House appropriations hearings schedule

House appropriations hearings schedule

The hearings on the FY08 NASA budget by the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee will actually be spread over two days, according to the schedule on the subcommittee web site:

03/13/07 Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee National Aeronautics and Space Administration 10:00 AM – General Overview 2362 […]

Potentially hazardous asteroid conferences

Last week George Washington University hosted the 2007 Planetary Defense Conference, organized by The Aerospace Corporation and co-sponsored by a number of organizations, including NASA. During that meeting NASA released its Congressionally-mandated report on how it would be able to detect 90 percent of all near Earth asteroids 140 meters in diameter and larger by […]

Hearings, budgets, and priorities

It was easy to miss (I know I did), but the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee held a hearing Friday morning about the NASA budget. (Unfortunately, appropriators are not as enlightened as their colleagues, and the hearing was not webcast, nor opening statements of the witnesses or committee members posted […]

Delaying Orion

The big news that came out yesterday’s hearing, as noted by the Houston Chronicle, Florida Today, New York Times, and others was that the cut in NASA’s exploration program enacted by the Congress when it passed the final FY07 budget a few weeks ago will result in a delay of four to six months in […]

Hearings hearings hearings

If you like Congressional hearings (and who doesn’t?), then today’s your day. The most obvious space-related hearing is the one by the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee on the NASA budget. NASA administrator Mike Griffin is the sole witness scheduled to testify; it will be his first opportunity to discuss the FY08 budget request, and […]

Heavy lift and space science

Yesterday’s New York Times had an op-ed by planetary scientist Carolyn Porco about space exploration. Unlike many planetary scientists, who are skeptical at best about the Vision for Space Exploration out of concerns that the program will suck up more money from science programs, Porco is supportive of the effort. Much of that support stems […]

This probably won’t help NASA win more money

Bloomberg News reports that a GAO report scheduled for release today finds that NASA has approved nearly the maximum amount of bonus payments on cost-plus contracts, even for those programs that fell far behind schedule and/or suffered cost overruns. “NASA paid most of the available fee on all of the contracts we reviewed – including […]

Budget’s done; now what?

The Senate yesterday passed the joint funding resolution that funds NASA and many other federal agencies through the rest of the 2007 fiscal year. Since the Senate made no changes to the House version, that means that NASA will get just over $16.2 billion for the full fiscal year, compared to the nearly $16.8 billion […]

FY07 budget inches closer to approval

The Senate is poised to vote on the FY2007 joint funding resolution as early as Tuesday, after a cloture vote to end debate on the bill. According to reports it doesn’t seem like any effort to raise NASA’s share of the funding is getting much attention: the AP report and others have focused primarily on […]

More NASA budget reaction

Some more reaction to the proposed FY08 NASA budget, on and off the Hill:

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) says she is “disappointed” that NASA is getting only a 3 percent increase in FY08 over its FY07 proposal while other R&D agencies, like the NSF, are getting much larger increases. “I fought to have NASA included […]