Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for Lobbying
September 1, 2010 at 11:32 am · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, NASA
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 university and student research as key areas that require funding. “These are the key elements of the President’s new plan for NASA that must be retained in any consensus solution reached by Congress and the White House,” the letter states (in bold) in the introduction.
The letter makes several specific requests. For technology development the signatories ask that funding “be increased to levels significantly closer to the President’s request”. They also ask for full funding of the commercial crew development program and the CRuSR suborbital program, as well as “adequate funding” for the robotic precursor mission program.
The letter is particularly targeted at the House, whose authorization bill severely cuts (“substantially underfunded”, in the language of the letter) many of these programs compared to both the original budget request and the Senate authorization and appropriation legislation. “These investments,” the letter concludes, “will help ensure continued American space leadership.”
August 25, 2010 at 1:10 pm · Filed under Lobbying
Earlier this year there was some concern in Alabama that former Congressman Bud Cramer, picked by local leaders to head Huntsville’s “Second to None” lobbying effort to preserve Constellation, might have a conflict of interest: he works for Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates, a lobbying firm retained by, among other companies, SpaceX, a leading advocate of the administration’s plan to rely more on the commercial sector. At the time Cramer said would not support anything “that is contrary to what is in Marshall’s best interest”, a reference to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.
On Tuesday Cramer reiterated that stance to the Birmingham News and added something else: he is not working for SpaceX at all and is not registered to lobby on its behalf. “I knew that my firm was registering to lobby for SpaceX and I’m a partner there, and there might appear to be a conflict,” he said. “I think they removed my name from there to be clear about it,” referring to lobbying registration filings by Wexler and Walker.
According to Senate lobbying records, Cramer’s name was listed on a lobbying registration form filed by Wexler and Walker on March 1 that indicated that the firm was working for SpaceX. Cramer’s name was listed with another former congressman, Bob Walker, and Dale Snape. Three weeks later, the lobbying firm filed an amended registration that replaced Cramer with Patric Link. The amended filing gives no reason for the change. According to filings, Wexler and Walker performed $30,000 of lobbying for SpaceX in the first quarter of this year and $60,000 in the second quarter, all on the topic of “NASA Funding”.
August 19, 2010 at 8:10 pm · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, NASA
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 legislative process is proceeding will lead to an incomplete plan, which would be worse than no plan at all,” states the letter, signed by the organization’s president and vice president as well as the retiring and incoming executive directors.
The letter cites several concerns. One is the lack of “a plan to restore U.S. technical capability to launch astronauts to space once the shuttle is retired”; the society supports commercial crew development, but worries that plans to develop government systems for such access could extend the post-shuttle gap. They also note the lack of specific exploration goals in the legislation and cuts in exploration and technology programs. Also, while supporting the eventual development of a heavy-lift vehicle, they don’t support the Senate’s plan to begin development of such a system immediately, because “premature development through political legislation rather than technological studies could result in huge waste and eventual delays.”
“We ask for your help and leadership, and that of your colleagues on the full Committees” to avoid the incomplete plan they fear, the letter concludes. “This may require stepping back from each of the Congressional bills now passed by Committees and refocusing on the whole. Congress’ interests and the Administration’s interests are more alike than different. We urge your support for a new NASA plan.”
August 11, 2010 at 8:20 pm · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, NASA
Last month, when it appeared the full House would vote on its version of a NASA authorization bill, SpaceX sounded the alarm with an email blast, asking readers to contact their representatives and ask them to instead support the Senate version of the bill. Late today, SpaceX sent out a followup message, thanking readers and reminding them the battle isn’t done yet:
Thank You for Supporting the Future of Human Spaceflight
We recently asked for your help to protect the future of human spaceflight – and the response was impressive. Your phone calls and the efforts of supportive members of Congress helped stop the NASA Authorization bill from being pushed through the House of Representatives before important improvements could be made.
This bill would have authorized over five times more taxpayer dollars to fly NASA astronauts on the Russian Soyuz than to develop an American-made commercial alternative that would energize our economy and create jobs right here at home.
We still have a tough fight ahead of us, but many in Congress are starting to recognize that commercial vehicles like Dragon and Falcon 9 are the nation’s best option for ending our reliance on Russia to transport astronauts to the International Space Station and preserving America’s leadership role in space.
It’s not over yet. When the House returns from its summer recess in September, NASA Authorization bill H.R. 5781 will be up for vote again.
We hope you will continue to fight for the opportunity to show how a true public/private partnership can transform America’s space program.
We thank you for your support and look forward to working together to ensure an exciting future for American spaceflight.
–Elon–
July 29, 2010 at 8:23 pm · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, NASA
As the House took up legislation other than the NASA authorization bill Thursday, others spoke out against plans to rush the bill through the House under suspension of the rules. Late Thursday The Planetary Society called for a more extensive debate about the bill: “The future of the space program is too important to rush through a controversial change in policy,” the organization stated. “Therefore, the Society urges the House leadership to wait until after the August recess to bring the bill to the House Floor, allowing a full and open debate and for amendments to improve the bill.”
Meanwhile, the DIRECT Team, a group that has advocated development of a shuttle-derived heavy-lift booster, called on the House to adopt the Senate’s version of the authorization bill instead. The Senate version calls for immediate development of an HLV not unlike what the DIRECT group has proposed, while the House calls for the initial development of a smaller crew launch vehicle similar to the Ares 1, deferring the HLV develop until later in the decade.
July 24, 2010 at 9:40 am · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, NASA
Meteorologically speaking, this is a good weekend to get away from Washington, DC: Saturday’s high temperature is forecast to be over 100 with a heat index approaching 110. The heat’s also been turned up recently for commercial space advocates in Washington, who have seen Congressional committees slash the White House’s budget proposals for commercial crew development. That’s exemplified by the House Science and Technology Committee, which Thursday approved authorization legislation that provides only $50 million a year for commercial crew development plus $100 million a year for a new loan guarantee program—and even that was criticized by one member as “the epitome of socialism and corporate welfare.”
“I have never been so happy to get out of Washington, DC,” quipped Jim Muncy, president of PoliSpace and co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation. He was speaking Friday morning in the cooler and friendlier confines of the NewSpace 2010 conference held by the Foundation in Silicon Valley. He and other speakers, while frustrated by the recent turn of events in Washington, sought to rally attendees to push for renewed support for the development of commercial crew transportation systems. “The good part is that the fight isn’t over,” he said. “And, arguably, the real fight hasn’t even begun.”
One reason Muncy said the fight hasn’t even begun was that the debate had been incorrectly framed into one of government versus commercial systems, and entrepreneurial NewSpace companies versus established “OldSpace” companies, when in fact both are needed. The real fight, he said, is between “a white-collar welfare state space program and a frontier-opening, settlement-enabling, future-changing space strategy.” Put another way, he said, “We can’t let this conversation be about SpaceX versus ATK, or how NASA astronauts get to space. We have to make it about the future of humanity.”
In a later conference panel on orbital spaceflight, Muncy addressed one element of the House authorization bill, the loan guarantee provision, which he called “a really bad idea”. Loan guarantees work, he explained, for projects like ships and buildings, where there’s something being built that, if the loan falls through, can be sold. “Using that to fund development is problematic in lots of different ways.” He also said he was puzzled by restrictions in Senate legislation that prevent NASA from entering into commercial crew service contracts in FY2011. “I don’t understand why, if you are worried about the gap in US human spaceflight and having to pay Russia for space goods and services,” he said, “you would say you can’t even start for a year.”
Muncy predicted that a final NASA appropriations bill won’t come until after November’s mid-term elections, meaning that the agency will run under a continuing resolution for potentially several months. “Hopefully the White House will engage in a more forceful manner in negotiations down the road,” probably after the elections, he said. “We will get some level of funding with some restrictions.”
June 30, 2010 at 7:51 am · Filed under Lobbying, Other
Earlier this week the Greater Houston Partnership and the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership issued a release this week critical of the administration’s human spaceflight plans and asking for a revised plan. They don’t ask for much: a “limited” number of additional shuttle flights, continuation of Constellation, and to “fast-track” a heavy-lift launcher starting in 2011. They notably don’t mention how much doing all of these things simultaneously would cost, or where the funding should come from. The partnerships, of course, are worried about the local impact if the administration’s plan goes through: they fear the loss of “up to 7,000 direct and indirect jobs with a resulting loss of income and expenditures reaching $1 billion in the Houston region.”
In an op-ed in Wednesday’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Space Frontier Foundation co-founder Bob Werb calls for Republicans to continue the fight against socialism—in space. He notes that while the administration’s plan would rely on commercial providers to transport astronauts to LEO while canceling the “socialist boondoggle” called Constellation, “Republicans have been either silent or opposed” to the proposal. “You might think that Florida’s Republicans in particular would embrace this change because it means more jobs for Florida than the prior ‘program of record,’” he writes. “You would again be wrong. Maintaining the socialist status quo seems to be more important than either Republican ideology or jobs for the people of Florida.”
About a month ago Daily Kos published a poll on space spending performed by polling firm Research 2000, that had some interesting results, including that Republicans were more likely to think we spend too much on space. Yesterday the site announced that the polls the company performed for Daily Kos were “likely bunk” based on an independent analysis that found irregularities in the data. Not all the polls were analyzed in the study, and the space spending poll was not specifically mentioned, but “I no longer have any confidence in any of it, and neither should anyone else,” Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas said in a post yesterday.
June 23, 2010 at 1:03 pm · Filed under Congress, Lobbying
Or, at least, its morning on the Hill. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) announced today that Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) will be hosting an event tomorrow morning for senators and their staffers to discuss commercial spaceflight. Keynoting the event will be Norm Augustine, with other speakers from SpaceX, ULA, Orbital, and Sierra Nevada Corporation. The CSF release notes that in his invitation to his Senate colleague, Brownback wrote that the event will allow them to “hear [from] some of the leading private aerospace companies about what they believe the private sector can contribute to America’s mission in space, and what Congress can do to make it possible.”
Brownback, who did chair the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee several years ago, has been relatively quiet on the debate about NASA’s future and the role of the commercial sector to date, although he did appear supportive of a greater role for commercial providers in a Senate hearing on the subject last month. The event will be from 10:30am to 12 noon Thursday in Dirksen 562, and is also open to the media.
June 23, 2010 at 6:51 am · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, NASA, White House
In a letter to President Obama earlier this week, 62 members of Congress have expressed their displeasure with plans to cancel Constellation. “If we continue with this new space policy, including the outright cancellation of the Constellation program,” they write, “we are concerned that other countries will forge ahead of us, challenging our space dominance as we literally cede the higher ground to our foreign competitors.” However, they are not asking for the complete restoration of Constellation: instead, they support the “immediate development” of a heavy-lift vehicle that, along with Orion, “may be used for either lunar or deep-space exploration to an asteroid and beyond, as you said in Florida.” This is apparently the letter that a Houston Chronicle article referred to earlier this month as part of a shift to “political pragmatism”.
Congress, though, can get as good as they can give. As they were sending the letter to the White House, they were also receiving an open letter from a diverse group ranging from space company executives to spaceport operators to space advocates. The letter calls for both full funding for the commercial crew element in the White House budget proposal as well as a call to “accelerate the pace and funding” of NASA human space exploration plans. “We specifically wish to express our concern that the commercial crew to Space Station program is sometimes seen as optional or too risky to America’s future in space, but nothing could be further from the truth,” they write. “In fact, the commercial crew to Space Station program is a fundamental enabler of NASA’s human space exploration beyond Earth orbit, specifically because it will free up the NASA dollars needed to develop deep space transportation and exploration systems for astronauts.”
June 16, 2010 at 7:22 am · Filed under Lobbying, NASA, Other
In a press conference yesterday, Huntsville mayor Tommy Battle made it clear he was not happy about the latest effort to cut back work on Constellation this fiscal year, let alone plans to cancel most of the program, given the impact it will have on his city. “It’s not a time to tell our citizens who have been the leaders in space technology and leading our country in manned space flight that they are out of a job and getting pink slips,” he said, as quoted by local TV station WAFF. “It seems that NASA has ignored the spirit of the law. The administrations course could be the long slow death of NASA. Congress has to step in and act at this time,” he added, according to WAAY-TV. Battle said he’s written letters both to President Obama and NASA Marshall director Robert Lightfoot; on in letter he asks Lightfoot to “stop any and all public announcements regarding potential job terminations or contract changes until his office and the Alabama Congressional Delegation can be appropriately briefed on the steps to be taken.”
NASA administrator Charles Bolden, though, has a different perspective on Constellation. In an interview with Patt Morrison on Southern California Public Radio last Friday, he said that Constellation was in effect too limiting, since it had become a Moon-only program. “Constellation was not about more human exploration,” Bolden said. He noted that when President Bush unveiled the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004, it “was almost identical to what President Obama is advocating now, but because the administration chose not to fund the program fully, then the destinations withdrew and it became the Moon.” He added, “If you look at the Constellation program today, the program of record, it is a lunar program. President Obama’s program is a deep space exploration program that will probably involve more flights for humans than we would have done under Constellation.”
He reiterated late in the interview that the “ultimate goal” for human exploration is Mars, but added a cautionary note. “Humans will get to Mars, we will definitely be—unless the nation gives up,” he said. “I have to caveat it. The nation could give up on it. The Congress could say, ‘I don’t care what President Obama says, we’re not going to Mars. We’re going to go back to the Moon and we’re going to stay there.’ That is a decision we could make. I think it would be an unwise decision.”
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