By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 29 at 7:10 am ET On Monday Congressman Robert Aderholt (R-AL) announced plans to introduce legislation that would compel NASA to spend FY10 funds on Constellation. The “Protecting Human Space Flight Act of 2010″, which Aderholt said he was introducing Monday (it has not yet shown up in Thomas), would require NASA to spend remaining FY10 Constellation funds on that program, rather than reserve the funds to cover contract termination liabilities, as NASA is now doing. “NASA is putting jobs in jeopardy because of a drastic proposal that isn’t even actual law,” Aderholt said in the statement. The agency “should not be assuming that this plan will be approved by Congress and signed into law.”
While the legislation has a number of co-sponsors from both parties (primarily from states most affected by plans to cancel Constellation), one wonders if this bill is designed more to highlight the situation than to actually become law. As a standalone piece of legislation the bill’s chances of making it through the House and Senate and be signed by the president by the end of September (the end of the current fiscal year) appear slim. A better strategy would be to do as the Senate has done and attach language to a must-pass supplemental appropriations bill. This may, in fact, be their strategy, but as Aderholt himself states in his press release, introducing a bill can send a stronger message. “I hope this bill sends the message to the rest of the House or Representatives and the Administration that NASA must wait for Congress to act on its proposal and that our nation needs to make a commitment to properly fund the Constellation program to save jobs and make sure that America remains the leader in space,” he said.
Aderholt later told Huntsville TV station WHNT that the legislation would “end a message to these [Constellation] contractors, that we are moving forward, that Congress fully expects the Constellation program to be in effect, and therefore the money should be spent, as is dictated by the 2010 law.” He added that he believes “90% or more of Congress right now believes that Constellation is a good program,” but did not disclose how he reached that conclusion.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 29 at 6:40 am ET At 10am this morning the House Science and Technology Committee’s investigations and oversight subcommittee will hold a hearing on the country’s troubled polar weather satellite program. “Since 2003, there have been seven hearings before the Science and Technology Committee or its subcommittees on the subject of the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) program,” the hearing charter notes. The administration now wants to split NPOESS into two, one for the DOD and a separate one for NOAA and NASA. Officials from NOAA, NASA, OSTP, DOD, and the GAO are all scheduled to testify on the status of this planned restructuring.
Then, at 3:30 pm this afternoon, the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee will hold a markup of its FY11 appropriations bill. This will be the first chance for Congress to put dollar amounts, and other conditions, on the administration’s plans for NASA.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 28 at 3:09 pm ET The White House released at around 2 pm EDT today the administration’s new national space policy, along with a fact sheet and a statement by the president about the policy. A quick glance through the policy (and comparison to the 2006 policy issued by the Bush Administration) reveals a few initial impressions:
- The new policy seems to emphasize a greater need for international cooperation but also greater responsibility by all spacefaring nations. A quote from the introduction: “All nations have the right to use and explore space, but with this right also comes responsibility. The United States, therefore, calls on all nations to work together to adopt approaches for responsible activity in space to preserve this right for the benefit of future generations.”
- The new policy appears to walk back some of the more strident (in the eyes of critics) language of the 2006 policy, taking out the US-first emphasis some saw in the older policy. Compare this quote from the 2006 policy’s principles section—”Consistent with this principle, ‘peaceful purposes’ allow U.S. defense and intelligence-related activities in pursuit of national interests.”—with the related portion of the new policy: “Consistent with this principle, ‘peaceful purposes’ allows for space to be used for national and homeland security activities.”
- There is a greater emphasis on promoting commercial space in the new policy. However, some might find the portion of the policy dealing with export control lacking, given the interest in ITAR reform. The new policy notes that “…space-related items that are determined to be generally available in the global marketplace shall be considered favorably with a view that such exports are usually in the national interests of the United States.” That’s similar to the 2006 policy, which noted that “space-related exports that are currently available or are planned to be available in the global marketplace shall be considered favorably.”
What else do you see, or don’t see, in the new policy?
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 26 at 9:37 am ET It appears that NASA has complied, at least partially, with a request by a House committee for documents about the FY11 budget process. Tucked into an article about impending layoffs at Constellation contractors, the New York Times reports that NASA sent over documents to the House Science and Technology Committee Friday evening, which staff members are now reviewing. The committee demanded the documents last week after NASA was not forthcoming with earlier requests for information about aspects of the budget. The report does not indicate, however, whether the agency withheld any documents, and if so for what reasons.
Meanwhile, six senators have written to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, asking him to abandon efforts to slow down Constellation by requiring contractors to withhold funds to cover termination liability. In the letter the senators cite concerns about “inconsistent treatment and the counter-productive effect of withholding funding” on NASA contractors. The letter was organized, according to Florida Today, by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and signed by Sens. Robert Bennett (R-UT), Jon Cornyn (R-TX), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), George LeMieux (R-FL), and David Vitter (R-LA). While the signers are all from states that have perhaps the most to lose from the cancellation of Constellation, interestingly, neither Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) nor Alabama’s two senators signed the letter.
All this comes as the House is expected to finally start to take action on the NASA budget proposal. Next Tuesday afternoon the Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee will markup its version of the FY11 spending bill, which includes NASA. The House is also expected to take up next week a supplemental appropriations bill for FY10, including deciding whether to include language similar to the Senate version that requires NASA to fund “continued performance of Constellation contracts” with the remaining funding this fiscal year. An article in Saturday’s Houston Chronicle discusses these developments, although some might find the article has a curious tilt. “Two milestones in the protracted congressional budget process are expected to provide NASA supporters their first concrete evidence next week that lawmakers from states without major NASA facilities are willing to defy the president and support the campaign to salvage parts of the $108 billion back-to-the-moon program,” the article states. So one can’t be a “NASA supporter” and also back the administration’s new direction for the agency? Perhaps not in Houston.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 25 at 6:15 am ET With all the debate about the future of NASA, it’s easy to overlook the fact that the administration has also been busy crafting its overall national space policy, taking into account commercial, civil, and national security issues. That process has been ongoing for months and appears to be nearing completion. As SpacePolicyOnline.com reports, Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley said Thursday that the policy will be released in the near future, giving responses ranging from “this summer” to “in the next couple of weeks”. That timeframe is not unexpected: at the National Space Symposium in Colorado in April, one official said that he expected the policy to come out this summer.
So what will be in the policy? Donley said Thursday he expected the policy would reflect the changes in the space domain over the last couple of decades, as Earth orbit becomes more congested and even contested. Meanwhile, Laura Grego and David Wright offered their opinions on what should be in the policy in a white paper published by the Union of Concerned Scientists this week. They hope to see the Obama Administration walk back some of the changes in the 2006 policy that represented, in their view, “a more aggressive U.S. approach to space”. They expect the new policy to include language “restoring a balance among civil, military and commercial uses of space”.
Update 6:45 pm: Space News reports that the new policy could come out as soon as Monday. One of the areas of emphasis of the new policy, according to a one-page fact sheet obrained by the publication, is “to strengthen our domestic commercial space industry”; improved international cooperation is another.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 24 at 6:54 am ET In an article in the Birmingham News yesterday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) described a meeting Tuesday with NASA administrator Charles Bolden as “troubling” because he didn’t see any signs of compromise from the administration. “We should not think that the president at the moment has any plans to make significant alterations to what they have stated is their goal,” he told the newspaper. Sessions also said he and a group of other, unidentified senators are interested in an “independent legal opinion” on NASA’s use of the Antideficiency Act to slow down work on Constellation. “We think this is clearly a violation of the congressional intent.”
Despite a NASA directive to withhold nearly $1 billion in Constellation funds in order to comply with the act, money is still flowing to Constellation contractors, the Wall Street Journal reports. The article suggested that the latest releases of funds to contractors ATK and Lockheed Martin were somehow done in contradiction to that directive and without Bolden’s knowledge or approval, claiming that “NASA’s bureaucracy seems to be equivocating” even though monthly Constellation expenditures have dropped by two thirds.
Bolden also faces criticism in an editorial in today’s Orlando Sentinel, this time about his potential conflict of interest regarding an agency biofuels program the newspaper reported over the weekend. That controversy, the editorial argues, “raises doubts about whether he has all the right stuff – including the savvy and sound judgment – to succeed in his position.” The Sentinel wants Bolden to step back from any decisions about this particular project as well as any others where he might have some kind of financial stake. “Mr. Bolden has called into question his ability to lead NASA in this extraordinary time. How quickly, and how firmly, he acts to defuse this controversy will speak volumes about whether he is up to the job.”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 23 at 1:03 pm ET Or, at least, its morning on the Hill. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) announced today that Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) will be hosting an event tomorrow morning for senators and their staffers to discuss commercial spaceflight. Keynoting the event will be Norm Augustine, with other speakers from SpaceX, ULA, Orbital, and Sierra Nevada Corporation. The CSF release notes that in his invitation to his Senate colleague, Brownback wrote that the event will allow them to “hear [from] some of the leading private aerospace companies about what they believe the private sector can contribute to America’s mission in space, and what Congress can do to make it possible.”
Brownback, who did chair the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee several years ago, has been relatively quiet on the debate about NASA’s future and the role of the commercial sector to date, although he did appear supportive of a greater role for commercial providers in a Senate hearing on the subject last month. The event will be from 10:30am to 12 noon Thursday in Dirksen 562, and is also open to the media.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 23 at 7:09 am ET In a statement yesterday, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) endorsed a letter by John Glenn calling for a shuttle extension. “I strongly agree with Senator Glenn, and the concerns expressed by many others, that the simultaneous cancellation of the Constellation program and the retirement of the space shuttle threatens our access to and use of the space station,” Hutchison said. “The decision to retire the shuttle fleet was made based on a plan to have commercial cargo resupply capabilities available soon after the final shuttle flight, and an expected station service date of 2015. The simple fact is that since the shuttle retirement decision was made, the service life of the space station has been extended until 2020 and new commercial cargo capabilities have experienced significant delays.” She added that while she has proposed some scenarios for extending the shuttle program by stretching out the remaining flights (more difficult now with only two missions remaining on the manifest), “the Administration has given no indication that it understands how the President’s proposal changes assumptions and plans regarding the space station, or that it is willing to discuss options to extend the availability of the space shuttle.”
Sen. Hutchison is expected to make NASA a priority at least through the remainder of her current term, which runs through 2012, Roll Call reported this week. David Beckwith, a “longtime” advisor to the senator, told the newspaper that Hutchison “likely would focus her energy on Commerce Committee work and doing her best to protect NASA from budget cuts.” He added that she would likely make a decision “in about a year” whether to seek reelection in 2012, based in part on the whether Republicans take control of the Senate in 2010 or appear likely to win control in the 2012 elections; Hutchison, as ranking member of the Commerce Committee, would be in line to chair it.
Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Shelby is being honored for his efforts to save Constellation, but it’s an award that the Alabama Republican is unlikely to accept. Citizens Against Government Waste named Shelby its “Porker of the Month” for his effort last month add language to a supplement appropriations bill that would require NASA to continue spending money on Constellation. “Sen. Shelby’s actions just perpetuate the notion that politicians in Washington are living on a completely different planet,” CAGW president Tom Schatz said in a statement. “It is outrageous for Sen. Shelby to object to the private sector’s work on space exploration and characterize it as ‘corporate welfare,’ when his own actions are nothing but pure pork-barrel spending to contractors from his state.” That amendment has passed the Senate, but the House has not yet taken up its version of the supplemental.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 23 at 6:51 am ET In a letter to President Obama earlier this week, 62 members of Congress have expressed their displeasure with plans to cancel Constellation. “If we continue with this new space policy, including the outright cancellation of the Constellation program,” they write, “we are concerned that other countries will forge ahead of us, challenging our space dominance as we literally cede the higher ground to our foreign competitors.” However, they are not asking for the complete restoration of Constellation: instead, they support the “immediate development” of a heavy-lift vehicle that, along with Orion, “may be used for either lunar or deep-space exploration to an asteroid and beyond, as you said in Florida.” This is apparently the letter that a Houston Chronicle article referred to earlier this month as part of a shift to “political pragmatism”.
Congress, though, can get as good as they can give. As they were sending the letter to the White House, they were also receiving an open letter from a diverse group ranging from space company executives to spaceport operators to space advocates. The letter calls for both full funding for the commercial crew element in the White House budget proposal as well as a call to “accelerate the pace and funding” of NASA human space exploration plans. “We specifically wish to express our concern that the commercial crew to Space Station program is sometimes seen as optional or too risky to America’s future in space, but nothing could be further from the truth,” they write. “In fact, the commercial crew to Space Station program is a fundamental enabler of NASA’s human space exploration beyond Earth orbit, specifically because it will free up the NASA dollars needed to develop deep space transportation and exploration systems for astronauts.”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 22 at 7:18 am ET In case you missed it: the Orlando Sentinel reported Sunday that NASA administrator Charles Bolden is being investigated by the agency’s inspector general for a potential conflict of interest regarding a biofuels research program. Bolden reportedly sought the advice of officials at Marathon Oil, a company whose board Bolden previously served on, about a NASA Ames project to develop biofuel from algae, then concluded that the project in question was “not a good investment in research dollars at this time” for the agency. NASA’s general counsel reviewed the consultation and found no conflict of interest, but the issue is under review by the inspector general.
Congressman C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-MD), in a visit to Huntsville, said that he wants a “roadmap” of the country’s long-term goals for space exploration over the next 10-15 years. He appeared concerned that without an aggressive space exploration plan, “it gives a head start to a lot of our competitors, especially the Chinese.” However, as the video accompanying the article reveals, Ruppersberger is not necessarily advocating a complete restoration of Constellation and an increase in NASA spending. “Let’s be perfectly clear: the president canceled the program, so we have to build upon where we are,” he said. “And again, the issue of cost is there, especially in this economy.”
At 2:30 pm this afternoon Space News is hosting a live webcast with NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver titled “NASA’s New Direction: An Update from the Top”.
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