Space Politics
Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway…
Archive for White House
November 6, 2009 at 7:38 pm · Filed under NASA, White House
A couple of exploration policy items from Space News: NASA administrator Charles Bolden told the publication that the so-called “flexible path” option of the Augustine report is “attractive to everybody”. That option defers a human return to the lunar surface in favor of missions to lunar orbit, Lagrange points, and near Earth asteroids in the near term, gradually building up experience for eventual human missions to Mars. “If you were to follow a Flexible Path, it affords you the opportunity to do things in one- and two-year centers that would keep the American public interested and keep things inspired,” Bolden told Space News, although he stopped short of formally endorsing the option.
Meanwhile, in another article about the budget, sources “close to the administration” claim that a decision on choosing the flexible path or another option isn’t expected before Christmas. This would seem to contradict Sen. Bill Nelson, who claimed earlier this week that the president would make a decision around Thanksgiving. Waiting until Christmas would also seem to complicate the development of the proposed FY2011 budget, due out in early February—especially if that decision also includes how much additional money, if any, to include for NASA.
November 5, 2009 at 1:07 pm · Filed under Congress, Lobbying, White House
While Save Space has gone into overtime in its bid to solicit a half-million letters to the White House on space exploration policy, members of Congress are also writing letters, to both fellow members of Congress as well as the White House. The Orlando Sentinel reported Wednesday on the latest effort by Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) to extend the space shuttle past its current retirement in early 2011. Posey’s letter to Congressional appropriators asks them to include language in the final version of the appropriations legislation that funds NASA that would keep the agency from carrying out anything that “would preclude the possibility of flying the Shuttle beyond the current flight manifest”. Keeping the shuttle flying has a been a key issue for him to reduce the gap and its effects on the Space Coast’s economy: earlier this year he and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) introduced HR 1962, a bill that would authorize NASA to continue flying the shuttle trough 2015 (that bill, though, has not gone anywhere since its introduction in April.)
Posey has also joined a separate effort, led by Reps. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) and Ken Calvert (R-CA), to get members of Congress to sign onto a letter to President Obama for additional NASA funding. “We must ensure the President works with Congress to take this unique and fleeting opportunity to show a true commitment to NASA,” the “Dear Colleague” letter states, according to a copy published by the National Space Society. The deadline for signing onto the letter was today; ten members had done so according to the NSS posting last week.
November 2, 2009 at 12:52 pm · Filed under NASA, White House
A decision on the future on NASA’s human spaceflight program could be coming in time for Thanksgiving, according to a key senator. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) told WFTV in Orlando that he expects President Obama to make a decision “sometime around the Thanksgiving holiday” on which direction he wants to take the space program. Nelson bases that expectation on a meeting he “recently” held with the president on the subject.
Nelson, though, seemed to be hinting that the $3 billion a year in addition funding identified by the Augustine committee, and endorsed by space supporters in Congress, may not be forthcoming, or at least would not be sufficient. “He is very sensitive to this and I really believe the President is a fan of the space program and, at the end of the day, I am optimistic,” he told WFTV. “But in a very tough money time, it’s going to take a lot more money to make up for the deficiencies of the last decade.”
October 31, 2009 at 2:50 pm · Filed under Lobbying, White House
The sense of many in the space community this year has been one of impatience, bordering on frustration: with a new administration in place, they had been hoping for change in national space policy, or at least a confirmation of existing policy. Yet earlier this year people waited for months before the White House nominated a NASA administrator, Charles Bolden; now they’re waiting for weeks, perhaps months, for a decision on which option, if any, contained in the Augustine committee report to implement.
That waiting is wearing thin with some, such as Space Foundation CEO Elliot Pulham, who likens the situation to the famous Samuel Beckett play “Waiting for Godot”. “[W]hen it comes to space policy and programs, this administration has done nothing remarkable during the first 25 percent of its term,” Pulham writes (rounding up a bit, as the administration is only a little over nine months into its four-year term.) He cites not just the Bolden nomination and Augustine committee decision delays, but other issues such as a lack of progress on export control reform and a large number of unfilled political positions within the Pentagon. The former issue, at least, is something largely beyond the direct control of the White House, although progress is being made: HR 2410, a State Department authorization bill that includes some ITAR reform elements, passed the House in June and is awaiting action in the Senate.
Left out is a key point: many other people, in a wide range of other policy areas, don’t believe the White House is moving fast enough on the issues they care about. In the cover story in this week’s Newsweek, Anna Quindlen observes that President Obama takes a far more incremental approach than people thought he would during last year’s campaign. “He is methodical, thoughtful, cerebral, a believer in consensus and process,” she writes. “In an incremental system, Barack Obama is an incremental man.” And that, she believes, isn’t a bad thing. “[C]ampaigns are bad crucibles in which to forge the future. They speak to great aspirations; government amounts to the dripping of water on stone.”
So those who have great aspirations for space policy might want to practice their patience. Pulham acknowledges that the president is facing a number of other major policy issues, from Afghanistan to health care to the economy, but still wants space to get a bigger share of attention: “I would argue that nothing is more important to national security and economic security, and nothing is a better investment in economic vitality and national economic stimulus, than the exploration, development, and utilization of space.” If the space community did a more effective job communicating that importance to policymakers and the general public alike, perhaps the White House would be paying more attention, and sooner, to space—although there’s still no guarantee that they’d like the outcome of those policy deliberations.
October 25, 2009 at 1:13 pm · Filed under Lobbying, NASA, White House
Florida Today provides an update today on the status of Save Space, a Space Coast effort to get half a million letters in support of space exploration delivered to the White House. The article gives the impression that the movement is gaining momentum (”catching on”, as the headline puts it; “gaining steam”, as the lede paragraph claims), noting milestones like donated space on digital billboards across the country and the number of partner organizations that have joined, from Space Florida to local businesses like Taco Shack of Titusville. (Another partner organization is Florida Today itself, something the article fails to disclose.)
However, there’s little evidence in the article that Save Space is anywhere near its goal of 500,000 letters by the end of this month. A spokesperson for the Brevard County government, which is hosting the site, says that it’s “impossible to determine” just how many letters have been sent to the White House. The other statistics provided don’t sound optimistic: for example, the spokesperson said that the site has generated 42,000 “hits”. If she’s technically correct, that’s very poor, since each page will generate several hits for the various files that comprise it. Even if she meant visitors (or, better, unique visitors), that’s still a tiny fraction of the 500,000 letters, unless each visitor plans on writing more than 10 letters. The Save Space Facebook page just passed 2,000 fans, the article adds, a stat that sounds good but again is still far short of the 500,000.
If the organizers could come through on their goal of 500,000 letters, they likely would get noticed by the White House: as POLITICO reported last week, the White House is currently getting 65,000 letters a week, on top of thousands more phone calls, faxes, and emails: enough that there’s a backlog of mail that has to be processed. Dumping 500,000 letters there over a short period of time would presumably get some attention. A few thousand? Not so much.
The campaign is now backing away from that October 31 deadline, as the article states it will now be “an open-ended venture” until the president makes a policy decision. That might give them more time to collect more letters, but no guarantee they’ll rise above the noise of other mail arriving at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
[Note: I'm on travel the next few days, so updates here will be limited.]
October 22, 2009 at 8:42 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA, White House
Shortly after the Augustine committee released its final report, Alan Ladwig of NASA spoke at the luncheon of the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in New Mexico. Ladwig, filling in for deputy administrator Lori Garver (who was scheduled to speak but stayed in Washington because of the report’s release) did briefly address the “800-pound gorilla in the room”—the report—but without going into detail about what direction NASA would go. “It remains premature for anyone at NASA to draw conclusions or speculate about future spaceflight plans or policies based on the committee’s final report,” he said.
He said that policy leaders from a number of organizations would now meet to “transform the Augustine options into a recommendation or recommendations to be considered and acted on by the president.” He hoped that decisions would be made in time to influence the FY2010 budget and to be incorporated into FY2011 budget request. He noted that the budget request normally isn’t released until late January or early February. “So while it is likely that we’ll hear something about our fate from the president before the end of the year,” he suggested, “a complete view of the new-and-improved NASA may not be completely defined until the release of the 2011 budget.”
The organizations that would be involved in that process, Ladwig said, likely includes OSTP, OMB, “probably” the National Security Council, and “maybe” the National Economic Council. “Hopefully they’ll be smart enough not to make the mistake that was made back in 1989″, when the first Bush administration didn’t coordinate with Congress on the planning for the Space Exploration Initiative, he said. He added that he would not be surprised if President Obama himself got involved in the deliberations at some point before the plans were finalized. “He likes to get involved in these discussions sooner than later, so I don’t envision that he’ll be sitting by and won’t see anything about this until the very last moment.”
October 17, 2009 at 10:57 am · Filed under NASA, White House
The Augustine committee’s final report is now expected out next week (something the committee confirmed in a Twitter posting Friday morning) but a draft version of that report is already at NASA and the White House, Space News reported. The article, citing “sources both within the administration and close to it”, states that the administration is considering proposing a budget increase along the lines of what the Augustine committee considers necessary to enable human exploration beyond LEO: a gradual increase that leads to the $3-billion increase by 2014 widely reported. That’s different from efforts in Congress to give NASA an immediate, but one-time, $3-billion increase by taking money from unspent stimulus funds.
As for what option the agency and White House are considering, the Space News article indicates that the so-called “flexible path” option, which defers lunar landings for lunar flybys, NEO missions, and other destinations, is “an attractive option” within the space agency. The White House, an unnamed administration official states, considered a human return to the Moon “not sellable to the public or to the president”.
October 17, 2009 at 10:44 am · Filed under NASA, Other, White House
Just over a year ago astronomers discovered a tiny asteroid headed for the Earth. The asteroid, thought to be no more than a few meters across, entered the Earth’s atmosphere over northern Sudan and burned up, causing no damage but creating a shower of tony fragments, some of which have been recovered by scientists.
However, there was just enough concern about the meteorite that NASA emailed the White House asking them to alert the Sudanese government. That’s what former White House press secretary Dana Perino said in a speech to public relations professionals in Colorado, according to the Denver Business Journal:
It [the email] arrived 9:30 one night, from NASA, with “HEADS UP” in the subject line. It warned that an asteroid was headed toward Sudan. “Asteroids usually break up,” Perino said. “But the email asked us to call the Sudanese and let them know it’s coming.”
The unusual request surprised Perino. Fortunately, the asteroid did break up before hitting Earth, and she was spared the problem.
Perino said the request was “perhaps the most unusual email she received” during her time as press secretary for President George W. Bush. Who at NASA sent the email, and why it was sent to the press secretary instead of (or at least in addition to) other White House officials wasn’t mentioned.
October 16, 2009 at 9:34 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA, White House
Last week the Orlando Sentinel reported that Florida’s Congressional delegation was considering a call for reallocation of stimulus funds to NASA much like the Texas delegation has requested. On Friday the office of Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas announced that Florida’s delegation has done just that, requesting in a letter to President Obama that he shift “at least $3 billion” to NASA’s human spaceflight program. “Given the ARRA’s goals of stimulating our economy, supporting science, and maintaining and creating high-tech jobs,” the letter reads, referring to the stimulus bill’s official name, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), “we believe there is no better place to dedicate these funds than to our human space flight program.”
The letter is signed by both of the state’s senators (Bill Nelson and George LeMieux, recently appointed to serve out the remainder of Mel Martinez’s term) and 13 of the state’s 25 representatives, a lower turnout than Texas, which got 26 of its 32 representatives to sign on. The 13 are 8 Democrats (including Kosmas) and 5 Republicans (including Bill Posey, whose district also includes part of the state’s Space Coast.) All five Republicans who signed the bill voted against the stimulus bill when the House approved it earlier this year.
So with a majority of two states’ delegations asking for the redirection of funding, is this a sure deal? Not necessarily. As Fox News reported today, some members of Congress see unspent stimulus funds as “untapped resources” for a variety of proposals, from a source for a one-time $250 Social Security payment to $245 billion for Medicare. The article states that it’s “unclear” if the administration would support any reallocation of stimulus money, and that it would be up to Congress to make any decision.
October 16, 2009 at 7:15 am · Filed under Congress, NASA, White House
An editorial in Friday’s Florida Today offers a warning—or maybe a threat—to President Obama: increase NASA’s budget or “it will come back to haunt him at Florida’s ballot box”. The editorial claims that “among the reasons Obama won Florida last year was his NASA promise gained him votes in the critical Central Florida corridor.” Yet Obama lost Brevard County, the heart of the Space Coast, by 11 percentage points, and it seems unlikely space played a role in his much larger victories elsewhere in central Florida, like nearby Orange County, home to Orlando. The editorial also fails to point out that while Obama can propose a budget increase, there’s no guarantee that Congress will follow through, and most of the Congressional supporters cited in the editorial haven’t demonstrated much influence among appropriators on this topic.
Compare that to an op-ed in Thursday’s Washington Examiner by Douglas MacKinnon, who’s worried that once the shuttle is retired the US won’t be able to launch humans “for quite possibly a decade or more to come” because, as he puts it, “President Obama and most Members of Congress don’t consider our human spaceflight program to be a tangible vote-getter. As simple and as destructive as that.” MacKinnon goes on to complain that the White House and Congress don’t appreciate spaceflight in the same way John F. Kennedy did nearly a half-century ago, and then criticizes the Augustine committee (for concluding that a human return to the Moon by 2020 is unaffordable) and new NASA administrator Charles Bolden (for “weakly” offering rationales like lowering the cost of spaceflight and using the Moon as a testbed for new technologies, rather than channeling JFK.)
David Hill, a Republican pollster, offers a solution in a column this week in The Hill: Republicans and Democrats should work together to endorse “the continuation of the manned spaceflight program”. A great idea, except that space is already largely a bipartisan issue, with supporters on both sides of the aisle whose talking points are often identical (such as the request to divert $3 billion in stimulus money to NASA, something back by members of both parties.) That hasn’t been very successful—at least, not yet.
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