than the Commercial Crew program, a CR or a shutdown will do far more harm to the NASA programs you support.
Your talk of shutdown reminds me of that saying where you’re “cutting off your nose to spite your face”…
NASA should be use to this by now and prepared for such contingencies to maintain ‘free drift’ mode and ‘muddle through’ into the next administration. This will pass.
More amusing is Newspacer frettting over the status of the government civil space agerncy rather than pressing on independent of government space ops and earning some credibility with actual crewed orbital HSF experience. The 4th quarter of 2013 is approaching and a quick check of the HSF ledger since April, 1961 shows that as of mid-September, 2013, “NewSpace” has failed to even attempt to launch, orbit and return anybody safely from LEO. Over half a century of ‘tick-tock, tick-tock’ really leaves “NewSpace” with little more than a history of fingerpointing and hand-wringing rather than any hands- on HSF experience.
DCSCA moaned:
“since April, 1961 shows that as of mid-September, 2013, “NewSpace†has failed to even attempt to launch, orbit and return anybody safely from LEO.”
Not only did you apparently never leave the 60’s, but you don’t even know why no one has tried to compete with the government. As long as you are proud to be ignorant of reality (a trait that seems to permeate the anti-NewSpace fringe), you will never understand what’s really going on.
As to when the private sector plans to fly humans to LEO, anyone that can read and understand would know when the two companies that are furthest along plan to fly their own crews, and that could happen as soon as 2015. Flying earlier makes no monetary sense since NASA doesn’t need ISS support until at least 2016.
But since you’ve never shown an awareness or appreciation for money as a factor in why we do or don’t do things in space, you probably won’t even understand that simple explanation…
“As of mid-September, 2013, “NewSpace†has failed to even attempt to launch, orbit and return anybody safely from LEO.” Of course, they never said they could, by September 2013.
As of mid-September, 2013, “OldSpace†has failed to even attempt to launch, orbit and return anybody safely from the Moon, which they once said they could (e.g. SEI, “The strategy around which this approach is formulated is to establish human presence on the Moon in 2001, using the lunar outpost as a learning center to develop the capabilities to move on to Mars.”)
As to a history of fingerpointing, there sure is a lot of successfully proven launch hardware to point fingers at. With regard to HSF, we’re all looking forward to your ticks and tocks evaporating in two or three years.