Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for Lobbying
November 5, 2009 at 1:07 pm · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, White House
While Save Space has gone into overtime in its bid to solicit a half-million letters to the White House on space exploration policy, members of Congress are also writing letters, to both fellow members of Congress as well as the White House. The Orlando Sentinel reported Wednesday on the latest effort by Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) to extend the space shuttle past its current retirement in early 2011. Posey’s letter to Congressional appropriators asks them to include language in the final version of the appropriations legislation that funds NASA that would keep the agency from carrying out anything that “would preclude the possibility of flying the Shuttle beyond the current flight manifest”. Keeping the shuttle flying has a been a key issue for him to reduce the gap and its effects on the Space Coast’s economy: earlier this year he and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) introduced HR 1962, a bill that would authorize NASA to continue flying the shuttle trough 2015 (that bill, though, has not gone anywhere since its introduction in April.)
Posey has also joined a separate effort, led by Reps. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) and Ken Calvert (R-CA), to get members of Congress to sign onto a letter to President Obama for additional NASA funding. “We must ensure the President works with Congress to take this unique and fleeting opportunity to show a true commitment to NASA,” the “Dear Colleague” letter states, according to a copy published by the National Space Society. The deadline for signing onto the letter was today; ten members had done so according to the NSS posting last week.
October 31, 2009 at 2:50 pm · Filed under Lobbying, White House
The sense of many in the space community this year has been one of impatience, bordering on frustration: with a new administration in place, they had been hoping for change in national space policy, or at least a confirmation of existing policy. Yet earlier this year people waited for months before the White House nominated a NASA administrator, Charles Bolden; now they’re waiting for weeks, perhaps months, for a decision on which option, if any, contained in the Augustine committee report to implement.
That waiting is wearing thin with some, such as Space Foundation CEO Elliot Pulham, who likens the situation to the famous Samuel Beckett play “Waiting for Godot”. “[W]hen it comes to space policy and programs, this administration has done nothing remarkable during the first 25 percent of its term,” Pulham writes (rounding up a bit, as the administration is only a little over nine months into its four-year term.) He cites not just the Bolden nomination and Augustine committee decision delays, but other issues such as a lack of progress on export control reform and a large number of unfilled political positions within the Pentagon. The former issue, at least, is something largely beyond the direct control of the White House, although progress is being made: HR 2410, a State Department authorization bill that includes some ITAR reform elements, passed the House in June and is awaiting action in the Senate.
Left out is a key point: many other people, in a wide range of other policy areas, don’t believe the White House is moving fast enough on the issues they care about. In the cover story in this week’s Newsweek, Anna Quindlen observes that President Obama takes a far more incremental approach than people thought he would during last year’s campaign. “He is methodical, thoughtful, cerebral, a believer in consensus and process,” she writes. “In an incremental system, Barack Obama is an incremental man.” And that, she believes, isn’t a bad thing. “[C]ampaigns are bad crucibles in which to forge the future. They speak to great aspirations; government amounts to the dripping of water on stone.”
So those who have great aspirations for space policy might want to practice their patience. Pulham acknowledges that the president is facing a number of other major policy issues, from Afghanistan to health care to the economy, but still wants space to get a bigger share of attention: “I would argue that nothing is more important to national security and economic security, and nothing is a better investment in economic vitality and national economic stimulus, than the exploration, development, and utilization of space.” If the space community did a more effective job communicating that importance to policymakers and the general public alike, perhaps the White House would be paying more attention, and sooner, to space—although there’s still no guarantee that they’d like the outcome of those policy deliberations.
October 25, 2009 at 1:13 pm · Filed under Lobbying, NASA, White House
Florida Today provides an update today on the status of Save Space, a Space Coast effort to get half a million letters in support of space exploration delivered to the White House. The article gives the impression that the movement is gaining momentum (”catching on”, as the headline puts it; “gaining steam”, as the lede paragraph claims), noting milestones like donated space on digital billboards across the country and the number of partner organizations that have joined, from Space Florida to local businesses like Taco Shack of Titusville. (Another partner organization is Florida Today itself, something the article fails to disclose.)
However, there’s little evidence in the article that Save Space is anywhere near its goal of 500,000 letters by the end of this month. A spokesperson for the Brevard County government, which is hosting the site, says that it’s “impossible to determine” just how many letters have been sent to the White House. The other statistics provided don’t sound optimistic: for example, the spokesperson said that the site has generated 42,000 “hits”. If she’s technically correct, that’s very poor, since each page will generate several hits for the various files that comprise it. Even if she meant visitors (or, better, unique visitors), that’s still a tiny fraction of the 500,000 letters, unless each visitor plans on writing more than 10 letters. The Save Space Facebook page just passed 2,000 fans, the article adds, a stat that sounds good but again is still far short of the 500,000.
If the organizers could come through on their goal of 500,000 letters, they likely would get noticed by the White House: as POLITICO reported last week, the White House is currently getting 65,000 letters a week, on top of thousands more phone calls, faxes, and emails: enough that there’s a backlog of mail that has to be processed. Dumping 500,000 letters there over a short period of time would presumably get some attention. A few thousand? Not so much.
The campaign is now backing away from that October 31 deadline, as the article states it will now be “an open-ended venture” until the president makes a policy decision. That might give them more time to collect more letters, but no guarantee they’ll rise above the noise of other mail arriving at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
[Note: I'm on travel the next few days, so updates here will be limited.]
October 22, 2009 at 11:12 am · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, NASA
- An op-ed in the Washington Examiner by three Republican House freshman, including Pete Olson of Texas and Bill Posey of Florida, stresses the importance of properly funding NASA and increasing its budget even though it might seem at odds with their philosophy of limited government. “We do not take spending $3 billion lightly, but it is our strong belief that the failure to do so will be even more costly in the long run,” they write. (Part of their argument is that NASA’s share of the federal budget has dropped by 20% since 2007, although that is primarily because of increased spending elsewhere instead of a absolute decline in NASA spending.)
- Mixed messages? NASA administrator Charles Bolden told an audience in Huntsville Wednesday that the future of the Ares program is “not tentative at all”, which would appear to be a sign of support for the current program. However, NASASpaceFlight.com reports that Bolden has directed NASA Marshall to study heavy-lift alternatives to the Ares 5, including shuttle-derived sidemount concepts and the Jupiter vehicle from the DIRECT concept. The same report also claims that work on the Altair lunar lander has been “defunded”, although that work was in its very earliest stages.
- Bolden did say he was happy with the Augustine report: “If you don’t say anything, then you have to live with what you get. I didn’t say anything, and I’m happy with what I’ve got.” Bolden also said he would meet with President Obama “before the end of the year” to present NASA’s take on the report and its suggestions. (Presumably it will be sooner than the end of the year in order to fit into the FY11 budget proposal process.)
- Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin endorses the “flexible path” option in the Augustine committee report in an essay published by The Huffington Post, complete with a call for action at the end: “America, will you urge the president to pick a bold new mission for our nation in space?… In Twitter-friendly style, ask him this simple but profound question: Mr. President, will you lead us to greatness in space?”
September 29, 2009 at 7:56 am · Filed under Lobbying, NASA, Other
At yesterday’s meeting on the Space Coast, speakers said Florida must demand that president fund an “ambitious” space exploration program, in large part to protect jobs there. Or, as Florida Today put it, “President Barack Obama is in for an earful from Florida elected officials and space industry leaders”. The event referenced the Save Space letter-writing effort launched yesterday (as discussed here) as well as then-candidate Obama’s August 2008 speech where he said he would “close the gap” between the shuttle and its successor.
Florida Today is one of the sponsors of Save Space, so it’s no surprise it endorses the effort in an editorial Tuesday, asking readers to write letters to the president asking him to keep that campaign promise.
Increased funding for NASA was also endorsed in a recent editorial by the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It notes the expense of Constellation, but adds that despite concerns about “today’s depressed economy and growing federal debt”, NASA should get that additional funding, particularly to develop Ares and Orion, which it calls “necessities”.
Also worth noting is op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Times by Michael Bloomfield, a former astronaut and current vice president of ATK. He argues that “crew safety is of utmost importance in evaluating shuttle replacements” based on the lessons of Challenger and Columbia, and that Ares 1/Orion would be “tops for safety against any other option by a significant degree”. Regarding commercial alternatives, he claims that “they still lag behind Ares I safety by a factor of 3 to 5 and do not meet the Columbia investigation’s clear assertion that America should replace the shuttle with a vehicle that is ’significantly safer.’”
September 28, 2009 at 7:17 am · Filed under Lobbying, States, White House
That’s the hope of a new effort on Florida’s Space Coast that’s launching today. Save Space, an effort led by Brevard County’s board of commissioners, is encouraging Floridians and other Americans to write letters to President Obama in support of the space program. The draft letters on the web site ask the president to:
- add an additional $3 billion a year to NASA’s budget;
- close the shuttle-Constellation gap by extending the shuttle;
- extend the life of the ISS;
- align human spaceflight goals “with key national objectives including clean energy, climate-change, and improved health”; and
- accelerate the development of “a well-designed and adequately funded heavy-lift space technology program” (not explicitly naming Ares 5 or shuttle-derived alternatives).
The site’s launch is tied to the Florida Space and Technology Forum taking place this morning in Cocoa, with Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas as one of the participants. The goal of the Save Space campaign is to have 500,000 letters delivered to the White House by the end of October.
While the site claims that the campaign’s purpose is to “raise the awareness of the nation, the President, and other elected officials: Space needs to be a priority for America”, there’s a more parochial concern as well: saving jobs on the Space Coast and protecting the local economy. “If this shuttle doesn’t get extended, it’s going to be very, very devastating to the community. I started thinking to myself, why isn’t the community screaming about it?” Brevard County Commissioner Robin Fisher told Florida Today. To that end, the web site plans to be a “learning tool” for students in Brevard County public schools; Space Florida will promote the site at a state level. (Interestingly, Florida Today is listed as a partner on the Save Space site, a relationship not mentioned in the article.)
September 2, 2009 at 1:11 pm · Filed under Lobbying
A Florida Today blog post references a video uploaded to YouTube this week about the Augustine committee and its work. The three-and-a-half-minute video is primarily clips from the various committee meetings, interspersed with other clips (Ares 1-X, Shuttle, Apollo moonwalk) and text slides, and without any voiceover:
The video itself is perhaps a bit subtle: it’s arguing for staying the course in Constellation, but doesn’t hit the viewer over the head repeatedly with that message. The closing slide asks viewers to contact the White House and Congress and “tell them you DO NOT Want to ‘Take a Chance’ with the U.S. Human Space Flight Program.” (capitalization and punctuation in original.) The information on the YouTube page, though, is rather more blunt: “Although a thorough review was conducted four years ago—and a direction chosen, contracts awarded, tests conducted, and rockets built—the Augustine committee wants to stop work and do something new,” it claims. “This will widen the gap between the retirement of the shuttle and its replacement vehicle, waste billions of dollars and threaten Americas [sic] presence in space. You can STOP this.” (Neither, though, mentioned that the Augustine committee is advisory only, and any decisions on the future of NASA’s human spaceflight program will be handed by the White House and Congress.)
So who produced the video? The video is posted to the account of “Rounderb”, and is his/her only video uploaded despite joining in January 2007. No other information is available on the site or in the video.
August 26, 2009 at 1:10 pm · Filed under Lobbying, NASA
For many months one of the mantras in the space community was to “close the gap”: find money to extend the life of the shuttle, accelerate Constellation, or both, to minimize the gap in US human spaceflight access (at least by government vehicles). That battle cry has died down in recent months, particularly as the Augustine committee found evidence that keeping the current program on its current schedule may prove to be prohibitively expensive. That makes it difficult to push for trying to accelerate the current plan.
However, it hasn’t stopped some people on Florida’s Space Coast for continue to push to close the gap. Florida Today reported yesterday that a group called the Aerospace Career Development Council is calling for an increase in NASA’s budget to close the gap in the draft version of a “Federal Space Policy Agenda” document the group is completing. That means both extending the shuttle and “speeding the development of the next manned rocket system”, according to the article. It’s not clear if the draft report specifically mentions Ares 1/Orion or not, although one of the council member quoted in the article is USA’s Florida head for Constellation. The document, in its final version, will go to federal, state, and local officials “in hopes they can use it to win funding for programs that preserve space industry jobs at Kennedy Space Center”, according to the report. With sky-high (Moon-high?) funding requests like that, though, it better be awfully persuasive.
July 30, 2009 at 8:27 am · Filed under Events, Lobbying
Later today dozens of Mars advocates will be swarming Capitol Hill for the 2009 Great Mars Blitz, an afternoon of lobbying in the same vein as March Storm, the NSS Space Blitz, and related events. The purpose of the blitz, according to the site, is “to tell members of Congress and their staff why the United States needs to commit to an ambitious human space flight program that will get us to Mars in the 2020s”, although they don’t mention any specific legislative measures they’re pushing for. The Blitz is part of the Mars Society’s annual convention, running today through Sunday at the University of Maryland in College Park. The society ran a similar event in 2006, the last time the organization held its annual conference in the DC area; Chris Carberry, who organized the Blitz (and is now executive director of the organization), wrote a summary of that 2006 event in The Space Review, complete with a tale about some $2 bills…
(I’ll also note that I’ll be appearing on a panel Friday evening at the conference about “Reporting Space”, moderated by ex-CNN space reporter Miles O’Brien.)
July 9, 2009 at 6:58 am · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, NASA
Last week it appeared that Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) had convinced NASA and the White House to shift $100 million in stimulus funds from supporting commercial crew efforts to Constellation. As the Waco Tribune-Herald reports, some members of the Texas Congressional delegation are opposed to the move. Why? SpaceX has its rocket engine testing facilities near Waco, and company officials claim that it could double its workforce there if it’s able to secure development contracts for carrying crew to the ISS. Congressman Chet Edwards (D-TX), whose district includes Waco, said he’s arranged meetings between “congressional leaders” and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, while SpaceX vice president Larry Williams tells the paper that the company has talked with staffers for Sen. Shelby that “could lead to a compromise.” Meanwhile, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) tells the paper that the stimulus funding “will be distributed through the competitive bidding process just like the process for NASA funding each year”, and adds that he hopes Texas will get its fair share.
Meanwhile, the Orlando Sentinel reports today that Sen. Shelby is still trying to drum up support for Constellation over alternative proposals. According to the article, Shelby met with executives of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and others “to discuss creating a media campaign to counter Ares I critics and alternative ideas.” That plan “never materialized”, and the Sentinel added that the companies are now pitching their own alternatives to Constellation to the Augustine committee.
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