White House « Space Politics

How do you pay for JWST?

By Jeff Foust on 2011 September 29 at 9:30 am ET

The cost increases and schedule delays associated with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have become a major concern in the scientific community and beyond, as best illustrated when the House Appropriations Committee offered no funding for the program in its FY2012 appropriations bill, which is currently pending consideration by the full House. Although the […]

Senators claim administration seeking to “undermine America’s manned space program”

By Jeff Foust on 2011 September 8 at 10:27 am ET

This morning Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Bill Nelson (D-FL), the ranking member of the full Senate Commerce Committee and chairman of its space subcommittee, respectively, issued a press release about the status of the administration’s plans (or lack thereof) for the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket. The press release came in response […]

How expensive is too expensive for NASA’s exploration plans?

By Jeff Foust on 2011 September 7 at 5:56 am ET

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the White House is concerned that NASA’s exploration plans may not be affordable over the long haul. Specifically, the concern within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is whether Congress would be willing to spend as much as $62 billion through 2025 to develop the Space Launch […]

What will be caught in Webb’s budgetary web?

By Jeff Foust on 2011 August 23 at 6:31 am ET

On Monday Aviation Week and Nature reported on the latest cost estimate for building and operating the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): $8.7 billion. That includes the costs to build and launch the telescope, as well as five years of science operations. That new total figure should not be surprising: last month Rep. Frank Wolf […]

Another round of belt tightening

By Jeff Foust on 2011 August 19 at 6:15 am ET

While work on fiscal year 2012 budgets is slowly making progress in Congress, federal agencies are already working on their planned 2013 budgets, preparing submissions to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Those agencies, including NASA, are now being given guidance from the White House to be ready to trim their budgets. In a […]

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 […]

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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Briefly: optimism, pessimism, and export control

By Jeff Foust on 2011 July 27 at 6:18 am ET

There’s a bit of a lull in space policy now, after the shuttle has landed and with Congress and the administration preoccupied with much bigger, pressing issues. A few items of interest:

In the post-shuttle era, NASA administrator Charles Bolden is optimistic, reiterating that the end of the shuttle doesn’t mean the end of NASA […]

Taking the high road, with a little hitchhiking

By Jeff Foust on 2011 July 22 at 7:11 am ET

Yesterday’s successful landing of Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center marked the end of the 30-year space shuttle program and the beginning of a period of some uncertainty for NASA’s human spaceflight program. That milestone would appear to be another opportunity for critics of the Obama Administration’s space policy in Congress and elsewhere to voice […]

President’s statement on the launch of Atlantis

By Jeff Foust on 2011 July 8 at 3:46 pm ET

For the second time this week, President Obama has spoken publicly about space issues. In a “Twitter Town Hall” on Wednesday he described how he was pushing NASA to “revamp its vision”. This afternoon, a few hours after the successful launch of the shuttle Atlantis on the final mission of the program, he released a […]

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