“As Alabama-based suppliers to our country’s leading providers of space launch services, we [...]]]> In a letter earlier this month to several members of the state’s Congressional delegation, a group of Alabama aerospace suppliers expressed their support for greater competition in the launch industry, without mentioning the company that could benefit the most from such competition.

“As Alabama-based suppliers to our country’s leading providers of space launch services, we write to encourage your support of expanding America’s industrial aerospace capacity through competition, technology innovation, and new entrant companies who have chosen us as key suppliers for their innovative products,” stated the August 1 letter on the letterhead of Industrial Manufacturing Specialties of Decatur, Alabama. The letter, signed by executives of five other north Alabama aerospace suppliers, was sent to the office of Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), with copies to the state’s two senators, Richard Shelby (R) and Jeff Sessions (R), and to Reps. Mike Rogers (R-AL) and Robert Aderholt (R-AL).

“We especially want to emphasize that commercial space transportation and ‘traditional’ aerospace both contribute significantly to suppliers like us,” the letter continues. “We hope you agree with us that competition and a broader overall set of industry players increase our business, as our products see a wider set of buyers.”

The letter does not name any of the “space launch services” companies they work for, although the websites of several mention working for United Launch Alliance (ULA) and the two aerospace companies that co-own the joint venture, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. At least one, Cimarron Composites, mentions several NewSpace companies on its client list, including Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic, alongside more traditional aerospace companies like Aerojet Rocketdyne, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.

Alabama, of course, is home to the major production facility for ULA, and SpaceX is the biggest of those “new entrant companies” that pose a challenge to ULA’s current position as the major provider of launch services for large spacecraft to the US government. Several members of the Alabama Congressional delegation have been critical, directly or indirectly, of SpaceX. Last month, Rep. Brooks co-signed a letter with two Colorado House members to NASA admininstrator Charles Bolden, asking for details about what they termed an “epidemic of anomalies” with SpaceX missions. Rep. Rogers had made a similar request of NASA and Air Force officials earlier this year. Sen. Shelby took credit for introducing a provision in report language accompanying a Senate appropriations bill that would require certified cost data for commercial crew companies, like SpaceX, which advocates of that program claim would drive up the cost of the program.

A spokesperson representing SpaceX said in an email Monday that the company would not comment on the letter from the Alabama suppliers. The company, as well as ULA, have calmed their rhetorical battles in recent weeks after a judge called on SpaceX and the Air Force to resolve their legal battle over the EELV block buy contract through mediation, and not to comment about that ongoing process in the media.

“This is a wonderful crowd,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Science Committee, at [...]]]> As NASA released a call for proposals for instruments that could fly on a future robotic mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, some key members of Congress expressed support Tuesday for flying such a mission sooner rather than later.

“This is a wonderful crowd,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Science Committee, at the beginning of an event titled “The Lure of Europa” organized by The Planetary Society that drew a standing room only crowd to the committee’s hearing room on Capitol Hill. (Many in attendance were interns, perhaps attracted by one of the events speakers, Bill Nye.) “I just wish others could see the interest that you all manifest by being here.”

Whether it was indeed Europa that lured the audience, or just a chance to take a selfie with Nye, the audience heard a case for exploring the icy Jovian moon from members of Congress and NASA representatives, one based primarily on the potential of Europa to host life. “We’re confident that Europa is the next logical place to go” after Mars in the search for life in the solar system, said NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan, one of the event’s speakers.

Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), arguably the biggest supporter for Europa exploration in Congress, was even more confident than Stofan that Europa harbored life. In comments during the event, he noted that NASA had held a press event the day before talking about searching for signs of life on exoplanets outside our solar system. “We don’t need to wait to go find life in another solar system. It’s right here in our own backyard,” he said. “The oceans of Europa will literally be seething with life. It’s just irrefutable. It’s so logical, it’s so self evident.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), whose district includes NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), also expressed interest in sending a mission to Europa, even if he didn’t share Culberson’s certitude about life there. “Now, after years of struggle against shortsighted budget cuts by the administration that affect not only Europa, but a host of other NASA missions as well, it looks as if the dream is becoming a reality,” he said of a Europa mission. “Chairman [Frank] Wolf and Ranking Member [Chaka] Fattah played key roles in fighting the administration on Europa and they deserve all of our gratitude.” That’s a reference to the leadership of the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, where Culberson and Schiff also serve.

Schiff and others were pleased by NASA’s announcement earlier in the day that it was releasing an announcement of opportunity (AO) for instruments that could fly on a future Europa mission. NASA has reserved $25 million that will go for initial “Phase A” studies of up to 20 instrument concepts that the agency will select by next April.

What isn’t clear, though, is what mission those instruments might eventually hitch a ride on. NASA has been studying concepts for a Europa orbiter mission as well as a “Clipper” that would perform multiple flybys of Europa, but has made no decision yet on what concept to pursue, or when it would fly. The cost of either of those missions would be in the ballpark of $2 billion.

Earlier this year, though, NASA issued a request for information about concepts for Europa missions that would cost no more than $1 billion. After Tuesday’s event, NASA associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld, who attended the event but was not a panelist, said a number of submissions have been forwarded to the Aerospace Corporation to perform an independent cost and technical assessment to see if any could, in fact, be done for the stated price. NASA is also looking at the science that the billion-dollar mission concepts claim to do, and compare those capabilities with what the Clipper mission and other concepts can do.

Grunsfeld outlined a hypothetical scenario where a billion-dollar mission could achieve only one major scientific objective while a Clipper-like mission could do four, albeit at about twice the price. “But if you look in your wallet and you only have a billion dollars, then you have to ask, ‘Can I afford to wait or should I go now?'” he said.

Members of Congress like Culberson and Schiff, though, want to ensure that NASA has enough to do a flagship-class Europa mission. “We included language in this [appropriations] bill, and I’m proud to have been one of the drivers of that, to ensure that we have the money for the Europa flagship mission,” Culberson said, adding he also inserted the report language specifying that the Space Launch System (SLS) be the baseline launch vehicle for it.

Nye, in his role as as CEO of The Planetary Society, also made a pitch to have NASA’s planetary science program funded at $1.5 billion per year, higher than the administration’s request. “What keep the the United States economically in the game, in my view, is innovation. So if you want to have innovation and keep the United States competitive, we need, or we can very easily, invest in space,” he said. “And right now, the most bang for your buck—the most effective space dollar—is planetary science.”

What has attracted the most attention about the bill is not [...]]]> Next week, the Senate is expected to take up the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill that the Senate Appropriations Committee approved earlier this month. The CJS bill may be combined with two other appropriations bills in a “minibus” on the Senate floor.

What has attracted the most attention about the bill is not its funding levels but language in the report accompanying the bill that would require “certified cost and pricing data” from commercial crew and cargo providers. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said the language provided needed “transparency” for those contracts. “I believe we must ensure that the taxpayers are getting the best value for their dollar, and I believe the language here will help make that happen,” he said in a markup of the CJS bill earlier this month.

Commercial space advocates see something different. “We believe this is actually about control,” claims the Space Access Society in a policy alert earlier this week. “Specifically, about bringing control over all NASA space transportation development back to the Alabama-based NASA old guard faction that’s running SLS, about bringing control over all NASA space transportation funding back under Senator Shelby’s thumb, and also about maintaining his control over Defense space transportation funding.”

The argument the Space Access Society and other space advocates make is that requiring certified cost and pricing data,” a provision usually reserved for cost-plus contracts, is inappropriate for the fixed-price contracts that are being used or contemplated for commercial cargo and crew. The organization earlier claimed that shifting to “cost-plus contract-type accounting controls on a commercial-style operation increases costs from 50% to 200%.”

Another pro-commercial space organization, the Space Frontier Foundation, also has expressed its concern about the report language. “These rules are designed to protect the old, traditional system that has kept us from doing anything exciting with humans in space for decades – and will slam shut the door to space for decades more if allowed to become law,” said Foundation co-founder Rick Tumlinson in a press release earlier this week, referring to the report language. “If we ever want to return to the Moon, go to Mars, mine asteroids, or even be able to afford to get to and from our own space station, this language must be removed from the congressional bills right away.”

While the CJS bill will be debated next week, either alone or as part of a minibus, any resolution to what these advocates consider to be unfavorable language may take longer to resolve. The report language, which is not part of the bill itself, will likely not be debated on the Senate floor, although there may be changes behind-the-scenes. And, the CJS bill and report that do pass will have to be reconciled with the version the House passed late last month. The report tied to the House bill does not include the certified cost language, but does direct NASA to downselect to a single commercial crew company in the competition’s next round.