Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for NASA
November 17, 2009 at 6:36 am · Filed under NASA, White House
Space advocates have talked for a long time about winning a substantial budget increase for NASA. That talk has been emboldened in the last few months by the Augustine committee, whose report found that an increase of up to $3 billion a year was “more appropriate” to support human space exploration beyond LEO. Even people who disagree with some of the options and other findings in the report have seized upon this as something of a necessity for NASA.
There’s just one problem: NASA’s budget—as well as other domestic spending—might get slashed in the FY2011 budget request. The AP reported late last week that the White House was weighing a spending freeze or cuts of up five percent for non-military agencies, as part of an effort to decrease the budget deficit. An Orlando Sentinel article suggests it might even be worse: NASA has been told to prepare for as much as a ten-percent cut.
Keep in mind, though, that while agencies have been told to plan for cuts of up to five or ten percent, that doesn’t mean that all agencies will be subject to the same cuts. “When the president makes a decision on human spaceflight, he can ignore that,” an unidentified “senior administration official” told the Sentinel. The question will be how much of a priority human space exploration will be for the White House when it decides how much to cut—or increase—NASA’s budget.
November 11, 2009 at 1:09 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA, White House
If you recall last week’s post about a bipartisan “Dear Colleagues” letter to drum up support for increasing NASA’s budget, there’s a minor update. According to an updated blog post on NSS.org, the deadline for obtaining additional signatures, which had been November 5th, has been pushed back to November 17th. There’s no reason for the change, although one wonders if members of Congress were a little too distracted last week with the health care bill debate to focus their attention on the space agency. The number of cosigners listed has gone up to 40, with roughly an even split between Republicans and Democrats.
November 9, 2009 at 6:51 am · Filed under Congress, NASA, White House
Last Monday Sen. Bill Nelson claimed that the White House would make a decision about NASA’s future by around Thanksgiving, based on a recent visit he had with the president on the subject. However, in an interview with Florida Today, Nelson appears to be telling a different story. Asked about the timeline for a decision, Nelson said that “sooner is better than later” but added that “I simply do not know” when such decisions would be announced. One can rationalize the two statements by concluding that Nelson said that he thought a decision would be made by Thanksgiving, but not announced until some unspecified later date, or that he was misinterpreted in one interview (or both).
Nelson added that he was “absolutely” convined that he and other space supporters in Congress could win over members and convince them to appropriate up to an additional $3 billion a year for NASA. Why he felt this way, when previous efforts to increase NASA’s budget by smaller amounts have failed, wasn’t discussed.
November 6, 2009 at 7:38 pm · Filed under NASA, White House
A couple of exploration policy items from Space News: NASA administrator Charles Bolden told the publication that the so-called “flexible path” option of the Augustine report is “attractive to everybody”. That option defers a human return to the lunar surface in favor of missions to lunar orbit, Lagrange points, and near Earth asteroids in the near term, gradually building up experience for eventual human missions to Mars. “If you were to follow a Flexible Path, it affords you the opportunity to do things in one- and two-year centers that would keep the American public interested and keep things inspired,” Bolden told Space News, although he stopped short of formally endorsing the option.
Meanwhile, in another article about the budget, sources “close to the administration” claim that a decision on choosing the flexible path or another option isn’t expected before Christmas. This would seem to contradict Sen. Bill Nelson, who claimed earlier this week that the president would make a decision around Thanksgiving. Waiting until Christmas would also seem to complicate the development of the proposed FY2011 budget, due out in early February—especially if that decision also includes how much additional money, if any, to include for NASA.
November 6, 2009 at 7:18 pm · Filed under NASA, Other
Members of Alabama’s Congressional delegation have spoken out in recent weeks in favor of continuing the current Constellation program, including the Ares 1 launch vehicle; now that message is reaching down to local politics as well. As the Huntsville Times reported Friday, Huntsville, Alabama, mayor Tommy Battle says the city needs to support continued development of the Ares 1:
Speaking to a sellout crowd of 1,300 people at the Von Braun Center’s North Hall, Battle said the Rocket City has to find a way to keep the Marshall Space Flight Center-managed program alive. Last month, the White House’s Augustine Commission recommended that NASA scrap the Ares I and focus instead on the Ares V large cargo rocket.
Battle drew loud applause when he said Huntsville needs to “convince Congress, convince the White House that we have the finest pool of intelligence and technologically advanced people that have ever been on earth in the business of space.
“If you ever let that pool disperse,” he said, “you’ll never get it back.”
Of course, the “Augustine Commission” might be surprised that it recommended that the Ares 1 be scrapped, since the report included no recommendations and did feature options that use the Ares 1. And while some members of the committee might prefer other options, we know that at least one member, Lester Lyles, supports the “program of record” and said he personally wanted to see the development of Ares 1 continued.
November 6, 2009 at 1:20 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA
Yesterday the Senate passed its version of HR 2847, the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill, which includes NASA. The bill funds NASA at $18.686 billion, the same level as requested in the White House budget proposal and more than $480 million above what the House passed earlier this year. This passage was spun in some places, like a Houston Chronicle article, as a vote to “restore” funding cut by the House; however, the Senate had never gone along with the House cut in the first place. Moreover, the final budget still needs to be worked out in conference between the House and the Senate, with no guarantee that the Senate’s funding level will prevail.
November 2, 2009 at 12:52 pm · Filed under NASA, White House
A decision on the future on NASA’s human spaceflight program could be coming in time for Thanksgiving, according to a key senator. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) told WFTV in Orlando that he expects President Obama to make a decision “sometime around the Thanksgiving holiday” on which direction he wants to take the space program. Nelson bases that expectation on a meeting he “recently” held with the president on the subject.
Nelson, though, seemed to be hinting that the $3 billion a year in addition funding identified by the Augustine committee, and endorsed by space supporters in Congress, may not be forthcoming, or at least would not be sufficient. “He is very sensitive to this and I really believe the President is a fan of the space program and, at the end of the day, I am optimistic,” he told WFTV. “But in a very tough money time, it’s going to take a lot more money to make up for the deficiencies of the last decade.”
October 29, 2009 at 7:03 am · Filed under Congress, NASA
It should be little surprise that many of the same members of Congress who issued comments about the Augustine committee report last week also issued statements after the successful test flight of the Ares 1-X rocket Wednesday. Indeed, they were able in many cases to repeat the same themes as their comments last week. For example, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), chair of the House Science and Technology Committee’s space subcommittee, had this to say in response to the launch: “It is one more significant achievement for the Constellation program, and a clear indication that NASA is on track with its human space exploration program.”
Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) reiterated his call for more funding for NASA: “It’s my hope that the President will now give NASA the resources it needs to close the space gap.”
On the Senate side, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said the launch was a vindication for Constellation: “If we are to maintain our leadership in space, the work on Constellation must continue with the further development of the Ares vehicles, which provide the safest and most capable transport of our astronauts to the space station, the Moon, and beyond. Without Ares, the backbone of the Constellation program, there will be no successful U.S. human exploration program at NASA.”
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) called the launch an “important milestone” but noted it’s not the only thing that needs to happen for the program to be successful. “We have many issues to resolve in charting the path forward for the U.S. space program, but this test and the upcoming launch of the space shuttle next month proves NASA still has the ‘Right Stuff.’ Now we need to work with the President and make sure NASA has the right budget to be able to do its job.”
October 29, 2009 at 6:11 am · Filed under NASA, Other
The AIAA is planning an event this Monday afternoon, November 2, titled “Aerospace Industry Leaders to Debate America’s Next Steps in Space” on Capitol Hill. The half-day event will feature two panels, one discussing access to LEO and servicing of the ISS and the other focusing on heavy-lift launch vehicle development and exploration beyond LEO. The event is free and open to the public.
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.]
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