By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 11 at 6:16 am ET Yesterday Reps. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) and Bill Posey (R-FL) introduced the “Human Spaceflight Capability Assurance and Protection Act”, which they called the companion version to legislation introduced by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) last week. The text of the legislation isn’t posted yet, but the summary included in Kosmas’s press release covers the major issues in the Senate version, including supporting a shuttle extension, encouraging commercial crew vehicle development, support development of a heavy-lift launcher, and include authorization for NASA funding for 2011 and 2012.
“By continuing to fly the Shuttle until the next generation space vehicle is ready to launch, we can continue to operate our space program without interruption, the loss of highly skilled American jobs or ceding ground to Russia or China,” Rep. Posey said in his statement. “Shuttle extension is the only way to close the gap in the near-term and with certainty.”
Besides Kosmas and Posey, 12 other members of Congress have signed on to co-sponsor the bill, primarily from Florida, with a scattering from Texas, Ohio, and Louisiana (and a couple outliers: Jim Costa (D-CA), whose district covers part of the Central Valley including parts of Fresno and Bakersfield; and Chellie Pingree (D-ME)). Notably missing from the list of cosponsors is the Democratic and Republican leadership of the House Science and Technology Committee, including chairman Bart Gordon and ranking member Ralph Hall as well as and space subcommittee chair Gabrielle Giffords and ranking member Pete Olson.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 10 at 11:17 pm ET One of the biggest questions in the space community right now is what’s behind the White House’s decision on Sunday to hold a space conference featuring President Obama in Florida on April 15: why hold the conference, and what do they expect to get out of it, among other issues. NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver briefly addressed this after her prepared remarks at the Goddard Memorial Symposium Wednesday in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“When the Augustine Committee reported out last fall and it became more and more clear that change was absolutely necessary for NASA and our community to have a vital future, it was always clear that the president was going to take a personal role in that future,” she said, “and this is just the opportunity he’s choosing to do that.”
She also defended the process by which the new plan for the agency was rolled out as part of the FY2011 budget proposal. “That’s how our leadership in this administration makes the big decisions,” she said. “People who expressed concern that this is not the president’s plan struck me as rather odd given that this was in the president’s budget.” As for the lack of statements from the president about the new plan to date, she noted, “Think of the nation’s budget and how many things the president can talk about in the short period of time—less than a month and a half—since the budget came out.”
“This is something that we absolutely recognize is adopted at the highest levels of the administration going forward,” she continued, “and they knew this was a major shift. You don’t do major shifts without feeling strongly about it, and the president feels strongly enough about it to personally participate in a public way. He’s been personally participating in the last few months’ deliberations on the budget.”
As for the conference itself, there will be more details about the event coming out from the White House, she said, although not saying when those details will be released.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 10 at 10:22 pm ET On Thursday six members of the House, all Republicans, wil hold a press conference at the Capitol to ask NASA administrator Charles Bolden to conduct a study in advance of next month’s presidential space conference. Here’s how the event is described in a release late today from one of the six participating members, John Culberson of Texas:
Tomorrow Congressmen Frank Wolf (R-VA), John Culberson (R-TX), Pete Olson (R-TX), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Bill Posey (R-FL) will host a press conference calling on Administrator Bolden to explain how he plans to save the manned space program.
In light of the many questions surrounding the president’s budget request for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Exploration Program, Congressman Frank Wolf, Ranking Member on the Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee on Appropriations and Congressmen John Culberson, Pete Olson, Rob Bishop, Michael McCaul and Bill Posey will call on NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to appoint a team of NASA experts to review how exploration spacecraft and launch vehicle development and testing may be maintained within the proposed budget request to ensure uninterrupted, independent U.S. human space flight access to the International Space Station and beyond. The team should report back within 30 days in order to provide the administration and Congress with this necessary information – before the President’s space summit in Florida on April 15.
It’s difficult to see NASA responding to this request in a positive manner (particularly with rhetoric like “save the manned space program”). Hopefully the members will explain their logic in more detail at the press conference, scheduled for noon Thursday at the Capitol Visitor Center. (I won’t be able to attend, as I’ll be at the Goddard Memorial Symposium in Greenbelt.)
By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 10 at 6:16 am ET The retirement of the shuttle, which not long ago appeared to be a largely settled issue, seems a little less so now. Last week Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) introduced legislation that would at least study extending the shuttle for up to five more years at up to two missions a year; companion legislation is expected to be introduced in the House this week by Reps. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) and Bill Posey (R-FL). And yesterday shuttle program manager John Shannon said the agency was studying whether such an extension was possible given the need to restart supply lines for building additional external tanks. Extending the shuttle would cost about $2.4 billion, he said. Shannon’s comments stand in contrast to what NASA deputy administrator said last week, when she said the time for extending the shuttle “had come and gone”. However, both agree that if there was a significant shuttle extension there would be a gap of two years in shuttle flights because of the need to ramp up tank production again.
In a speech on the Senate floor Monday Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) addressed a potential minor shuttle extension, among many other space policy topics. He recommended adding one additional shuttle mission, the “rescue” shuttle that would be held in reserve if there was a problem on the last currently-scheduled shuttle flight, to carry additional equipment and supplies to the International Space Station. “The risk to safety is minimal on a fifth shuttle flight,” he said. “The President should announce he is asking NASA to do that fifth flight.” Nelson didn’t address any further extension of the shuttle.
Nelson also blamed the strong negative reaction to NASA’s new plan in some quarters to poor decisions by White House advisors. “Unfortunately, some of his [President Obama’s] advisers have not given him correct information about how to lay out his vision,” he said. And later: “The President let himself be misinterpreted.” In one case, planned heavy-lift launch technology and development, he specifically blamed OMB:
There came the disconnect because people who do not understand the space program were making decisions. I lay it at the feet of some of the folks in OMB, the Office of Management and Budget. If you are going to build a heavy-lift vehicle, the likelihood is you cannot do that entirely with liquid rockets; you need solid rockets to propel that massive weight up into low Earth orbit. The solid rockets are what we are testing now. Thus, the President allowed his administration to be perceived that they were killing the manned space program when, in fact, there was nothing further from what he intended.
One wonders what Wernher von Braun would have thought of the claim that you “need” solid-propellant boosters to do heavy lift.
Nelson added his space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee would hold a hearing in a couple of weeks “to look at the commercial rocket competitors and whether they need the $6 billion the President has recommended over the next 5 years in order for them to get humans to and from the International Space Station.”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 9 at 7:28 am ET Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) hasn’t changed his mind about NASA’s new direction, one that cancels Constellation and seeks to develop commercial systems to transport crews to and from low Earth orbit. He does realize, though, that he has a challenge in front of him: convincing fellow members of Congress that don’t think much about space to join him in blocking the plan. “Of course we have that with delegations from the five or so states that have an interest in NASA, but it is getting the other 45 states to care that’s the trick,” he told the Huntsville Times. And in a separate Monday in Huntsville, he said, “We’ve got to create critical mass.” How he plans to create that “critical mass” among members who don’t think much about space wasn’t discussed.
In his meeting with the Times Shelby reiterated his opposition to supporting commercial ventures to launch astronauts. “We have a space industry already. We build rockets right here in North Alabama. It makes no sense to enter into business with unproven companies.” That statement is a little odd since United Launch Alliance, a company that does build rockets in North Alabama, is one company that has expressed an interest in launching crewed spacecraft.
Shelby also confirmed that he met briefly last week with NASA administrator Charles Bolden, a courtesy call that lasted only 10-12 minutes, Shelby said. “He came up to sell me on a program to dismantle Constellation,” Shelby said. “I respect General Bolden as a military leader and an astronaut, but we disagree fundamentally on NASA.”
Elsewhere in the Senate, Jon Cornyn (R-TX) expressed optimism that the proposed plan would be defeated. “I think we’re going to have the votes to beat” the plan, he told the Houston Chronicle. “This is an area where the president is going to receive a substantial bipartisan pushback.”
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) hopes President Obama tweaks his new plan for NASA at the April 15 space conference planned for Florida. That includes making the plan look a little more traditional, specifying a specific goal and deadline for human exploration, as well as continuing heavy-lift launch vehicle development, according to Florida Today. Nelson, though, isn’t supportive of proposals to extend the life of the shuttle by more than a modest amount, noting there would be downtime of two years or more in order to build additional components needed for those missions. “If you had to wait around for another two-and-a-half years to assemble those parts, and you’re spending $2 billion a year sitting on the ground that’s not going into the development of the new heavy lift rocket to go to Mars, is that a wise use of resources by NASA?”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 7 at 11:27 am ET Place this in the “politics makes for strange bedfellows” file: today’s Baltimore Sun reports on an interesting source of fundraising for Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), chair of the appropriations subcommittee with oversight of NASA’s budget, who is running for reelection this year. The article notes that the Huntsville metro area is fourth in donating to her campaign, behind Baltimore, Washington DC, and New York (although a look at the data itself shows that Huntsville is a distant fourth, particularly when compared to the Baltimore and Washington metro areas, which dominate.)
That people and organizations in the Huntsville area would contribute to Mikulski’s campaign is itself not surprising, given her powerful position within the appropriations committee to alter the budget of an agency, NASA, which plays a major role in that city’s economy. It’s also not surprising that “Alabama business and industry leaders” held a fundraising breakfast for Mikulski last fall in Huntsville less than a week after the release of the final report of the Augustine Committee. What is a little more surprising is the person who reportedly played a role in that event’s success: Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), ranking member of Mikulski’s subcommittee. While Shelby’s spokesman said that the senator didn’t help organize the fundraiser, he “worked behind the scenes to make sure the event was a success”, according to the Sun, which calls this “an extremely unusual example of fundraising cooperation across party lines”.
Mikulski and Shelby have a long record of working together, the article notes, and her trip to Huntsville last October was not the first fundraiser that she has held there during her time in the Senate. It does come, though, as Congress debates the shift in NASA’s direction the White House has proposed in its FY2011 budget, one that has not gone over well in Huntsville as it calls for canceling Constellation, including the Ares 1 and 5 rockets. She has been quiet about the plan so far other than a letter to Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) last month saying that any new NASA plan should be “mission driven” and expressing concerns about the NASA workforce. That silence will be broken for certain later this month when her subcommittee holds a hearing about the NASA budget proposal.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 7 at 10:44 am ET Both Florida Today and the Orlando Sentinel report today that the White House is planning a “space summit” in Florida next month where President Obama will discuss his new vision for NASA. The timing of the event, though, could cause some heartburn for an organization over 1,500 miles away.
The event, expected to take place at or near the Kennedy Space Center, hasn’t been formally announced by the White House (the Sentinel article suggests a formal announcement could come today) (update 11:45 am: the White House has announced it, according to the AP), but Sen. Bill Nelson all but confirmed the event to both papers. Details in general about the event are scant, including the event’s agenda and who will be invited to attend. An unnamed White House official told Florida Today that the conference would include “the implications of the new strategy for Florida, the nation and our ultimate activities in space”.
Nelson, meanwhile, hopes that by the conference the White House and NASA will make several changes to the plan. Nelson told the Sentinel he wants to see one more shuttle flight added to the manifest (although not explaining why only one, instead of several as others in Congress have proposed), a commitment to human exploration of Mars as the plan’s long-term goal, and continued development of a heavy-lift launcher.
The issue about the conference, though, is its timing: Thursday, April 15. That may work well for Florida (other than it’s also the deadline for filing tax returns), and also some in Washington: Nelson tells Florida Today the timing is good since his space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee will vote “on NASA’s budget” in May (a reference, presumably, to an authorization bill). However, it could cause some angst in Colorado Springs, home of the Space Foundation. The 15th happens to be the last day of the National Space Symposium, one of the major annual space conferences in the US. A competing space event with a presidential imprimatur, depending on the specifics of that event, could wreak havoc on attendance and the conference’s agenda. For example, NASA administrator Charles Bolden is scheduled to speak on the afternoon of the 15th according to the latest agenda; that seems unlikely if there’s a space conference featuring the president in Florida at the same time.
However, at least the National Space Symposium will have that day something the Florida conference won’t: Spock.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 5 at 6:47 am ET Florida space advocates have been hoping to turn concern about the economic impact of the retirement of the shuttle and the planned cancellation of Constellation into support for some initiatives to support the state’s space industry. Those initiatives, with a cost of $32.6 million, have the support of the state’s governor (and US Senate candidate), Charlie Crist, who mentioned them again in his State of the State address earlier this week. And on Wednesday space supporters swarmed the halls of the state capitol for Space Day, talking with legislators to win support for those efforts.
However, there’s no guarantee that despite the dire predictions of economic catastrophe on the Space Coast, state help will be forthcoming. As the Orlando Sentinel reported Thursday, state legislators said it would be difficult, at best, to get those incentives approved given the poor state of the overall economy and a $3-billion state budget deficit to close. “[T]he probability of getting $32 million is not probable,” said state Sen. Mike Fasano, who chairs a committee that will take up the proposed incentives.
Meanwhile, Florida Today reported that Gov. Crist had a “tense” meeting with KSC director Robert Cabana, who was promoting the proposed budget that would transition human transportation to low Earth orbit to the private sector. “We can cry about what we’ve lost, or we can make the most of our opportunities,” Cabana said. Crist, though, tried to argue that the shuttle retirement should be postponed until “after the recession”.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 5 at 6:31 am ET Interest in space among Florida’s congressional delegation has traditionally been limited to primarily those representatives from the state’s Space Coast region, plus senators like Bill Nelson with an interest in the topic. For example, when over two dozen representatives signed a letter to NASA last month alleging the agency was breaking the law by starting efforts to wind down Constellation, only two Florida representatives signed on: Suzanne Kosmas and Bill Posey. By comparison, two Utah representatives also signed the letter, but Utah has only three congressional districts to Florida’s 25.
Now, though, Florida’s delegation is showing a united front. In a letter to President Obama signed by both senators and all 24 current representatives (one district is currently vacant because of the resignation of Robert Wexler in January), they express their “deep concerns” about the NASA FY2011 budget request. They are concerned in particular about the effect the budget, if approved, would have on the state: “the plan NASA has laid out fails to provide a manageable transition of the workforce and is likely to repeat the mistakes that plagued Florida at the end of the Apollo program.”
The letter is vague, though, on specifics they would like to see changed in the budget, beyond a request that “the U.S. retains a domestic capability to take our astronauts to the ISS and to deliver hardware that will ensure its utilization through at least 2020.” That raises the question of how united Florida’s representatives will be when it comes time to turn those requests into specifics, including changing or adding funding to NASA to accomplish those goals.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 March 4 at 7:25 pm ET Space News, which has also been covering the news that NASA is working on an alternative “Plan B” in the wake of Congressional criticism, gets administrator Charles Bolden to go on the record that he has not requested any such alternative:
“The President’s Budget for NASA is my budget. I strongly support the priorities and the direction for NASA that he has put forward,” Bolden said in a written statement. “I’m open to hearing ideas from any member of the NASA team, but I did not ask anybody for an alternative to the President’s plan and budget. We have to be forward thinking and aggressive in our pursuit of new technologies to take us beyond low-Earth orbit, and the President’s plan does this. After years of underinvestment in new technology and unrealistic budgeting, we finally have an ambitious plan for NASA that sets the agency on a reinvigorated path of space exploration.”
The article also has the full text of JSC director Mike Coats’s email where he states that Bolden “agreed to let us set up a ‘Plan B’ team… to look at what a potential compromise might look like.”
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