A step forward on the NASA budget

Space News (subscription required) reported online late yesterday that the commerce, justice and science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee approved a $17.6-billion FY08 budget for NASA during a markup hearing on Monday. That top-line figure is about $300 million more than the president’s request (although less than what many people have been hoping and […]

Call it a draw

If you were expecting surprises or a gotcha moment at yesterday’s joint hearing about NASA inspector general Robert Cobb, you were probably very disappointed when the three-and-a-half-hour hearing finally ended. Everyone stuck to their scripts: former OIG employees described their encounters with Cobb when they worked for him, key members of the House and Senate […]

Double-barreled hearing action today

A couple of relevant hearings today:

The energy and environment subcommittee of the House Science and Technology committee will hold a NPOESS status report hearing at 1 pm this afternoon (note that the hearing is starting an hour earlier than previously announced.) Witnesses include David Powner of the GAO; Brig. Gen. Sue Mashiko, NPOESS program […]

A real lunar lander challenge

Mark Whittington (an occasional commenter on this blog) has an op-ed in Sunday’s Houston Chronicle advocating an alternative approach to NASA’s robotic lunar exploration plans. Rather than NASA design, develop, and operate a lunar lander mission (something that has been indefinitely delayed in part because of the agency’s overall budget crunch), he argues that NASA […]

Bad timing

NPR this morning: “NASA Chief Questions Urgency of Global Warming”

NASA/GSFC press release later this morning: “Research Finds That Earth’s Climate is Approaching ‘Dangerous’ Point”

Needless to say, Mike Griffin’s remarks are not going over well on Capitol Hill among those members who think that NASA is not spending enough on Earth sciences programs. I […]

Cobb hearing rescheduled

The joint hearing by the investigations and oversight subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee and the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee into the investigation of NASA inspector general Robert Cobb has been rescheduled for 2 pm on Thursday, June 7 in Russell 253. The hearing had been scheduled for last week […]

Spudis: what NASA is doing right and wrong with the Vision

Paul Spudis spoke Saturday morning at the ISDC, reviewing how NASA is implementing the Vision for Space Exploration and what is right and wrong with it. He said he sees a number of good decisions NASA has made regarding the Vision, including basing the lunar lander on the RL-10 engine, which allows the use of […]

A growing distraction

Yesterday’s hearing of the investigations subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee made it clear that the controversy surrounding NASA inspector general Robert Cobb is not dying down, although it might yet be overshadowed by NASA chief counsel Michael Wholley’s decision to destroy DVDs of a meeting between Mike Griffin and members of the […]

Shelby 1, Griffin 0

While it was increasingly clear in the last couple of weeks that NASA would not close the lunar robotics office at Marshall, the Huntsville Times reported today that it was official: NASA would keep the office open at a cost of $20 million a year for the next six years. However, what the office will […]

Alleviating COTS concerns

Last month’s NASA-Roskosmos contract for ISS resupply attracted criticism from some corners of the entrepreneurial space industry, concerned that the contract might be seen as undermining the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) effort. Later last month came a claim that the contract undermined one COTS company’s efforts at raising private capital, raising questions about that […]