Congress « Space Politics

Mikulski’s unlikely fundraiser

By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 7 at 11:27 am ET

Place this in the “politics makes for strange bedfellows” file: today’s Baltimore Sun reports on an interesting source of fundraising for Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), chair of the appropriations subcommittee with oversight of NASA’s budget, who is running for reelection this year. The article notes that the Huntsville metro area is fourth in donating to […]

Something Florida can agree upon…

By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 5 at 6:31 am ET

Interest in space among Florida’s congressional delegation has traditionally been limited to primarily those representatives from the state’s Space Coast region, plus senators like Bill Nelson with an interest in the topic. For example, when over two dozen representatives signed a letter to NASA last month alleging the agency was breaking the law by starting […]

Is there a Plan B in the works at NASA?

By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 4 at 5:38 am ET

That’s the claim of a Wall Street Journal today, which states that administrator Charles Bolden is seeking alternatives to the current plan rolled out just over a month ago because of the strong and largely negative reaction it’s received on Capitol Hill. What might this “Plan B” contain? A memo cited the article mentions development […]

Hutchison’s bid to preserve US access to the ISS

By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 3 at 9:33 pm ET

On Wednesday, a day after losing her Texas gubernatorial bid, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison announced she was introducing legislation to close the gap in US human spaceflight. “We must close the gap in US human space flight or face the reality that we will be totally dependent on Russia for access to space until the […]

What next for Hutchison?

By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 3 at 6:54 am ET

Yesterday’s Texas primaries contained few surprises, despite an usually large number of challengers for incumbents. Ralph Hall, the ranking member of the House Science and Technology Committee, defeated five challengers in the Republican primary, getting 57% of the vote. And in perhaps the most widely-watched race, incumbent Gov. Rick Perry defeated Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison […]

Holdren versus the appropriators

By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 25 at 7:29 am ET

Presidential science advisor John Holdren faced some questions about NASA’s FY11 budget proposal at a hearing of the House Science and Technology Committee on Wednesday morning, but those questions were fairly limited because the committee will be holding a hearing with NASA administrator Charles Bolden on Thursday, and most members decided to hold off until […]

Bolden “flayed” at hearing? Not exactly.

By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 25 at 6:58 am ET

To read some of the media accounts of yesterday’s hearing by the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee on NASA’s FY2011 budget proposal, NASA administrator Charles Bolden had a bad day. He faced “skeptical” senators who “vowed to fight” the new budget as they went on to “grill” Bolden and even “flayed” him. A closer examination, […]

Pre-hearings roundup

By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 24 at 6:56 am ET

Today is a busy day on Capitol Hill, with presidential science advisor John Holdren appearing before the House Science and Technology Committee this morning and the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee this afternoon to talk about the overall R&D budget, including likely some discussion of NASA. Meanwhile, NASA administrator Charles […]

Is an online poll worth a committee’s time?

By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 21 at 6:25 pm ET

On Sunday afternoon, journalist Miles O’Brien sent out a note to his over 5,000 Twitter followers inviting them to fill out a survey. The survey contains this explanation:

Veteran space journalist Miles O’Brien will testify on the Hill Wednesday, Feb. 24, regarding what the public thinks of President Obama’s space plan and NASA in […]

SEA: in search of timelines and destinations

By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 19 at 8:32 pm ET

The Space Exploration Alliance (SEA) will be conducting its annual legislative blitz next week on Capitol Hill, with plans to meet with over 100 congressional offices. In a press release the organization siad their general goal is to “strengthen” the White House’s plan for NASA. “While the new space plan has some extremely worthy goals, […]

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