By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 8 at 7:30 am ET Former congressman Nick Lampson tells the Houston Chronicle in today’s edition that he is not a candidate for the NASA administrator job. Lampson said he has not undergone the background checks and other vetting that would correspond with being a candidate for the job. And about those reports he had met with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel? The NASA position did not come in the latest meeting between the two former House members, Lampson told the paper.
The Chronicle suggests that with Lampson no longer a candidate for the job (as noted here last week), the White House might now turn to Charles Bolden, the former astronaut strongly endorsed by Sen. Bill Nelson. But if the Obama Administration wasn’t interested in Bolden before, why would they turn to him now and look like they’re capitulating to Nelson?
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 7 at 8:53 pm ET The Washington Post’s Joel Achenbach, who wrote the article expressing Sen. Bill Nelson’s frustration at the lack of a NASA administrator, blogged today about another potential candidate: Congressman Bart Gordon, chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee. Achenbach said he asked Gordon about the job and that Gordon “said he already has the best job in the world and isn’t going to trade it in for another”; nonetheless, Achenbach wants to keep Gordon on the list of potential candidates.
I heard Gordon’s name come up last week in conversation in Colorado at the National Space Symposium, but the assessment at the time was that Gordon had little to gain by taking the position: he already has significant power as a House committee chairman and is also the senior member of the Tennessee congressional delegation, having been first elected to Congress in 1984. Taking the NASA administrator job would appear to short-circuit any future political ambitions he might have, be they running more prominent committees in the House or moving on to the Senate or governor.
In that same conversation another name came up, also from the House Science Committee: David Wu, who chairs the technology and innovation subcommittee and also sits on the space subcommittee. It’s not clear if he would be interested in the job (or how seriously he might be considered, if at all) but the same arguments against him taking the job apply: if he has his eyes set on higher office (or a more prominent role in the House), being NASA administrator wouldn’t necessarily be helpful.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 5 at 6:01 pm ET While some people are lobbying to extend the life of the space shuttle, others are using NASA’s current uncertainty to press for radial changes to Constellation, up to and including cancellation. The latest effort along those lines is the Space Frontier Foundation’s “Mind the Space Gap” campaign, discussed by Foundation co-founder Jim Muncy during the Space Access ’09 conference in Phoenix on Saturday.
Muncy noted that a gap in US government human spaceflight capability between the shuttle’s retirement and its successor’s introduction was inherent in the Vision for Space Exploration, lasting up to four years. However, when Mike Griffin became administrator, he sought to reduce that gap to two years. “That four-year gap was unseemly,” Muncy said, using the word Griffin himself ascribed to the gap. “That became the idée fixe, the central goal, the organizing principle of his exploration architecture,” which took form in the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS).
If ESAS was intended to narrow the shuttle-Constellation gap, it failed. Muncy referred to an Orlando Sentinel article last week that put the total price of Constellation to initial operational capacity (IOC) at $44 billion, with IOC slipping to late 2016 or even 2017. In other words, in the 3.5 years since ESAS was announced, IOC had slipped by up to five years, with consequences for the goal of returning humans to the Moon by 2020. “You’re not going to get to the Moon by 2019 or 2020; you’re not going to get back there in the first half of the following decade,” he said.
“NASA has failed by its own standard, the gap,” Muncy concluded. “In the words of the former NASA administrator, this architecture is ‘unseemly’.” He argued that ESAS be cancelled and that NASA should try to reduce the gap through efforts like COTS Capability D or other “non-traditional crew options”. Orion, in turn, should be redesigned to fly on an EELV. (That, he added, is more feasible than some have argued because the launch abort system for Orion on Ares 1 is 8,000 pounds heavier than the system for on EELV, in order to get the capsule safely away from the powerful, accelerating Ares 1.)
Muncy said the Foundation would be stepping up its efforts to kill ESAS and Ares 1 and put through the alternative he outlined in the Space Access talk. “Today is the beginning of that effort.” More information about it will be forthcoming from the Foundation in the near future (as of Sunday afternoon there was nothing posted on their web site).
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 5 at 1:54 pm ET It’s been clear for some time that there are a few members of Congress, like Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), who would like to see the shuttle’s life extended beyond 2010 in order to minimize, or at least delay, the economic fallout that could hit the state’s Space Coast region once the shuttle program shuts down. However, the last week has seen a remarkable push by Florida’s congressional delegation, including both Republicans and Democrats, to try and keep the shuttle alive beyond next year. No fewer than five members of Congress from Florida have acted in the last week, in one form or another:
On Wednesday Rep. Alan Grayson (D) called on President Obama to extend the shuttle’s life in a letter. “Mr. President, the current schedule to end the Space Shuttle Program is too compressed, and therefore potentially dangerous to the crews,” he wrote. “I strongly encourage you to space out the remaining NASA missions as long as possible, preferably until the Constellation Space Exploration Program is funded, constructed and ready for launch.” The Orlando Sentinel that Grayson said he had “personally lobbied” White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel on the topic.
On Thursday Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D) voted against the House budget resolution because it did not include a (largely symbolic) provision like the Senate one to enable NASA to fly the shuttle into at least 2011. “Setting a hard deadline for Shuttle retirement could cause dangerous schedule pressure and risk jobs,” she said in a statement published by Florida Today. “I will keep fighting to ensure that NASA has the flexibility it needs to maintain safety and retain a highly skilled workforce.”
On Friday Reps. Bill Posey (R) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D) introduced legislation to extend the life of the shuttle, in much the same manner as Dave Weldon (whose seat Posey now holds) attempted to do last year. The text of HR 1962 isn’t available yet, but the “American Space Access Act” would require NASA to keep flying the shuttle until either Constellation comes online or “a domestic supplier is certified by NASA as capable of taking humans into space and docking with the space station”.
Finally, Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) told the Sentinel on Friday that he would like to keep the shuttle flying. “It will be a talent drain for Florida if we allow that [shuttle retirement in 2010] to happen,” said Meek, who is considering running for the Senate next year to succeed the retiring Sen. Mel Martinez. “As far as I’m concerned, as we look at state issues, this will be a major, major issue for me… I hope that we will get some extension out of NASA and the administration out of the shuttle program.”
So is all of this activity a coincidence, or evidence of a concerted effort by the Florida delegation to press for a shuttle life extension, perhaps seeing an opportunity in the lack of a NASA administrator and/or lack of space policy details to try and influence a change?
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 5 at 10:15 am ET If one believes the conventional wisdom, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) has effectively blocked the potential nominations of Scott Gration and Steve Isakowitz to be NASA administrator for one reason or another. If true, that makes a comment that Nelson told the Washington Post in an article Sunday about the search for an administrator and a clarified space policy particularly interesting. “I am frustrated, because I don’t know what the delay is,” Nelson said “recently”, according to the article.
The article also gets a comment from Nick Lampson, the former congressman who may, or may not, be in the running for the job, who at least gives the appearance of not knowing what is going on. “If they do, indeed, have a plan that might involve asking me to do something, I’d like to at least know what that is.”
The rest of the article talks about the uncertainty about what direction the new administration might take NASA, but at the times the article itself appears to be confusing. The article discusses the FY2010 budget outline that endorses the overall goals of the Vision for Space Exploration, including shuttle retirement in 2010 and returning humans to the Moon by the end of the next decade. Then, however, it adds:
Then Obama fogged up the picture during a visit to Central Florida. The president said in an interview, “I think it’s fair to say that there’s been a sense of drift to our space program over the last several years.”
The article doesn’t state when that trip took place, but the quote is from a March 11 briefing with “regional” reporters, including Mark Matthews from the Orlando Sentinel, that took place at the White House, not in Florida.
Towards the end of the article is this passage:
A long-standing debate in the space community is whether resources are best devoted to manned spaceflight — which is expensive and risky — or to unmanned programs that include robotic space probes, orbiting telescopes and satellites that monitor Earth’s environment.
Obama did not pick sides in that debate, saying at a town hall gathering in Florida last month, “I want to review with NASA what are we doing in terms of manned flights to the moon or to Mars versus are we better off using things like Hubble that yields us more information and better bang for the buck.”
Obama did indeed make those comments in a Florida town hall meeting—last May, as the primary campaign was winding down and nearly three months before he issued a detailed space policy. Did he really repeat them word-for-word last month, or did the Post get their dates mixed up?
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 4 at 12:06 pm ET While former Congressman Nick Lampson may not be in the running to be NASA administrator, he has picked up an endorsement of sorts from the current Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, the Orlando Sentinel reports. “I think he is a great person” for the NASA administrator job, she told the paper. “I really know Nick Lampson. I think he would be fantastic.”
The article adds that Pelosi is less supportive, though, of proposals to extend the life of the shuttle beyond 2010, something an increasing number of members of the Florida Congressional delegation, Republicans and Democrats, are pushing. The house version of the FY2010 budget resolution made no mention of extending the life of the shuttle, unlike the Senate version. “There is competition for dollars as to how you spend the science dollars,” she told the Sentinel. “You can’t increase the amount of money, or that would be endless.”
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 2 at 10:15 am ET Today’s Houston Chronicle reports on rumors that Nick Lampson is under consideration to become NASA administrator. There is not much new in the article beyond what has been previously reported (Lampson did not respond to requests for comment) but there is an interesting quote from Rep. Gene Green (D-TX), clearly taken offguard by the reports. “I’m surprised… Nick and I talked last week, and he didn’t mention it. I’m going to have to call him and say, ‘What’s the story?’ †But maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised: some of Lampson’s former House colleagues had been lobbying the Obama Administration to nominate Lampson since shortly after losing his re-election bid, according to the Chronicle.
However, it may be a moot point. The latest rumors passing through the halls of the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs (at least as of late yesterday) was that Lampson was no longer in the running, for reasons unknown. Take that for what it’s worth…
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 1 at 9:08 am ET Thursday afternoon the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is holding a hearing on “Export Controls on Satellite Technology”, discussing the impact ITAR has had on the US space industry over the last decade. It marks the beginning of the latest effort to try and reform the export control regime for satellites and related technologies.
The chairman of the subcommittee, Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA), discussed his plans during a special appearance during a panel on ITAR at the Satellite 2009 conference in Washington last week. He said Thursday’s hearing was the first in a series of hearings on “substantive” export control issues, with a focus “first and foremost” on satellites. “Recently the space industry has made credible arguments that ITAR controls have hurt their business and have hurt our space industrial base significantly,” he said. “That claim is echoed—at least in private—by some in the intelligence community, who claim they find it more and more difficult to source satellite-related components domestically.”
So what kind of reform does Rep. Sherman have in mind? In the near term, it appears he is looking for relatively modest changes. “A lot will depend on the hearings and what solutions come up,” he said. “Solutions that have big problems will move more slowly than solutions that are no-brainers.” An example of a “no-brainer”, he said is getting the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) within the State Department to more rapidly process export license applications, something he said DDTC has already started to do after prodding by himself and others in Congress.
Sherman said that the incidents in the 1990s that triggered the inclusion of satellite technology on the US Munitions List—the transfer of US satellite technology to China after failures of Chinese rockets carrying those satellites—created “an anger [that] was mal-channeled” into the current state of affairs. “I won’t say it’s been ineffective, but it certainly was a crude response.”
His comments, though, indicate a fixation on China, and the availability of low-cost Chinese launches, as a driving interest in ITAR reform that may be misplaced. For example, one solution he suggested for the current ITAR situation was not to necessarily remove satellite technologies from the Munitions List or otherwise reform how their exports are regulated, but to instead subsidize the US launch industry so that they could be cost-competitive with the Chinese. The low cost of Chinese launches “begs the question of how much does China subsidize its rocket program and why aren’t we subsidizing ours to the same level,” he said. “We should be focused on keeping the rocket jobs, the rocket technology, plus the satellite jobs and the satellite technology, here in the United States.”
Of course, such an approach might cost the US billions of dollars a year (on top of what the Defense Department is paying to United Launch Alliance for the EELV) and is no guarantee that it would attract additional commercial customers or simply encourage other countries to further subsidize their own vehicles to compete. (And, ironically, a cheaper alternative is just down the 405 freeway from Sherman’s home district: SpaceX is promising commercial Falcon 9 launches that would certainly be competitive with, or even cheaper than, Chinese vehicles, without massive federal subsidies.)
Other panelists in the session, speaking after Rep. Sherman departed, were skeptical that desire for access to Chinese launches was driving calls for ITAR reform. Pierre Chao, a senior associate at CSIS who led a study of export control issues, said the interest in so-called “ITAR-free” satellites being developed by Thales Alenia Space in particular was not primarily motivated by access to Chinese launches, even though such spacecraft are being launched by the Chinese. “The evidence says it’s been prompted more by the uncertainty embodied with the US ITAR system,” he said, referring to delays in getting approvals for export licenses and related agreements.
Any bid to reform ITAR, though, will have to take into account economic arguments, Sherman warned, saying that Congress is almost totally preoccupied with the economy. “No matter what your proposal is—if you have a ‘Puppy Protection Act’—you have no chance of passing it unless you can prove that it can somehow help the economy,” he said. ITAR reform proposals that can demonstrate that, he said, “may allow us to overcome our previous obsession” with technology transfer to China.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 April 1 at 8:03 am ET A snippet from an online chat at washingtonpost.com earlier this week featuring conservative commentator Tucker Carlson and his liberal counterpart, Ana Marie Cox:
Hyattsville, Md.: Hello Tucker and Ana,
In terms of budget, NASA is bigger than four federal departments (Commerce, Labor, Treasury, Interior). The White House hasn’t nominated anyone to be NASA’s boss. What’s going on?
Tucker Carlson: A better question might be: Why hasn’t anyone noticed that nobody’s been nominated to run NASA? Probably because it’s the least of this administration’s (many, many) problems. They still have rows of empty desks at Treasury. If you can even believe that.
As for who ought to run NASA, I say bring back Dan Goldin. He was tremendous I thought.
Ana Marie Cox: BUT if we found gold on Mars everything would be okay!
I am not as up to date on the prospects for Spaceman-in-chief but I do think it’s just as important as those empty desks at Treasury.
Actually, people have noticed the lack of a NASA administrator nominee: the space community has almost a monomaniacal focus on the topic today, and it even captured the attention of the Post last week. Also, it’s not certain that everyone would agree with Carlson that Goldin was “tremendous” as administrator—or at least tremendous in a positive way.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 March 31 at 7:55 am ET As previously noted, former congressman Nick Lampson is now rumored to be under consideration for the NASA administrator’s job. Lampson is in Colorado Springs for the National Space Symposium, so I asked him about those reports after a press conference by the Coalition for Space Exploration to announce its new board of advisors (which includes Lampson). “It’s a rumor,” he said. “All I can say is that I would be honored if I was asked. I haven’t been asked.”
(Incidentally, Lampson announced at the press conference that he has joined the ranks of Twitter users, thus raising the possibility of the first Twittering administrator. And he could also exchange messages with @worden, aka NASA Ames director Pete Worden.)
During the press conference itself, attendees (including another former congressman, Dave Weldon; former NASA deputy administrator Fred Gregory; former astronaut Tom Jones; and journalist Miles O’Brien, all on the Coalition’s advisory board) stressed the importance of getting someone into the administrator’s job as soon as possible. “Vacuum is not good,” said Gregory. “I would hope that very soon that there is an administrator and a deputy administrator.”
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