NASA « Space Politics

All about jobs

By Jeff Foust on 2011 August 17 at 5:43 am ET

With NASA transitioning into the post-shuttle era, and doing so in a turbulent economy, it’s no surprise that there’s concern about jobs and job losses, and not just in Houston or Florida’s Space Coast. Up to 600 jobs in Huntsville could be eliminated in the next two months, the Huntsville Times reported late last week, […]

Holdren: White House still supports NASA policy; another presidential speech coming?

By Jeff Foust on 2011 August 13 at 11:18 am ET

Last’s week meeting of the NASA Advisory Council at NASA Ames featured a presentation by John Holdren, director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). His talk, and the Q&A session afterward, covered general issues associated with science policy and NASA. That included the message that the administration was still committed […]

Posey wants clearer vision, supports commercial spaceflight

By Jeff Foust on 2011 August 10 at 8:20 am ET

In a speech on Florida’s Space Coast yesterday, Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) warned that NASA’s human spaceflight program needed a “clear mission” in order to retain its funding in the coming years. “Absent a clear mission, human spaceflight, I’m afraid, will be very vulnerable,” he said, according to Florida Today’s account of his speech. (The […]

Conservative criticism of NASA spending

By Jeff Foust on 2011 August 7 at 2:24 pm ET

With concerns about overall federal spending higher than at any time in recent history, fiscal conservatives are taking a closer look at NASA spending, as evidenced by a couple of recent releases–although, at least in one case, their logic is muddled, at best.

Last week Tea Party in Space (TPIS) issued a press release in […]

Report estimates SLS/MPCV cost at up to $38 billion through 2021

By Jeff Foust on 2011 August 5 at 8:28 pm ET

The Orlando Sentinel reported late today that NASA estimates the cost of its new heavy-lift launch vehicle and crew spacecraft could be as much as $38 billion through 2021. The estimate, from an internal NASA report obtained by the Sentinel, pegged the cost of developing the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew […]

Summer limbo

By Jeff Foust on 2011 August 3 at 7:16 am ET

With work on the debt ceiling legislation complete, both the House and the Senate have now recessed for their traditional August break, and won’t return until after Labor Day. That means that work on appropriations legislation, among other items, is on hold until then. The House Appropriations Committee passed its version of an appropriations bill […]

Briefly: debt debate, elan for Elon, hitting the reset button

By Jeff Foust on 2011 July 31 at 1:39 pm ET

As the debate grinds on in Washington about a deal to raise the debt ceiling, there have been questions about what will happen should an agreement not be reached by the current deadline of Tuesday. On Friday NASA administrator Charles Bolden sent out message to the agency’s workforce, effectively telling them it will be business […]

John Marburger and his space legacy

By Jeff Foust on 2011 July 30 at 9:48 am ET

Former presidential science advisor John H. Marburger III passed away Thursday at the age of 70. Marburger headed the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) for the full eight years of the George W. Bush Administration, which put him in the middle of many key changes in the nation’s space policy during that time.

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CCDev contracting and funding concerns

By Jeff Foust on 2011 July 29 at 4:16 pm ET

Last week NASA officials raised alarm in some corners of the space industry about its proposal to shift from a pure Space Act Agreement (SAA) for the next Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) round towards a hybrid approach that incorporates elements of both an SAA and a traditional contract. Not surprisingly, this topic came up again […]

The roles of NASA and the private sector in space

By Jeff Foust on 2011 July 29 at 8:53 am ET

At some point a “prepared for delivery” version of NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver’s speech Thursday might show up on the NASA web site, but it will likely be different from the speech she actually gave to kick off the Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace 2011 Conference at NASA Ames Research Center in California. Garver instead […]

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