Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for Congress
November 6, 2009 at 1:20 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
Yesterday the Senate passed its version of HR 2847, the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill, which includes NASA. The bill funds NASA at $18.686 billion, the same level as requested in the White House budget proposal and more than $480 million above what the House passed earlier this year. This passage was spun in some places, like a Houston Chronicle article, as a vote to “restore” funding cut by the House; however, the Senate had never gone along with the House cut in the first place. Moreover, the final budget still needs to be worked out in conference between the House and the Senate, with no guarantee that the Senate’s funding level will prevail.
November 5, 2009 at 1:07 pm · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, White House
While Save Space has gone into overtime in its bid to solicit a half-million letters to the White House on space exploration policy, members of Congress are also writing letters, to both fellow members of Congress as well as the White House. The Orlando Sentinel reported Wednesday on the latest effort by Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) to extend the space shuttle past its current retirement in early 2011. Posey’s letter to Congressional appropriators asks them to include language in the final version of the appropriations legislation that funds NASA that would keep the agency from carrying out anything that “would preclude the possibility of flying the Shuttle beyond the current flight manifest”. Keeping the shuttle flying has a been a key issue for him to reduce the gap and its effects on the Space Coast’s economy: earlier this year he and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) introduced HR 1962, a bill that would authorize NASA to continue flying the shuttle trough 2015 (that bill, though, has not gone anywhere since its introduction in April.)
Posey has also joined a separate effort, led by Reps. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) and Ken Calvert (R-CA), to get members of Congress to sign onto a letter to President Obama for additional NASA funding. “We must ensure the President works with Congress to take this unique and fleeting opportunity to show a true commitment to NASA,” the “Dear Colleague” letter states, according to a copy published by the National Space Society. The deadline for signing onto the letter was today; ten members had done so according to the NSS posting last week.
October 29, 2009 at 7:03 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
It should be little surprise that many of the same members of Congress who issued comments about the Augustine committee report last week also issued statements after the successful test flight of the Ares 1-X rocket Wednesday. Indeed, they were able in many cases to repeat the same themes as their comments last week. For example, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), chair of the House Science and Technology Committee’s space subcommittee, had this to say in response to the launch: “It is one more significant achievement for the Constellation program, and a clear indication that NASA is on track with its human space exploration program.”
Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) reiterated his call for more funding for NASA: “It’s my hope that the President will now give NASA the resources it needs to close the space gap.”
On the Senate side, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said the launch was a vindication for Constellation: “If we are to maintain our leadership in space, the work on Constellation must continue with the further development of the Ares vehicles, which provide the safest and most capable transport of our astronauts to the space station, the Moon, and beyond. Without Ares, the backbone of the Constellation program, there will be no successful U.S. human exploration program at NASA.”
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) called the launch an “important milestone” but noted it’s not the only thing that needs to happen for the program to be successful. “We have many issues to resolve in charting the path forward for the U.S. space program, but this test and the upcoming launch of the space shuttle next month proves NASA still has the ‘Right Stuff.’ Now we need to work with the President and make sure NASA has the right budget to be able to do its job.”
October 23, 2009 at 12:19 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
In a statement in response to the Augustine committee’s final report, Sen. Richard Shelby again emphasized his concerns regarding safety that he mentioned in a Senate floor speech earlier this week:
While I commend the Augustine Commission for their work, I find many of the options proposed in their final report to be unsatisfactory and disappointing.
The Chairman of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, Norm Augustine, announced that safety would be paramount. Yet the report does not adequately take into account any safety measures and does not thoroughly examine any of the reliability aspects of the various human space flight vehicle options considered.
The report was also criticized by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who said, “The report suggests a number of significant changes to NASA and the industry, but it doesn’t address what effect they would have on Huntsville’s workforce,” according to the Huntsville Times. The same report also said that Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL) complained that “the report provide[s] no safety data that would help the White House or leaders in Congress to guide the future of NASA.” Neither, as of this morning, had posted statements about the reports on their web sites.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) also released a brief statement about the committee’s report:
“America is at a critical point in human spaceflight, because we stand on the brink of losing our 40-year advantage in space,” said Senator Hutchison. “The release of this report today marks the beginning of what must be a crucial discussion about America’s future role in space. Our current programs are simply unsustainable under the NASA budget and could potentially make plans to use the station until 2020 impossible. Failure to act threatens America’s foundation in space. Congress and the President must work together to address these mounting challenges if our nation is to continue its role as a world leader in space.”
October 22, 2009 at 8:42 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA, White House
Shortly after the Augustine committee released its final report, Alan Ladwig of NASA spoke at the luncheon of the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in New Mexico. Ladwig, filling in for deputy administrator Lori Garver (who was scheduled to speak but stayed in Washington because of the report’s release) did briefly address the “800-pound gorilla in the room”—the report—but without going into detail about what direction NASA would go. “It remains premature for anyone at NASA to draw conclusions or speculate about future spaceflight plans or policies based on the committee’s final report,” he said.
He said that policy leaders from a number of organizations would now meet to “transform the Augustine options into a recommendation or recommendations to be considered and acted on by the president.” He hoped that decisions would be made in time to influence the FY2010 budget and to be incorporated into FY2011 budget request. He noted that the budget request normally isn’t released until late January or early February. “So while it is likely that we’ll hear something about our fate from the president before the end of the year,” he suggested, “a complete view of the new-and-improved NASA may not be completely defined until the release of the 2011 budget.”
The organizations that would be involved in that process, Ladwig said, likely includes OSTP, OMB, “probably” the National Security Council, and “maybe” the National Economic Council. “Hopefully they’ll be smart enough not to make the mistake that was made back in 1989″, when the first Bush administration didn’t coordinate with Congress on the planning for the Space Exploration Initiative, he said. He added that he would not be surprised if President Obama himself got involved in the deliberations at some point before the plans were finalized. “He likes to get involved in these discussions sooner than later, so I don’t envision that he’ll be sitting by and won’t see anything about this until the very last moment.”
October 22, 2009 at 5:16 pm · Filed under Congress
A statement from Reps. Bart Gordon and Gabrielle Giffords, chair of the House Science and Technology Committee and its space subcommittee, respectively. Gordon:
While I plan to review the Augustine panel’s final report, the Science and Technology Committee’s September 15th hearing to review the panel’s summary report has already provided me with important information on the state of the nation’s human space flight programs. At that hearing, Mr. Augustine reported his panel’s assessment that a meaningful exploration program can’t be carried out under the budgetary projections that accompanied the Fiscal Year 2010 NASA budget request—that more money will be needed if we are to do anything worth doing as a nation. He also reported that his panel had assessed NASA’s Constellation program and found it to be ‘well managed’ and a program that is ‘executable and would carry out its objectives’ if adequate resources are provided.
And Giffords:
While I look forward to reading the Augustine panel’s final report, Congress has already made its decisions on the issues considered by the panel. Now that both internal and external independent reviews have confirmed that the Constellation program is being well executed, we know what needs to be done. Let’s get on with it and cease contemplating our collective navels.
A statement from Rep. Pete Olson, ranking member of the space subcommittee:
It is my deep hope that the Administration responds to their panel’s work with a clear and sustainable path for the future of our human spaceflight program. We cannot at this juncture assume America’s continued leadership in space if we fail to make the commitments necessary to put us on the path to escaping low earth orbit and having a national program that yields scientific benefits, technology innovations, and a new generation of scientists and engineers. I urge President Obama to do the right thing and take this opportunity to enable America to maintain its global leadership in human spaceflight.
From Florida’s Space Coast, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas:
While I am in the process of reviewing the Augustine Committee’s final report, our earlier briefings confirm my belief that the President has both the obligation and the opportunity to reignite our nation’s passion for space exploration… Without question, NASA needs additional funding to conduct meaningful space exploration that will have long-lasting scientific, technological and economic benefits. In addition, aspects of our national security depend on our continuing pre-eminence in space exploration.
Also from the Space Coast, Rep. Bill Posey:
If the President is going to keep his promise to close the gap and keep America first in space he must revise his budget plan and put more money back into the NASA budget. I would fully support such a plan and, in fact, introduced a bill to do just this more than six months ago.
And finally, a note of dissatisfaction from Rep. Parker Griffith (D-AL):
The report released today by the Augustine Commission lacks the ambition and drive that first put our astronauts in space, beat the Russians to the moon, and is synonymous with the American space program. Time and again, the Constellation program has proven to be the best and safest option to continue America’s legacy as the leader in manned spaceflight, but the full report seems to ignore many positive conclusion that demonstrates this.
NASA has made America what it is today, and both our space program and our brave astronauts who risk their lives deserve more than the rigid deductions reached by this blue ribbon panel. We have spent 10 months studying this to only yield incomplete results at best. The arguments that should have been made and the questions that should have been asked were ignored. These findings are incompatible with our national goals to return to the moon, mars and beyond, and we in Congress will not stand for it. We can do better.
Update: I overlooked this statement from Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL):
“I’ve asked the president to use money from leftover stimulus funds,” said Nelson, in a prepared statement. “I’ve also asked him to help minimize the job losses after the space shuttle is retired, in part, by transferring other NASA-related work to Cape Canaveral.
“He’s assured me that NASA will get enough money to do what it does best: go explore the heavens,” Nelson said.
October 22, 2009 at 11:12 am · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, NASA
- An op-ed in the Washington Examiner by three Republican House freshman, including Pete Olson of Texas and Bill Posey of Florida, stresses the importance of properly funding NASA and increasing its budget even though it might seem at odds with their philosophy of limited government. “We do not take spending $3 billion lightly, but it is our strong belief that the failure to do so will be even more costly in the long run,” they write. (Part of their argument is that NASA’s share of the federal budget has dropped by 20% since 2007, although that is primarily because of increased spending elsewhere instead of a absolute decline in NASA spending.)
- Mixed messages? NASA administrator Charles Bolden told an audience in Huntsville Wednesday that the future of the Ares program is “not tentative at all”, which would appear to be a sign of support for the current program. However, NASASpaceFlight.com reports that Bolden has directed NASA Marshall to study heavy-lift alternatives to the Ares 5, including shuttle-derived sidemount concepts and the Jupiter vehicle from the DIRECT concept. The same report also claims that work on the Altair lunar lander has been “defunded”, although that work was in its very earliest stages.
- Bolden did say he was happy with the Augustine report: “If you don’t say anything, then you have to live with what you get. I didn’t say anything, and I’m happy with what I’ve got.” Bolden also said he would meet with President Obama “before the end of the year” to present NASA’s take on the report and its suggestions. (Presumably it will be sooner than the end of the year in order to fit into the FY11 budget proposal process.)
- Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin endorses the “flexible path” option in the Augustine committee report in an essay published by The Huffington Post, complete with a call for action at the end: “America, will you urge the president to pick a bold new mission for our nation in space?… In Twitter-friendly style, ask him this simple but profound question: Mr. President, will you lead us to greatness in space?”
October 22, 2009 at 9:18 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
Yesterday the two representatives from Florida’s Space Coast, Suzanne Kosmas and Bill Posey, introduced HR 3853, “Commercial Space Transportation Cooperative Research and Development Centers of Excellence Act of 2009″. The bill would authorize NASA to make grants to two more universities (with at least one of which within 100 miles of “an active commercial spaceport”, a term not defined in the bill text) to create these “centers of excellence”. The centers would combine NASA, academia, and industry expertise “to enhance the development of commercial space transportation through research and development activities” in a variety of areas, from policy analysis to biomedical issues to vehicle design. No dollar value is tied to the legislation other than “such sums as may be necessary” for fiscal years 2010 through 2012.
Kosmos and Posey worked together to introduce the bill because of their concerns about the upcoming post-shuttle gap and its effects on the Space Coast. “With the looming spaceflight gap, it is clear that the commercial spaceflight industry must play a significant role in maintaining our direct access to space and in providing high-quality job opportunities in Central Florida,” Kosmas said in a statement. Added Posey: “This is yet one more [approach] among many that will be needed to keep us moving forward and will help foster the development of commercial space technology.”
October 22, 2009 at 8:02 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
Yesterday Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) spoke on the Senate floor about the impending release of the Augustine committee report and its discussion of safety—or, rather, the lack of it, in his view. An excerpt:
The Chairman of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, Norm Augustine, announced that safety would be paramount. Yet, from reviewing the preliminary information, there is only one area where mission safety was examined in the report. The Augustine report contained no safety comparison for the various vehicles considered by the panel and no risk assessment based on each option. The only safety issue identified was an assessment of how “hard” the panel thought each overall mission would be to achieve–not the safest means to complete the mission successfully. Since safety is the most important issue, these omissions are starling to some of us.
When making comparisons on the safety and performance of the various options, fundamental design differences cannot be lumped together and considered to be equal. Without an honest and thorough examination of the safety and reliability aspects of the various designs and options, the findings of this report are worthless. I would like to know why this blue ribbon panel did not examine these safety aspects.
Constellation’s vehicles have been planned and scrutinized by multiple stakeholders, all with a single goal in mind: to provide a safe and reliable human space flight system for our Nation.
The topic of safety same up Wednesday as well in a talk by Augustine committee member Jeff Greason at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in New Mexico. In the Q&A session after his speech, he was asked why the committee didn’t endorse Constellation as the “most viable” option “even though from a safety and mission assurance standpoint it’s clearly the best option.” Greason said that safety and mission assurance was considered by the Augustine committee, but that goes beyond simply the choice of launch vehicles.
“Launch is a relatively small contributor to the safety and mission assurance” of human missions to the Moon and beyond. “It is not negligible, it is not something you want to forget about, but it does not dominate the loss of crew probabilities.” Therefore, he said, it was a mistake to focus on further increasing the reliability of a relatively small aspect of overall mission risk, particularly if those choices lead you to take out safety systems in other components that because of mass restrictions. “These are false economies in terms of safety and mission assurance.”
Greason was also skeptical about the probabilistic risk assessments used to estimate the safety of various proposed systems. Most launch failures are not from random types of events, he said, but instead failures of design, testing, procedure, and the like. “If it was built wrong, it doesn’t work a lot of the time, no matter what you thought the probabilistic failure was.” The only way to “buy down” those failures, he said, is though flight experience, which is why “real boosters” have lower reliabilities than estimated when they were “paper boosters” still in the design phase.
“And the truth is, Ares 1 is, right now, a paper booster,” Greason continued. “And the further truth is, its projected launch rate is extremely low, so it will never get out of ‘infant mortality,’” that initial phase of non-probabilistic failures. “Even if Ares 1 were built exactly as planned, we would never find out whether its mature probabilistic risk assessment was or was not achievable as planned, because we would never get through the phase of life where we’re supposed to work out all the teething problems.”
October 21, 2009 at 12:40 pm · Filed under Congress
Apologies for the short notice, but the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee is holding a hearing this afternoon titled “The Case for Space: Examining the Value”. The only details about the hearing available is the list of speakers, although that, coupled with the title, give you the gist of what the hearing will be about:
Panel 1
Dr. Stephen I. Katz
Director, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
National Institutes of Health
Panel 2
Dr. Scott Pace
Director, Space Policy Institute, Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University
Dr. Lennard A. Fisk
Vice Chair, Committee on the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Space Studies Board, National Research Council
Thomas M. Donahue Distinguished University Professor of Space Science at the University of Michigan
Dr. Jeanne L. Becker
Associate Director
National Space Biomedical Research Institute
Ms. Helen Greiner
CEO
The Droid Works
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