Congress « Space Politics

Senate rejects budget rescission

By Jeff Foust on 2011 December 17 at 11:34 am ET

On Thursday, it appeared that NASA and other non-defense discretionary spending would be trimmed to pay for a $8.1-billion disaster relief bill. The House had proposed a 1.83-percent cut to such spending, which NASA confirmed to Space News on Friday would result in a $325-million cut it the agency’s FY2012 budget. Other non-defense agencies, including […]

Mixed reaction to NASA’s commercial crew shift

By Jeff Foust on 2011 December 16 at 7:19 am ET

NASA’s decision to shift from a fixed-price contract for the next phase of its commercial crew development effort back to a Space Act Agreement (SAA), like that used in the first two rounds of the program, has resulted in a range of reactions. Much of the industry either directly involved in the program or otherwise […]

Briefly: omnibus, rescission, and more on Gingrich

By Jeff Foust on 2011 December 15 at 8:31 am ET

The House released last night its draft of an omnibus spending bill that covers most federal agencies, excluding those, like NASA, included in last month’s “minibus” appropriations bill. One minor note of interest: Division B of the omnibus, which covers energy and water, does not call out any funding for the Department of Energy to […]

Congress: no more room for error in JWST

By Jeff Foust on 2011 December 9 at 5:37 pm ET

The cost overruns and schedule delays of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are widely known, yet Congress, in its final FY12 appropriations bill, gave NASA more than what it originally asked for—$530 million versus the requested $374 million—for the program. However, the language in the conference report for that bill included provisions for a […]

Astronomers push for more Pu-238 funding

By Jeff Foust on 2011 December 8 at 1:01 pm ET

Last month, NASA officials offered a bit of good news about plans to restart production of plutonium-238 (Pu-238), the isotope used in radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) that power some NASA deep space missions, including the recently-launched Mars Science Laboratory. In a hearing about the future of NASA’s planetary exploration program, NASA’s Jim Green said the […]

A little too enthusiastic?

By Jeff Foust on 2011 December 4 at 2:27 pm ET

Since becoming the ranking member of the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee at the beginning of this Congress, Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA) has issued a number of press releases congratulating NASA, and administrator Charles Bolden in particular, on various space agency milestones. An example is one release linked to the […]

A JWST doubleheader on the Hill next week

By Jeff Foust on 2011 December 1 at 7:02 am ET

(Updated Friday 5:30 pm with time change for hearing)

The full House Science, Space, and Technology Committee is holding a hearing this coming Tuesday, December 6th, from 10am-noon 2-4 pm, on “The Next Great Observatory: Assessing the James Webb Space Telescope”. NASA’s JWST program manager, Rick Howard, will testify, along with astronomers Roger Blandford and […]

Reducing the Space Coast’s congressional space voice

By Jeff Foust on 2011 December 1 at 6:47 am ET

A Florida congressional redistricting proposal could cut the Space Coast region’s voice in Congess by half. Currently the region has two members in Congress: Rep. Bill Posey, whose 15th district covers the southern part of the region, including the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station; and Rep. Sandy Adams, whose 24th district covers the northern part, […]

Thanksgiving leftovers

By Jeff Foust on 2011 November 29 at 7:02 am ET

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving holiday. It’s been a quiet holiday in the space policy arena, as NASA and NOAA digest their final FY2012 budget and make plans for the next fiscal year. A few highlights from the federal and state level from recent days:

An amendment to a Senate appropriations bill would […]

More reactions to the final FY12 budget

By Jeff Foust on 2011 November 22 at 6:36 am ET

The FY12 budget was wrapped up and signed into law on Friday, but there are still some reactions to the bill filtering in. Last week Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) issued a joint statement about the bill, praising elements of the bill that support the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, in […]

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