Space Politics

Today marks the second anniversary of President Bush’s speech at NASA Headquarters, where he formally unveiled the Vision for Space Exploration. This anniversary is a pretty quiet one: NASA administrator Mike Griffin issued a one-paragraph statement Thursday that praised the vision, but only in the most glittering of generalities. The Coalition for Space Exploration also […]

KTVT-TV, a CBS affiliate in Dallas-Ft. Worth, turned its investigative lens on NASA in a report that aired Monday night. Reporter Tracy Rowlett used a number of GAO studies (such as its recent review of NASA’s aircraft fleet) and interviews with the head of Citizens Against Government Waste (which has previously been critical of NASA) […]

Many of the newspaper editorials about NASA’s exploration strategy, unveiled a month ago, have been critical of it, particularly in light of questions about the cost and utility of the program. The Atlanta Journal Constitution published an editorial today taking a very different approach: it spoke favorably of the exploration plan, and in fact argued […]

A few additional notes about the House’s approval Friday of HR 3070:

The House approved three amendments, the most significant of which was a “manager’s amendment” that added $1.26 billion to the authorization for exploration programs. The amendment also allows NASA to complete the ISS “in such a configuration as to support fewer than six […]

The good news for supporters of NASA is that the Science, State, Justice, and Commerce subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee provided effectively full funding for NASA when it approved a FY2006 appropriations bill Tuesday. In fact, it added $15 million to the President’s request, a far cry from the sharp cuts the subcommittee proposed […]