The Obama Administration has delayed the release of its fiscal year 2013 budget proposal by a week. The budget was to be released on February 6, but instead will be released on February 13. Federal law officially requires the budget proposal to be released on the first Monday of February, but the administration has missed that date in previous releases. (Plus, presumably everyone will be talking on February 6 about the Super Bowl the previous night, or at least the commercials that aired during the big game…)

While Americans have been discussing the space policy positions of Republican candidates, Indians have been witness to an emerging controversy involving the former head of the nation’s space agency. Last Wednesday the Indian government formally barred former Indian Space Research Organisation head G Madhavan Nair and three other officials from any future government positions. The government cited their roles approving a deal between ISRO’s commercial arm, Antrix, and a telecommunications company, Devas, in 2005, giving the company a chunk of S-band spectrum in violation of existing regulations. The government canceled the deal last year as part of its investigation. Nair has been fighting back against the ban, and on Monday he formally asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to revoke the ban and probe the government’s actions.

Satellite broadband company LightSquared continues its debate with the government officials about the potential interference the company’s proposed ground-based portion of its system would have with GPS signals. An interagency group concluded that there’s no way for LightSquared to operate with GPS without causing interference, a conclusion LightSquared disputes, as Aviation Week reports. Meanwhile, the company has filed an ethics complaint with NASA’s Office of the Inspector General, claiming that the vice chairman of the government’s National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Advisory Board, Bradford Parkinson, has a conflict of interest with a GPS terminal manufacturer flighting the LightSquared system.

This weekend, the Northeast Junior State Congress Convention will take place in the Washington area, including a Model Congress. Interestingly, according to the press release announcing the event, the legislation students will be considering during the Model Congress includes “a bill to promote privatized human space exploration”.

Another reason why it’s unlikely space would get much a mention in the address is that the administration may have something along the lines of space policy fatigue. This week’s issue of The New Yorker features a long article that takes readers behind the scenes of the Obama Administration, based on hundreds of pages of internal memos obtained by the magazine. The article takes a broad look at the administration acted and reacted to various issues, including, as it turns out, space.

The article notes that as a candidate for president in 2008, Obama “had promised a bold space program”, a reference to his space policy white paper the campaign released in August 2008. However, according to the New Yorker article, those plans foundered on projections of growing budget deficits. “Especially in light of our new fiscal context, it is not possible to achieve the inspiring space program goals discussed during the campaign,” a November 2009 memo (authorship unstated) advised the president. That sentence, the article noted, was in bold and underlined for particular emphasis. The result:

Obama was told that he should cancel NASA’s Bush-era Constellation program, along with its support projects, like the Ares launch vehicles, which were designed to return astronauts to the moon by 2020. The program was behind schedule, over budget, and “unachievable.” He agreed to end it. During the stimulus debate, Obama’s metaphorical moon-shot idea—the smart grid—was struck down as unworkable. Now the Administration’s actual moon-shot program was dead, too.

Later, the article notes the president received a letter dated February 2, 2010—one day after the release of the 2011 budget proposal that announced plans to cancel Constellation, as Obama was advised the previous November—from a Virginia woman whose husband was working on the program. “I voted for you. I supported you. But I am very disappointed in you. You are not the President I thought you were going to be,” the woman, identified only as “Ginger”, wrote, after criticizing the president for cancelling Constellation while continuing to fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama’s response to his staff: “can I get a sense of how Ares fit in with our long term NASA strategy to effectively respond”. A few days later he got that information and then instructed an aide to “Draft a short letter for Ginger, answering her primary concern—her husband’s career—for me to send.” What the president was told, and how he decided to respond, aren’t disclosed.

The Planetary Society is in the first camp. This week the organization released a letter it sent to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on NASA science funding. In the letter the society asks OMB for a “small but significant” change in NASA science funding, so that it accounts for 30 percent of NASA’s overall budget. (In FY2012 science accounts for $5.09 billion out of the agency’s $17.8-billion budget, or 28.6%.) This “modest rebalancing”, the society argues, would support the agency’s portfolio of science programs in an era of tight budgets. “If NASA’s overall budget shrinks, we are concerned that the Science program will carry a disproportionate burden of any reduction,” the letter states. “Increasing the share of the NASA budget for Science is the best place for the agency to make the most effective use of the taxpayers’ money in today’s austere budget environment.”

The Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) is more pessimistic about the administration’s budget request, particularly for the planetary science portion of the overall NASA science budget. “The reality is that within NASA’s science budget, planetary science is nowhere near the Administration’s top priority and that does leave us vulnerable to budget pressures,” DPS chair Dan Britt writes in a DPS newsletter published this week. A cut to planetary science funding, he notes, would jeopardize a wide range of missions as well as research funding.

However, he is more optimistic about how Congress will deal with planetary science funding. “Planetary science has a lot of friends on both sides the aisle in Congress. Congress likes the results the planetary science program, they like the consensus plan in the Decadal Survey, and they want to see it continue,” he writes. NASA’s planetary science program got a largely sympathetic hearing by the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee in November, with the OMB blamed for problems like the apparent unwillingness to commit to cooperation with Europe on Mars exploration. Britt adds, though, that Congress won’t act on its own. “While Congress is a potentially friendly forum, it’s going to be up to us, the planetary science community, to make the case for continued priority support.”

Tauscher’s comments took some by surprise, since it appeared in recent months that the US appeared willing to at least endorse the principles of the EU Code if not explicitly signing on to them. In an article Monday in The Space Review, lawyer Michael Listner speculated that the US would instead propose its own code of conduct in response. Such he move, he argued, might not necessarily win support from other spacefaring nations (which had expressed opposition to, or simply ignored, the EU document) and might also aggravate the Europeans.

On Tuesday, the US made its move. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton formally announced that the US would support the development of an “International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities” in cooperation with the EU and other nations. “A Code of Conduct will help maintain the long-term sustainability, safety, stability, and security of space by establishing guidelines for the responsible use of space,” she said.

News of the new US effort was first reported Tuesday by the Washington Times, who got quotes from several people expressing concern that such a code might jeopardize national security by limiting what the US can do in space. However, Clinton said in her statement that “the United States has made clear to our partners that we will not enter into a code of conduct that in any way constrains our national security-related activities in space or our ability to protect the United States and our allies.”

What isn’t clear is how this “international” code will differ from the EU draft that has been circulating since 2008, including what specifically the US took issue with in the EU document as being too restrictive. A fact sheet about the new initiative in fact praises the EU code. “The European Union’s draft Code of Conduct is a good foundation for the development of a non-legally binding International Code of Conduct focused on the use of voluntary and pragmatic transparency and confidence-building measures to help prevent mishaps, misperceptions, and mistrust in space,” it states.

In at least some respects, then, the US “rejection” of the EU code is hardly a surprise, but part of a long-term effort to craft a more international document. Even EU officials said last year that their proposed code was a draft; one likened it to an “internal memo” that the EU was soliciting feedback upon but not expecting anyone to immediately sign on to. Development of a final international code of conduct might still be well into the future.

“On the one hand, NASA is actively seeking international partners to collaborate on future missions,” said subcommittee chairman Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS) in his opening statement. “On the other, the administration appears to be interfering with the agency’s efforts to reach out and engage foreign governments in future flagship missions.”

That alleged interference is a reference to the current state of limbo that NASA’s cooperation with ESA on 2016 and 2018 Mars missions is in, after NASA had to back out of an agreement to launch ESA’s 2016 Mars orbiter. The concern of committee members, and the planetary science community, is that OMB may treat those missions, and other large “flagship” planetary missions, as a lower priority and not seek funding for them in future budgets. An OMB official, Sally Ericsson, program associate director for natural resources, energy, and science, was invited to testify but declined, Palazzo said. (Her name was added to the public list of witnesses for the hearing only about an hour before it started.) “I am not surprised but I find it regrettable,” Palazzo said of OMB’s decision not to appear.

Steve Squyres, the Cornell University planetary scientist who chaired the most recent planetary decadal survey, one that found that a Mars rover to cache samples for later return to Earth to be its highest-priority flagship mission, said he was confused by the current situation regarding support for that mission. “I’m perplexed, sir,” he said with a sigh when asked about it by Palazzo. “I sense within the agency a strong desire to do flagship missions,” he said, citing work being done to lower the cost of the 2018 Mars rover mission. “And yet, there’s no commitment being made. I’m perplexed.”

Sqyures said later he has talked with OMB officials about the future Mars missions and making a commitment to cooperate closely with ESA. “In those conversations I have been told the administration, at this current time, is not ready to make such a commitment,” he said.

Caught in the middle of this debate was the other hearing witness, Jim Green, the director of the planetary science division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. He described his role as the “advocate for planetary science” within NASA and the federal government, but acknowledged that his office and his agency have to work within “a difficult budget situation” that will require compromises. “Currently, OMB has not officially notified NASA of canceling Mars ’16 or ’18,” he said, adding that NASA meets with OMB “on a regular basis” on those missions and other issues. He later said that NASA is continuing to work with ESA on those missions based on the 2009 agreement between the two space agencies, and not because of any explicit approval from OMB.

On a separate subject, though, Green did offer a little bit of good news. Asked about efforts to restart production of plutonium-238, the isotope used in radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) that power some planetary missions, Green said NASA was moving forward with the Department of Energy on those plans. “We’re on the path to do that,” he said, citing funding provided to NASA (but not DOE) in draft FY12 spending bills and cooperation between the two agencies. “Production could begin within the next couple of years.”

Stern and DiBello are also signatories on an open letter to Congress and the White House released Tuesday on the topic of commercial crew funding. The letter, like the earlier op-ed, calls for expediting commercial crew through increased funding and streamlined processes. The letter is signed by over 40 people, ranging from executives of entrepreneurial space companies to former astronauts and NASA officials.

The day before that letter, nearly two dozen former astronauts submitted a similar letter to key House and Senate appropriators, also in support of commercial crew. This letter also calls for full funding of commercial crew, although the signatories appear willing to accept the $500 million the Senate approved in its version of the appropriations legislation. “Funding Commercial Crew at least at the Authorization Act level of $500 million will mean less reliance on Russia and a stronger space program here at home, and funding Commercial Crew at NASA’s requested level of $850 million will enable these commercial vehicles to be developed on an even more expeditious basis,” they write.

It’s noteworthy that commercial crew has been the one NASA program that has received significant lobbying attention as the appropriations process reaches its conclusion. NASA’s Space Technology program, for example, had its requested budget cut significantly in both the House and Senate, but hasn’t received nearly the same attention as commercial crew. (There has been concern about planetary exploration, but that has focused more on the long-term prospects beyond the FY12 budget.) Of course, commercial crew has a clear constituency—those companies involved or seeking to be involved in the program, as well as those companies and organizations that would benefit from commercial crew systems—while the constituency for technology programs is more diffuse. Whether this press of attention will have any affect on the appropriations process, though, remains to be seen.

But are people using the White House’s new “We the People” online petition tool for more serious space policy topics? Not much, it seems. Of the 118 open, visible petitions on the site (as of early Tuesday morning), only two deal directly with space issues, but both have met the threshold—originally 5,000 signatures, but raised for newer petitions to 25,000—for an official response. One, “Reallocate Defense funds to NASA”, seeks to divert defense funding to NASA, specifically for human spaceflight. “America and Humanity require a permanent presence in Space and no amount of telescopes or rovers are going to meet that requirement. Manned Missions are the only answer but NASA does not the have funds to make this vision a reality,” the petition states (capitalization in original). “America needs to wind down these wars and reallocate all that money into our space program.”

The second petition seeks to give the shuttle Enterprise to Ohio, reversing NASA’s controversial award of the orbiter to New York’s Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum. “New York City is unprepared to house the Enterprise Shuttle while the National Museum of the USAF at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is the ideal location,” the petition argues. “Please help boost the Ohio economy!”

The odds of success of either petition—in terms of changing policy, not attracting signatures—appear long. Transferring “all that money” that funded wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to NASA would be a political nonstarter in the current era of cutting overall federal spending. And would the White House wade in and override NASA’s decision to award Enterprise to New York City, making NASA look bad and agitating New Yorkers, without some other precipitating event (such as the failure of the Intrepid museum to raise funding for its planned shuttle museum)?

Notably, there are no open, visible petitions on what the space community considers hot topics: nothing about the Space Launch System, commercial crew, space technology funding, and so on. The key here, though, is visible: in order for a petition to show up in a search on the “We the People” site, it must already have at least 150 signatures, requiring sponsors to rely on word of (electronic) mouth when starting their petition drive. For example, in addition to the petition giving Dayton the shuttle Enterprise, there’s a similar one to give Enterprise to Houston. However, that petition, created just over a week ago, has attracted only 37 signatures as of Tuesday morning, and thus doesn’t show up in public searches.

Perhaps, though, the space community has decided that the petition site is little more than a stunt, and that there are more traditional, effective means to shape policy. Or, as one recent petition states, “We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition.”.

Houston’s KTRK, not surprisingly, brought up the issue of space in connection to employment and the local economy. “I’m hugely committed to manned spaceflight, but I want to make sure that we’re doing it right and that we’re not wasting taxpayer money,” the president said. “What we’ve said with NASA is we need to retool to take that next big leap forward in space. The shuttle program had a wonderful run, but the truth of the matter is that the next phase, including the Orion project, was way behind schedule and didn’t seem to be meeting its budget objectives. So what we’ve done is tried to say let’s take a step back, let’s figure out how do we retool.”

President Obama also made a brief, but unsolicited, discussion of space during a separate interview with Tampa’s WTVT. “We are, for example, working with NASA and the private sector to bring additional jobs into central Florida,” he said in response to a question about improving Florida’s economy. “Boeing just made an announcement that we’re very happy about.” That was a reference to a deal announced Monday where Boeing would set up CST-100 operations at the Kennedy Space Center, employing up to 550 people by mid-decade.

They add that those programs are at least as important, if not more so, than commercial crew development efforts at the agency. “While we all agree that commercial space ventures are critical to the future of human space flight, they cannot come at the expense of NASA’s role in ensuring access to space. They cannot come at the expense of seeing all the amazing, cutting edge expertise gathered together at MSFC and JSC being dispersed around the world – lost to this country and our own space efforts.”

Meanwhile, Mars Society president Robert Zubrin raised alarm bells when he claimed in an op-ed published Thursday in the Washington Times that the White House was planning to “terminate” NASA’s planetary science program in its FY2013 budget proposal. After the 2013 launch of the MAVEN Mars orbiter, he said, “No further missions to anywhere are planned.”

There’s one problem with his piece, though: that fantastic claim appears to be incorrect. “It is not true the planetary program is being killed,” Jim Green, head of NASA’s planetary science program, told the NASA Advisory Council Thursday during a telecon, Space News reported. The planetary program does face some problems with funding in future years, he acknowledged, but termination is not in the cards. “I’m here to say the future doesn’t look as healthy as it has been, but it is still the best program in the world,” Green said, SpacePolicyOnline.com reported.

Zubrin, incidentally, will be appearing at a Capitol Hill forum next Thursday jointly organized by The Planetary Society and The Mars Society, titled, “NASA at a Turning Point: Vibrant Future or Close Shop”.