Congress « Space Politics

Briefly: NASA lobbying, asteroid R&D, and a rocket scientist candidate

By Jeff Foust on 2010 September 9 at 7:22 am ET

One of the members of last year’s Augustine Committee is urging his fellow panelists to support the Senate version of the NASA authorization bill. Space News reports that Chris Chyba emailed other members of the committee last month to ask them to support the bill. Chyba, a Princeton professor of astrophysics and international affairs, said […]

A stealthy anti-HR 5781 web site

By Jeff Foust on 2010 September 8 at 7:41 pm ET

A reader informed me today about a web site called Reform Space Now whose raison d’Ãªtre appears to be to oppose the House version of the NASA authorization bill, HR 5781. The web site features a one-minute narrated video that first builds up the administration’s new direction for NASA and then states, “But to some […]

Gordon: Administration sent Congress an “unexecutable” NASA budget

By Jeff Foust on 2010 September 6 at 6:46 pm ET

Last week a group of 30 people, including 14 Nobel laureates, sent Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN) a letter asking him to reconsider elements of the NASA budget proposal that were cut in the authorization bill approved by the House Science and Technology Committee, chaired by Gordon, in July. Late Friday Gordon replied with a letter […]

Garver: “a lessening of tensions” in the NASA budget debate

By Jeff Foust on 2010 September 2 at 10:51 am ET

In a luncheon speech Tuesday at the AIAA Space 2010 conference in Anaheim, California, NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver sounded an optimistic and even a bit of a conciliatory note about the ongoing debate in Congress about the future direction of the space agency. “All four bills, I believe, do acknowledge that there are things […]

Nobel laureates and others push for restoration of White House NASA budget provisions

By Jeff Foust on 2010 September 1 at 11:32 am ET

A letter released late yesterday signed by 30 people, including 14 Nobel laureates and seven former astronauts, asks Congress to restore funding for key elements of the FY2011 NASA budget proposal. The letter, directed specifically to House Science and Technology Committee chairman Rep. Bart Gordon, specifically discusses technology development, commercial crew, robotic precursor missions, and […]

Briefly: Olson on the NASA bill, upcoming space policy conference

By Jeff Foust on 2010 August 31 at 9:11 am ET

In a recent speech in the Houston area, Congressman Pete Olson blamed “an insurance item” for the House’s inability to pass the NASA authorization bill before going on recess nearly a month ago. According to local paper The Citizen, Olson told the Clear Lake Chamber that “the California delegation had a problem with an insurance […]

Florida election, Kansas call for commercial space

By Jeff Foust on 2010 August 25 at 7:26 am ET

In a hotly-contested Republican primary for the 24th Congressional District in Florida, state representative Sandy Adams declared victory late last night, just 560 votes ahead of the second-place finisher. Adams will face Suzanne Kosmas, who easily won the Democratic primary in her bid for reelection to the district that includes NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. In […]

Weekend miscellanea

By Jeff Foust on 2010 August 22 at 1:15 pm ET

“Can We Turn Over America’s Space Program to a ‘Space Cadet’?” is the lurid headline late Friday in the normally-staid The Hill. The post, part of the Capitol Hill publication’s “Pundits Blog”, is by Peter Fenn, head of a PR firm and someone who has worked extensively with Democratic candidates. The “space cadet” in question […]

NASA learns to stop worrying and love heavy lift

By Jeff Foust on 2010 August 20 at 8:26 pm ET

When the administration released its FY2011 budget proposal in February, development of a heavy-lift launch vehicle was not a high priority: the proposal deferred a decision on an HLV design to as late as 2015, a plan reiterated by President Obama in his speech at the Kennedy Space Center on April 15. Instead, the proposal […]

The Planetary Society’s concerns about NASA legislation

By Jeff Foust on 2010 August 19 at 8:10 pm ET

In a letter today to the chairs and ranking members of key House and Senate appropriations and authorization subcommittees, the leadership of The Planetary said it was “concerned about omissions and a lack of coherence” in the NASA-related legislation they have marked up in recent weeks. “[W]e are concerned that the path on which the […]

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