By Jeff Foust on 2009 May 5 at 7:24 am ET An Aerospace Daily article Monday claims that export controls “could prevent commercial space operators from taking non-U.S. citizens on spaceflights”. “Reforming ITAR will allow us to fly a Canadian citizen into space without his getting a security clearance,” claimed Marc Holzapfel, senior counsel for Virgin Galactic.
But wait a moment. Wasn’t this issue resolved last month, when The Economist reported that Bigelow had won an exemption that covered passengers on its orbital modules? The issue was the same there: concerns that customers (spaceflight participants) would have to get TAAs in order to receive even basic, safety-critical technical information. The Bigelow ruling means no such agreements are needed, but that’s not mentioned in the Aerospace Daily article.
The article was based on the “Entrepreneurial Space and Export Controls” meeting held last week in Washington. I wasn’t able to attend, but Ken Davidian took extensive notes available on the Commercial Space Wiki. Apparently Bigelow’s ruling applies only to that company; however, other companies hope that if they file similar requests they will be granted similar exemptions.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 May 5 at 6:56 am ET Eilene Galloway, one of the pioneers of space law and policy in the United States, passed away on Saturday in Washington at the age of 102. She was working as a national defense analyst at the Library of Congress in 1957 when she was asked by then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson to serve a staff consultant for a series of hearings by Johnson’s committee in the wake of Sputnik. She played several other key roles during that time, ranging from recommending the formation of a separate House committee on space and suggesting that the new space agency be an “Administration” rather than an “Agency”. She also helped create the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) and the International Institute of Space Law.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 May 4 at 1:53 pm ET A few policy-related items published in the last few days worth mentioning:
• It’s not surprising that, after the series of articles it did on Space Florida, the Orlando Sentinel called for a shakeup of the agency in an editorial Sunday. The paper called on the state’s governor and lieutenant governor to “clean house at the agency”, starting with the removal of the agency’s current head, Steve Kohler.
• In an op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Times, former congressmen Nick Lampson and Dave Weldon call on the administration and Congress to maintain their commitment to the space program and apparently not change its overall strategy or implementation. “What the space program now needs,” they conclude, “is support for its goals, not a start-and-stop approach that will negatively impact our nation’s strategic capabilities for years to come.”
• Some at NASA Glenn feel that the Cleveland center won’t get “our fair share” of the agency’s $1 billion in stimulus money, and that current plans to allocate it are “a real slap in the face to Glenn”. How much money would be Glenn’s fair share isn’t clear, although the article identifies some earth science, exploration, and center repair funding union officials at Glenn are eyeing.
• The lack of an administrator nominee attracts the notice of the New York Times and Florida Today reminds us that the FY2010 budget to be detailed this week won’t do much to shorten the gap.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 May 1 at 12:04 pm ET An entanglement with a space tourism training venture that hired a former state employee, running afoul of state ethics rules? Not much of a problem. Spending millions on a new launch facility that doesn’t have any customers? A needed investment. But spend money on lobbyists? That was a bit too much for one Florida lawmaker after hearing that Space Florida spent nearly $300,000 last year on lobbyists at the state and federal level, without much positive effect.
When the Orlando Sentinel revealed that spending Wednesday, state senator Mike Fasano, chair of an appropriations committee with oversight of Space Florida, reacted by announcing he planned to cut the organization’s budget in half—over $1.8 million—for the upcoming fiscal year. Fortunately for Space Florida, though, Fasano backed down Thursday and restored the funding after meeting with Space Florida officials and its supporters in the legislature. Space Florida agreed it would not use state money on lobbyists, although Fasano said there’s no reason for the organization to spend any money on lobbyists, given that it has strong allies at least in the state legislature. “I still impressed to them they don’t need lobbyists. … There’s no need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Fasano told the Sentinel.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 30 at 8:58 am ET The Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee is holding a hearing this afternoon on “space system acquisitions and the industrial base”. One of the witnesses scheduled to testify, Josh Hartman, the Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, gave a preview of his planned testimony yesterday in a speech at the Responsive Space 7 conference in Los Angeles. His assessment should not be that surprising: “The current execution of major systems acquisition is going better than it was, but it requires continued improvement to serve the nation. Bluntly, though, I would suggest to you that in large part the system is still broken.”
He noted that, over the last several decades, there has been a trend towards bigger, more complex, and more expensive systems designed for a “one size fits all” approach. “The systems that we purchase have only become more complex and more unaffordable,” he said. “That model is a Cold War relic.” Today, though, changing needs means that one size doesn’t fit all. Different users have different data requirements, he noted, constellations that consist of just a few large, expensive spacecraft are particularly vulnerable.
“The solution is to change our business model,” he said, moving to multiple systems (not all of which necessarily are space-based) tailored to meet specific needs. This doesn’t mean large spacecraft won’t go away, but layered on to that would be smaller systems that can better meet certain needs better than large spacecraft. Such an approach would have a number of benefits, ranging from increasing the rate at which new technology is implemented in space systems to avoid disruptions in the space workforce by the long gaps between development of large systems.
This approach would seem to be highly compatible with Operationally Responsive Space (ORS), the central topic of this discussion at this conference, although Hartman cautioned that the ORS Office needs to deliver on that potential in the near future, such as with the upcoming launch of TacSat-3. “If you’re in the ORS Office, you need to show results.”
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 29 at 5:04 pm ET The Dayton Daily News reports today that retired Air Force general Lester Lyles has removed his name from consideration for the NASA administrator job. Lyles, in Dayton for a meeting of a company on whose board of directors he serves, said that it would be “too big a financial penalty” for him and his family to take the job. Doing so would have required him to divest himself of stock holdings and end service on various corporate boards. Lyles said he was the administration’s “top candidate” for the job and that the White House had made additional appeals to try to convince him to take the job.
While getting official word from Lyles himself is useful (especially if he indeed was the administrator’s top choice to run the agency), it’s not surprising that he isn’t taking the job, since it was clear over a month ago that he didn’t appear that interested because of financial concerns. And so the search goes on…
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 29 at 10:07 am ET Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas issued a press release (not yet posted on her web site but available here) Tuesday triumphantly announcing that the House-Senate compromise version of the FY 2010 budget resolution includes $2.5 billion for NASA in FY 2011 for shuttle operations, should the remaining shuttle flights not be completed by the end of FY10. (The language is on page 36 of the conference report). “This budget is a significant step towards maintaining safety, minimizing the spaceflight gap, and preserving the highly skilled workforce at Kennedy Space Center and throughout Central Florida,” she said in the statement. “Kennedy Space Center is an economic engine for our community and I will not stand idly by while these jobs are at risk.”
Some media reports followed that line, like a Florida Today article that claimed that resolution “would eliminate a hard deadline for the retirement of NASA’s shuttle fleet.” Or, as the Washington Post noted, “NASA’s Congressional supporters appear to have bought some time in their efforts to ease the Space Shuttle program’s hard retirement date.” Others, though, emphasized that a budget resolution is not the same as an appropriations, and anything in the budget resolution in FY11 is, as most, guidance for appropriators next year. “Unfortunately for her [Rep. Kosmas]… the budget bill is what amounts to an advisory document. The real money decisions are made in appropriation subcommittees,” the Orlando Sentinel noted.
However, this does come just days before the expiration of the Congressionally-mandated moratorium that prevented NASA from taking steps that would preclude extending the life of the shuttle beyond 2010. Will this effort influence NASA or the administration on any decision to resume such work? Will it influence appropriators who will be taking up the FY10 budget request in the coming weeks? Or is it simply something that makes it look like members of Congress are taking action without any real influence on events?
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 27 at 9:10 pm ET Some space policy commentary and news from around the web:
In a column in Monday’s Florida Today, reporter John Kelly warns of schedule pressures of adhering to a September 30, 2010 deadline for shuttle retirement, likening it to the schedule pressure for completing the station that existed prior to the Columbia accident. While this argument is not new, Kelly doesn’t come to the immediate conclusion, unlike some shuttle advocates, that this means that the shuttle’s life should be extended. “[S]omeone must determine if all the flights scheduled are needed,” he argues. If it’s not fiscally possible to keep the shuttle flying beyond its current retirement date, “then it needs to be made clear that missions at the tail end of the schedule are optional and will be canceled if they can’t be flown safely by then.”
Kelly also note the need by the White House to find a nominee for NASA administrator, an argument echoed elsewhere. For example, former CNN space correspondent Miles O’Brien takes it up in a blog post at True/Slant, a new news site. He argues that even with a replacement for acting administrator Chris Scolese in place, decisions on topics like the retirement of the shuttle and the shuttle/Constellation gap would be the same, despite the consternation of the “Space Cadet Corps” who have complained about a lack of a nominee. (One trusts that O’Brien recognizes the somewhat pejorative undertones of a phrase like “Space Cadet Corps”.) “In short, you could put a dog in the 9th floor corner office at 3rd and E Street, SW and things would not be much different – which is to say, not very pretty.”
Among those things that are taking place with only an acting administrator is the drafting of a detailed FY2010 budget proposal, Aviation Week reports. That budget is scheduled to be rolled out in early May, with no guarantee of even a nominee for administrator announced by then. The details of that budget proposal remain under tight wraps.
Of course, this isn’t stopping the “Space Cadet Corps” from continuing to press for a NASA administrator nominee. Sen. Bill Nelson has certainly loudly pushed for a nominee (and one in particular, former astronaut Charles Bolden), and the Orlando Sentinel more comments by Nelson made last week about the situation. “NASA is adrift because it doesn’t have a vigorous leader, appointed by the Obama administration, to take charge; someone who understands space flight, who understands management, who understands aeronautics,” Nelson claimed. “NASA does not have a leader as yet who understands how to motivate people and capture the spirit of the American people, which is that we are explorers and adventurers by nature.” More from Nelson:
I personally know our President is a space aficionado. We have talked about it hours on end. I know he wants us to have a vigorous space program. I know President Obama understands how to accomplish the very thing he wants to do with young people, in getting them educated and particularly educated in math and science and engineering. Look to history. Look at what happened in the Apollo program when young people by the thousands starting going into math and science and engineering because they were challenged by what we were doing in the cosmos. We can do that again if the President will give the full support to the space program and if he will put the right leader in NASA.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 27 at 8:51 pm ET The Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee will hold a hearing on NASA this Wednesday morning, the 29th, at 10 am. Appearing before the committee will be acting administrator Chris Scolese. (Thanks to a reader for pointing out this upcoming hearing.)
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 26 at 11:49 am ET Sunday’s Florida Today features its own take on NASA’s present situation, including a lack of non-acting administrator, including some choice comments from Sen. Bill Nelson, who has arguably played a major role in this situation. “There is some political center that is slow walking this, and I don’t know what it is, who it is or why,” he claimed. Nelson, of course, is continuing to promote his own favorite choice, former astronaut Charles Bolden. “I don’t know anybody else who is in serious contention,” Nelson said in an associated blog post.
Nelson said he’s asked John Glenn to call the White House “and weigh in on this”, although exactly who Glenn spoke with, and what he said, isn’t known. Nelson added that he saw another former astronaut, Sally Ride, earlier in the week, who told Nelson that “Charlie would be great”. (Interestingly, in the sidebar in today’s article, Florida Today mentions that Ride herself is often “mentioned in space circles” as a potential candidate, although how serious that discussion is, and whether Ride would be interested in the job, isn’t mentioned.) The article does at least mention that Nelson “helped torpedo” two previous candidates, Scott Gration and Steve Isakowitz, but doesn’t follow up on that with Nelson.
While how serious a power vacuum the lack of a permanent administrator really create has been discussed here recently, today’s Florida Today article does indicate that the perception of a lack of leadership, attention, and/or interest by the current administration does exist in Florida. “I think there’s tremendous angst in the work force. We’re hearing it from our members,” said Barney Bishop, head of the Associated Industries of Florida, a state business interest group. The article adds that Bishop is lobbying for a “financial ‘bailout’ of the shuttle”. Good luck with that.
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