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With Congressman Dave Weldon’s announcement yesterday that he will not run for reelection in 2008, people in Florida’s Space Coast region are pondering what impact that will have on the space program and their livelihoods. Not surprisingly, people are worried about the loss of Weldon’s seniority and influence in Washington (influence that is somewhat diminished […] Some space-related political news out of Florida that has nothing to do with the presidential campaign: Congressman Dave Weldon (R-FL) will not run for reelection in 2008, retiring after seven terms in the House. Weldon said he wanted to return to his medical practice and spend more time with his family. Weldon, whose district includes […] On Tuesday President Bush signed a set of directives to improve the current export control process for items on the U.S. Munitions List. While this is being called “reform” in some quarters, it’s really more of an improvement of existing processes, as outlined in a State Department fact sheet: additional funding will be allocated for […] In an editorial in this week’s issue, the journal Nature wades into the debate about funding for various astronomy missions within NASA triggered by NASA administrator Mike Griffin’s AAS speech last week. In that speech, Griffin warned that Congress’ decision to provide extra funding for the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM)—the result of what he called […] Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) said Tuesday that he wanted to shorten the gap between the shuttle and Constellation, but not by extending the life of the shuttle. Speaking at a luncheon on the Space Coast on Tuesday, Martinez said he wanted to minimize that gap so the US won’t have to “rely on Vladimir Putin […] In his speech Thursday, Griffin said that with “the budgetary resources currently projected during the critical development years of 2009 and 2010, we can reasonably forecast the Orion and Ares systems coming online by early 2015.” Griffin isn’t happy with that timeline, but said that “it would be far worse if I were to over-promise […] [Third in a series.] Following up on my previous posts summarizing the budget and reviewing its various requests for reports and studies, there is some other language of interest in the appropriations legislation itself and its accompanying conference report: Much to the consternation of The Mars Society and other human Mars exploration advocates, the bill […] [Second in a series.] The conference report accompanying the FY2008 appropriations bill contains a number of provisions calling on studies, either by NASA or outside agencies, on various areas of concern to Congress: The conference report states that the House and Senate appropriations committees are concerned that “NASA is not able to anticipate adequately technical […] That’s the Orlando Sentinel’s assessment of the odds that Congressman Dave Weldon’s shuttle life extension proposal will be enacted in an editorial published Wednesday. The Sentinel finds faults with Weldon’s proposal in terms of both money and priorities. Getting that money—Weldon estimates that the total cost would be about $10 billion, assuming the shuttle can […] I haven’t had a chance to review the NASA-related language in the omnibus appropriations bill currently being considered by Congress, but Space News [subscription required] has found a provision that would effectively place the ongoing COTS selection process on hold, perhaps for months: “[T]he Appropriations Committees note that one of the two COTS contracts is […] |
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