Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for Other
May 7, 2008 at 7:11 am · Filed under Other
When Canada’s Industry Minister, Jim Prentice, blocked the planned sale of the space unit of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), the buyer, Alliant Techsystems (ATK), had 30 days to respond to the decision, a period that is coming to an end this week. The Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail reported late last week that the deal was on “life support” after a parliamentary committee issued a report supporting Prentice’s decision to block the $1.3-billion sale. ATK has been in discussions with the Canadian government to try and salvage the deal, perhaps by divesting RADARSAT-2, the radar imaging satellite owned by MDA.
The planned sale is so contentious that MDA’s founders, no longer working for the company, are split. The article above includes comments from Vern Dettwiler, the D in MDA, hoping that the sale does not go through. “When I was still working, I and most of my fellow workers, believed quite strongly that we would not like to work for a defence (or offence) based company, particularly a foreign company. This appears to be the possible outcome for MDA’s space technology division.” However, in an op-ed in the same newspaper on Monday, John S. MacDonald (the M in MDA), argued that the sale was essential to the health of the company because of chronic underfunding of Canadian space efforts. “I fear that the government will be responsible for creating a new Avro Arrow disaster, unless it either reverses the decision or rapidly increases funding for Canada’s space program.” MacDonald said that the Canadian Space Agency’s budget needs to be doubled “immediately” with more increases down the road to maintain Canada’s standing in space.
May 6, 2008 at 10:05 pm · Filed under Other
If former senator and astronaut John Glenn had his druthers, he would keep the shuttle flying after 2010, he said Tuesday after a Capitol Hill event, according to Florida Today. “The shuttles may be old, but they’re still the most complex vehicles ever put together by people, and they’re still working very well,” he said. He also advocated keeping the shuttles going, despite the expense, to avoid paying for Soyuz flights. “[I]t’s also going to be expensive to contract with the Russians to put our people up in space in Russian vehicles to our space station and bring us back. Is that the kind of economy the American people want? I hardly think so.” (What he means by “economy” there isn’t clear.)
The report didn’t offer any more details about Glenn’s comments, but if you’re really curious, and have a lot of money to spend, you could always bid on a tour of the National Air and Space Museum with Glenn. Minimum next bid, as of this writing, was $15,500.
May 6, 2008 at 7:25 am · Filed under Other
The Planetary Society will hold the second of its “town halls” on space exploration policy this Wednesday on the campus of Georgia Tech in Atlanta. This event will feature Bill Nye and Lon Levin (a co-founder of XM and a member of the Planetary Society’s board), among others. This is the second in a series of town hall meetings, after one in the Boston area in late March (which, according to the society, “attracted hundreds of participants”).
May 5, 2008 at 8:52 pm · Filed under Other
In today’s issue of The Space Review, Charles Miller and I write part 2 of “The Vision for Space Exploration and the retirement of the Baby Boomers”. A few weeks after we looked at the impending fiscal pressures that imperil NASA and the Vision for Space Exploration. The solution to these challenges, we argue, is the development of cheap, reliable access to space (CRATS). CRATS has a lot of benefits for both the exploration program as well as commercial applications, but the real selling point may be its benefits to national security by providing a deterrent to asymmetric attacks on space assets.
The problem, of course, is the long history of previous attempts to develop CRATS. We write: “The primary issue for many of them is not whether CRATS is a good thing—they agree it is—but the fact that we have now tried several times, that we have failed just as many times, and achieving CRATS is not an easy thing to do. In fact, when they hear arguments for CRATS, they almost automatically hear another call for huge multi-billion-dollar programs, which will probably fail again.” How to avoid a repeat of past missteps will come in part 3.
May 5, 2008 at 8:40 pm · Filed under Other
The Libertarian Party is not looking good in the eyes of many after they invited Richard Hoagland to speak at their national convention later this month in Denver. However, maybe the problem isn’t with the party, but the city. The Rocky Mountain News reported recently that a local man is seeking a referendum on a measure to create an “Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission” in the city. And what would such a commission do? The 18-member commission would “create a responsible, common-sense strategy for dealing with issues related to the presence of extraterrestrial beings on Earth”. Or, as the referendum’s sponsor, Jeff Peckman, told the paper: “It is important because if you’re driving down the highway and you saw a crash of a small spaceship and a car or a bus full of kids, you really wouldn’t know what to do… Do you wait for the hazardous materials experts to show up because of potential contaminants from another solar system? What do you do? People really don’t know.”
Apparently Peckman has something of a reputation in Denver, having previously gotten a proposition on the ballot that would have required the city to “implement stress-reduction techniques” (it failed). Still, perhaps Peckman could get some advice from Hoagland over Memorial Day weekend…
May 3, 2008 at 10:07 am · Filed under Other, States
This Memorial Day weekend, most people with an interest in space will be focusing their attention on the landing of NASA’s Mars Phoenix spacecraft on the Red Planet. (Many more people, of course, will be thinking about barbecues, ballgames, and the unofficial beginning of summer.) That weekend, though, is also the 2008 Libertarian National Convention in Denver, where Libertarian Party (LP) members will meet to nominate a presidential candidate (former Congressman Bob Barr is the likely nominee) and work on the party platform. Some attendees will also get a dose of space conspiracy theories.
The brochure for the convention featured a talk titled “Inside NASA” by a Dr. David Hoagland. It turns out that’s an error, according to the convention web site: it’s “Do We Still NEED NASA?” by Richard Hoagland. Yes, that Richard Hoagland. The title of the talk would seem to fit into an LP convention, where many people might be skeptical of the need for federal funding for a national space agency. The description of the talk starts off like a good fit:
Mr. Hoagland will address the urgency to redefine and refocus NASA on the critical 21st Century scientific, technological and economic problems facing the United States during the next presidential administration.
So far, so good.
He will also reveal –with official NASA imagery — startling scientific discoveries NASA, by law, has deliberately withheld from the American people for more than 40 years!
Okay, not so good.
In a column in today’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Billy Cox notes that Hoagland’s presence stands in contrast to efforts by Libertarians to tone down UFO talk within their ranks. Joe Buchman, running for Congress in Utah as a Libertarian, told Cox that state LP officials are “fuming” over Buchman’s push to declassify records that he believes would prove evidence of… well, something to do with alien life. “At least I won’t be the biggest nut case at the convention now,” Buchman said upon learning of Hoagland’s talk.
If there’s one saving grace, it’s that Hoagland’s talk (admission to which requires either a certain level of convention registration or the purchase of a separate ticket) conflicts with a planned outing to a Colorado Rockies game: one case of where having a ballgame win out over space might be a good thing.
May 2, 2008 at 8:11 pm · Filed under Other
The tenor of the discussion on some of the recent posts has been unsatisfactory, devolving into long-winded arguments filled with vitriol that are of little interest to anyone other than the participants. To keep the discussion in a higher orbit, please follow a couple of guidelines for participation:
- Tone down the invective. Criticize the comments, not the commenter.
- Yes, people can post here anonymously, and in general not knowing the identity of everyone is outweighed by the quality of information and commentary they provide. However, if you’re going to post anonymously, pick one identity and stick with it. On more than one occasion an individual has used multiple identities (based on server log data) here at the same time, even in the same post. That will not be tolerated.
Thanks, as always, for your anticipated cooperation.
Comments off
April 22, 2008 at 11:12 pm · Filed under Other, States
The Las Cruces (NM) Sun-News reports that voters in Sierra County, New Mexico approved a spaceport sales tax by roughly a two-to-one margin, much larger than the margin of victory last year in neighboring Doña Ana County. The quarter-cent increase will provide a modest amount of funding for New Mexico’s Spaceport America but also allow the formation of a “tax district” with Doña Ana County so that the tax revenue can actually be spent.
April 21, 2008 at 8:54 pm · Filed under Other
Dr. George Nield, who had been the acting associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the FAA since Patti Grace Smith retired in early February, can take “acting” off his job title. Nield was formally named as associate administrator today by (ironically) acting FAA administrator Robert Sturgell. Here’s a quote from Nield in the FAA release:
“This is a very exciting time for those of us working in commercial space transportation,” said Nield. “With the pending retirement of the Space Shuttle, NASA has pledged to use commercial space vehicles to service the International Space Station, and the FAA will license those launches. We are also looking forward to the debut of commercial human spaceflight, with hundreds of flights per year carrying paying passengers to the edge of space. Each of these endeavors will require us to think about new ways of doing business, while continuing to keep public safety as our top priority.”
[Standard disclaimers and disclosures apply. While my employer does work for FAA/AST, I actually first heard about this appointment earlier today from someone outside of that office who found out about it through his grapevine.]
April 20, 2008 at 1:37 pm · Filed under Other
Just as NASA is asking Congress to extend its authority to purchase Soyuz spacecraft after 2011, Russian officials are making statements that may raise a few eyebrows in the US. The Associated Press published Saturday comments made by Roskosmos head Anatoly Perminov after the Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft made a ballistic reentry and landing several hundred kilometers off-course:
Later, Perminov referred to a naval superstition that having women aboard a ship was bad luck when asked about the presence of two women on the Soyuz.
“You know in Russia, there are certain bad omens about this sort of thing, but thank God that everything worked out successfully,” he said. “Of course in the future, we will work somehow to ensure that the number of women will not surpass” the number of men.
Challenged by a reporter, Perminov responded: “This isn’t discrimination. I’m just saying that when a majority (of the crew) is female, sometimes certain kinds of unsanctioned behavior or something else occurs, that’s what I’m talking about.” He did not elaborate.
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