NASA « Space Politics

Bolden defends commercial crew, asteroid mission, cuts to planetary and education

By Jeff Foust on 2013 May 3 at 12:00 pm ET

In a speech Thursday at a Capitol Hill luncheon organized by the Space Transportation Association (STA), NASA administrator Charles Bolden largely reiterated the agency’s support for commercial crew development and NASA’s new asteroid initiative, while defending cuts in the agency’s planetary sciences program and the reorganization of its education efforts.

As in testimony last week […]

NASA uses Soyuz deal to push for commercial crew funding

By Jeff Foust on 2013 May 1 at 6:30 am ET

On Tuesday, NASA announced it had extended a deal with the Russian space agency Roscosmos to provide crew transportation services to and from the International Space Station. The deal covers bringing six astronauts up to the ISS in 2016 and rescue and return services through 2017. The price: $424 million, or about $70 million per […]

Astronomers warn about NASA planetary funding cuts

By Jeff Foust on 2013 May 1 at 5:51 am ET

When President Obama spoke Monday at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, to mark that institution’s sesquicentennial, space got only the briefest of cameos in his address, and even that managed to rub some scientists and space activists the wrong way. “Today, all around the country, scientists like you are developing therapies to regenerate […]

Not-so-news about JWST

By Jeff Foust on 2013 April 25 at 7:10 am ET

At yesterday’s House Science Committee space subcommittee hearing on the NASA budget, NASA administrator Charles Bolden was grilled on NASA’s asteroid mission plans, funding for the Space Launch System and Orion, commercial crew, and changes to NASA’s education program. He was also asked, though, about a program that has faded from view recently: the James […]

Concerns about planetary funding in 2013 and 2014

By Jeff Foust on 2013 April 24 at 1:08 pm ET

While much of the attention in the upcoming hearings this afternoon and tomorrow morning on NASA’s proposed fiscal year 2014 budget will be on items like the agency’s new asteroid initiative, SLS and Orion, and commercial crew, one other topic that may get some notice is the agency’s planetary science budget. Congress moved to partially […]

A busy week of NASA hearings

By Jeff Foust on 2013 April 23 at 7:18 am ET

Several hearings this week by House and Senate committees will examine NASA’s 2014 budget request and its overall space exploration plans. The hearings start this afternoon with one on “Challenges and Opportunities for Human Space Exploration” by the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee. Scheduled to testify are NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations […]

Smith’s continued skepticism about NASA’s asteroid mission

By Jeff Foust on 2013 April 19 at 12:00 pm ET

When the administration released its fiscal year 2014 budget proposal last week, Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Science Committee, expressed some skepticism about NASA’s new asteroid initiative contained in it, including plans to redirect a small near Earth object to lunar orbit to be visited by astronauts. “Seemingly out of the blue, this […]

Garver: role for private sector in NASA’s asteroid mission plans

By Jeff Foust on 2013 April 16 at 10:52 am ET

NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver made a surprise appearance yesterday morning at the opening session of the Planetary Defense Conference 2013 in Flagstaff, Arizona (she said she had planned to attend months ago, but her appearance was only formalized relatively late and not included in the agenda for the session.) She provided an overview of […]

Congressional tensions between SLS and commercial crew, FY2014 edition

By Jeff Foust on 2013 April 13 at 10:03 am ET

NASA’s commercial crew program and the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion programs have been sources of heated debate on Capitol Hill that last couple of years. But, as both efforts make progress, could the tensions that often pit the two programs against one another be easing? Not necessarily, based on comments from a couple […]

People re-DSCOVR an existing program

By Jeff Foust on 2013 April 12 at 1:00 pm ET

While a proposed asteroid retrieval mission got the bulk of the attention in NASA’s 2014 budget proposal, another mission also got an outsized share of attention compared to its budget. A number of media reports played up the inclusion in the budget of funding for the Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR. This spacecraft’s long, […]

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