One additional area of concern she mentioned that has not gotten as much publicity is funding the transition and closeout of the Constellation program. The budget proposal includes $2.5 billion over two years for that, but Garver noted that no funding for that is included in any of the current Congressional legislation. “Just because you don’t have that in the budget doesn’t mean we’re not going to have to spend that money,” she warned. “Those dollars will have to be embedded in some of the other programs if it is not singled out in a line item.”

On heavy-lift, she said that NASA was “working with Congress to get a broader, deeper understanding” on how to go forward on this. She suggested that the agency didn’t feel it should be restricted on the design of an HLV by language such as that in the report accompanying the Senate’s authorization bill, which mandates a specific shuttle-derived approach. “We don’t feel that the best way to make those technical decisions is at the level of political leadership” but instead where the technical expertise resides at NASA and in industry. Political leadership, she said, can instead drive the “figures of merit” for such a system, such as affordability.

She also said that the debate does not appear to be as fierce now as it was earlier this year. “There is a lessening of tensions in Washington,” she said, noting that “we really don’t feel that we are now questioning each other’s intentions.” While unsure about when a compromise might be reached, she said she was confident “there will be a program coming together”. One positive aspect of the debate, she noted, was the debate was about not about how much to spend on NASA: “I don’t believe I heard a speech about cutting the $19 billion” overall NASA budget proposal for FY2011.

The letter makes several specific requests. For technology development the signatories ask that funding “be increased to levels significantly closer to the President’s request”. They also ask for full funding of the commercial crew development program and the CRuSR suborbital program, as well as “adequate funding” for the robotic precursor mission program.

The letter is particularly targeted at the House, whose authorization bill severely cuts (“substantially underfunded”, in the language of the letter) many of these programs compared to both the original budget request and the Senate authorization and appropriation legislation. “These investments,” the letter concludes, “will help ensure continued American space leadership.”

The University of Nebraska College of Law will be hosting a free one-day conference on national space policy on Friday, September 10, at the Newseum in Washington. Keynote speakers include Gen. James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver.

Another aspect of the memo and review is the uncertain, but not particularly promising, future of the National Security Space Office (NSSO), originally a joint office between the Defense Department and NRO but now solely staffed by the DOD. While Air Force staff currently assigned to NSSO will now fall under the Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for Space, Donley’s memo states that decisions about NSSO staff associated with the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) will be deferred “until ongoing discussions about the role of the EA [Executive Agent] for Space and roles and reporting relationships for any successor organization to the NSSO are complete and agreement has been reached for the roles and responsibilities of the successor organization(s).” The memo adds that discussions with OSD on the future of functions assigned to NSSO are ongoing, with Donley stating he is “very encouraged by the collaborative approach demonstrated during these meetings.”

We are (we hope) on the cusp of achieving big things. A few companies (established and emerging) already have systems for transportation, many whose heritage is right here in Alabama. We will oversee these rockets to ensure that the highest possible safety standards are met. The U.S. has lost a large share of the commercial market. There is a growing market for launch services internationally, and by other U.S. government agencies and the private sector, both traditional markets and new ones. There is huge untapped potential for expanded markets, businesses, and jobs connected to launching cargo and eventually crew to orbit.

We believe it is time for the government to help to create a whole new sector of the economy that will produce jobs and innovation for years to come. This is precisely what has driven economic growth in this country for our entire history— government playing its critical role by investing in technology and industry doing what it does best—allowing us to spend less on operations and explore further into the universe. We’re continuing this quest that began here in Huntsville 50 years ago.

A bit later in the speech, she noted that the debate was not about whether the US should be doing space exploration, but how:

As I said the good news is that we’re debating how to do this, not whether or not we should, and that is progress. The shift is that the government may not need to be the operator of rocket systems whose sole purpose is to reach low Earth orbit anymore. We can facilitate other people who will do that for us. Meanwhile, we’ll be focused on sending missions farther into the solar system and achieving other astounding new things that will, in turn, inspire future generations. Things like humans visiting an asteroid, or robots sending pictures back from a destination we’ve never been such as the moons of Mars, and ultimately, the dusty soil of Mars itself.

And a final reminder to those not satisfied with the current situation: “If you don’t like how the politics are playing out, you have the opportunity to get involved to make them better. That’s my view.”

On Tuesday Cramer reiterated that stance to the Birmingham News and added something else: he is not working for SpaceX at all and is not registered to lobby on its behalf. “I knew that my firm was registering to lobby for SpaceX and I’m a partner there, and there might appear to be a conflict,” he said. “I think they removed my name from there to be clear about it,” referring to lobbying registration filings by Wexler and Walker.

According to Senate lobbying records, Cramer’s name was listed on a lobbying registration form filed by Wexler and Walker on March 1 that indicated that the firm was working for SpaceX. Cramer’s name was listed with another former congressman, Bob Walker, and Dale Snape. Three weeks later, the lobbying firm filed an amended registration that replaced Cramer with Patric Link. The amended filing gives no reason for the change. According to filings, Wexler and Walker performed $30,000 of lobbying for SpaceX in the first quarter of this year and $60,000 in the second quarter, all on the topic of “NASA Funding”.

While Adams is quiet on the issue of commercial spaceflight, Sen. Sam Brownback, a Republican now running for governor of Kansas, is not. Speaking in Wichita yesterday, Brownback in effect put out the welcome mat for space companies that might be thinking of establishing operations there. “We will pursue partnering opportunities with our existing companies and private space companies on the design and manufacture of commercial space vehicles, as well as encourage them to locate some of their facilities here,” he said, the AP reported. Brownback also introduced Alan Weston of NASA’s Ames Research Center, who spoke at the Wichita Aero Club and had a similar message of support for commercial space. “We at Ames, and many people at NASA, believe that commercial space can cut these [spaceflight] costs dramatically,” he said, as reported by the Wichita Business Journal. “I believe, and Pete Worden (director of NASA Ames) believes, that the industry here — the aviation industry — can lead this revolution.”

In an op-ed in Sunday’s Houston Chronicle, Scott Spencer and Chris Kraft make a last-ditch bid to extend the space shuttle program as a cornerstone for a “robust manned space program”. The op-ed takes a curiouser turn later on, though, as the two advocate development of a “modular, reusable Planetary Transport Vehicle (PTV) System” for human missions beyond LEO—modules that, of course, would be sized to fit in the shuttle’s payload bay, but with crews ferried to them in LEO by commercial vehicles. It’s worth nothing that the two sent a joint letter to President Obama in April asking him to extend the shuttle program (but without the discussion of the PTV system) when Spencer made a short-lived attempt to run for the House from Delaware.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the topic of an editorial in the Orlando Sentinel on Saturday, which expresses concerns about cost overruns and delays in the program. “Such cost overruns and delays are unacceptable,” the editorial states, but expresses support for the program’s scientific potential. “Making the Webb telescope a success deserves to be a national priority. Its promise is almost unfathomable.”

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) is optimistic about the commercial prospects of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at Wallops Island in Virginia, she tells the local newspaper, the Daily News. The spaceport will start hosting launches next summer of Orbital Sciences’ Taurus 2 rocket, carrying cargo spacecraft to the ISS. Wallops, she said, “will be like the Southwest Airlines of space. It’s an upstart, lower cost, cheaper and safer way because it doesn’t require human flight.” The metaphor seems a little tangled: Orbital, it seems, would be in line to be Southwest while Wallops would be like Dallas’s Love Field, or, closer to home, BWI Airport, both major hubs for Southwest.

“NASA wants to start heavy-lift work in 2011 ‘in a very robust way,’” the Huntsville Times reported today, quoting deputy administrator Lori Garver, who is in town. And what about the need to study various HLV designs? “We don’t need to study it anymore,” said Marshall director Robert Lightfoot, whose center would lead any HLV program.

Garver attempted to sound a conciliatory note in her comments, as least as reported by the Times: she said there’s no longer a “stalemate” between the White House and Congress on NASA, with both sides now talking to each other. (She added, though, that it would be up to Congress to reconcile the differences between the Senate and House versions of NASA authorization legislation.) She said that NASA and the administration got off to a poor start selling the new plan: “We had not well explained the issues with Constellation.” And, she complemented Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), one of the most vociferous critics of the administration’s NASA policies: “One of the reasons we are as far as we are (in space) is because of Sen. Shelby.”

The letter cites several concerns. One is the lack of “a plan to restore U.S. technical capability to launch astronauts to space once the shuttle is retired”; the society supports commercial crew development, but worries that plans to develop government systems for such access could extend the post-shuttle gap. They also note the lack of specific exploration goals in the legislation and cuts in exploration and technology programs. Also, while supporting the eventual development of a heavy-lift vehicle, they don’t support the Senate’s plan to begin development of such a system immediately, because “premature development through political legislation rather than technological studies could result in huge waste and eventual delays.”

“We ask for your help and leadership, and that of your colleagues on the full Committees” to avoid the incomplete plan they fear, the letter concludes. “This may require stepping back from each of the Congressional bills now passed by Committees and refocusing on the whole. Congress’ interests and the Administration’s interests are more alike than different. We urge your support for a new NASA plan.”