By Jeff Foust on 2009 February 24 at 6:37 am ET Right now the National Space Society and the Space Exploration Alliance are wrapping up their 2009 Legislative Blitz, where groups of activists visit Congressional offices to promote space exploration. Next month the AIAA will be running its Congressional Visits Day, again with people making stops at Congressional offices. And, in a similar vein, there is Prospace’s venerable March Storm (although the organization announced just this weekend that there will be no March Storm this year because of “resource and time limitations”).
All these events are predicated on the belief that it’s effective to speak in person with members of Congress (or, more likely, their staffers) to press their concerns or promote legislation, and proponents of these efforts point to legislation that has been enacted or funding that has been provided based on this lobbying. But is it really that effective? One member of Congress suggests they’re not that useful. Speaking at the AAAS meeting in Chicago earlier this month, Congressman Bill Foster (D-IL), a former Fermilab physicist, said that he’s “inundated” with meetings. “I typically have between 10 and 15 meetings a day; walk-in 15-minute meetings,” he said. “If you don’t come into the job with attention deficit disorder, you rapidly develop it.”
Foster suggested that people meet with their members of Congress in their home districts, rather than go to Washington. “There’s no way they can mistake you for just another special interest,” he said. “You can often get a half an hour discussion with them and actually let them know that you really care about what you’re saying.” That alternative, he said, “is much more effective than this sort of ‘let’s go down and walk on the Mall in Washington a
By Jeff Foust on 2009 February 23 at 9:32 pm ET Congressman David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, introduced an omnibus FY09 appropriations bill Monday for those agencies whose FY09 budgets had not yet been passed by Congress, including NASA. Those agencies have been operating on a continuing resolution since October 1; that resolution runs through March 6, meaning that Congress is likely to act on this omnibus bill quickly.
The section of the bill dealing with NASA begins on page 67 of this PDF document. When compared to the proposed FY09 budget released just over 12 months ago, NASA get pretty much all that it asked for, plus a bit more, at least at the overall account levels. The table below compares the original budget proposal with the omnibus budget levels:
| Account |
FY09 Proposal |
FY09 Omnibus |
Diff. |
| Science |
$4,441.5 |
$4,503.0 |
$61.5 |
| Aeronautics |
$446.5 |
$500.0 |
$53.5 |
| Exploration |
$3,500.5 |
$3,505.5 |
$5.0 |
| Space Shuttle |
$2,981.7 |
$2,981.7 |
$0.0 |
| ISS |
$2,060.2 |
$2,060.2 |
$0.0 |
| Space and Flight Support |
$732.8 |
$722.8 |
-$10.0 |
| Education |
$115.6 |
$169.2 |
$53.6 |
| Cross-Agency Support |
$3,299.9 |
$3,306.4 |
$6.5 |
| Inspector General |
$35.5 |
$33.6 |
-$1.9 |
| TOTAL |
$17,614.2 |
$17,782.4 |
$168.2 |
[All values above in millions]
There are more details in the accompanying statement (starting on p. 132 of the 12.8 MB PDF file), including breakdowns of the spending for the various programs within each account. I only had a chance to skim through it this evening, but at first glance I saw no major surprises.
Note that the budget figures here are separate from the additional money NASA received in the stimulus package, which gave the agency an additional $1 billion for FY09.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 February 20 at 1:15 pm ET Last week the Senate Commerce Committee held a nomination hearing for John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco, the nominees for director of OSTP and administrator of NOAA, respectively. In his opening statement (in both written and verbal forms) Holdren mentioned space as a critical area of investment in science and engineering:
In today’s time of economic crisis, we have to resist the temptation to reduce our investments in these foundations of our propserity. In this connection I want to give special mention to the importance of R&D in our space program. Maintaining and expanding our capabilities in space is sometimes regarded as a luxury that we should do less of in the face of more pressing earthbound concerns. I think that would be a false economy. Space is crucial to our national defense; it’s crucial to civil as well as military communications and geopositioning; it’s crucial to weather forecasting and storm monitoring; crucial to observation and scientific study of the condition of our home planet’s land, vegetation, oceans, and atmosphere; and it’s crucial to scientific study and exploration looking outward. As with the rest of our fundamental and applied research enterprise, investments in space are a bargain.
Later, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), the ranking member of the full committee, asked Holdren about plans to reestablish the National Space Council to address issues like the Shuttle-Constellation gap and access to the ISS to permit research to continue there. “Will you make NASA and science in space a priority?” she asked. “Do you have any thoughts about the National Space Council being a part of the White House to look at the overall focus of NASA?” Holdren’s response:
The short answer… is yes, it is a priority. We have been looking at what the best way to resurrect the National Space Council in the White House would be. I think that’s going to happen. There’s no question that the gap in our capacity to put people in space is a matter of great concern with the shuttle program coming to an end and its successor program not yet ready. We are looking at that very carefully and I would look forward to working with you and Sen. Nelson and other members of this committee on how we can shrink that gap. It’s going to be a great challenge, of course, particularly in these difficult budget times, but we are committed to figuring that problem out because it is very important.
Holdren was then later asked by Sen. Nelson if he had anything more to add on the subject, noting that, as a candidate, Obama promised to reinstitute the council. Holdren:
Well, I’m certainly happy to reiterate that the president remains committed to that pledge. As I mentioned before, we are in discussion about the best way to do it, but I have no doubt that it’s going to happen.
Nelson was pleased:
That’s great, because one of the failings in the past, and not just with this immediate past administration, but previous ones, is that NASA becomes the handmaiden of the Office of Management and Budget. And that’s not the way to set policy, by having some green eyeshade person over there determining what the policy is, whether we’re talking about NASA or NOAA or whatever it is. But that’s the way it’s been in the past, and therefore another reason at the high councils of high government policymaking to have such a council right within the White House.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 February 19 at 12:06 pm ET Last week I noted here the mixed reception from former astronauts to a the recent policy paper by George Abbey and Neal Lane, one that proposed foregoing a return to the Moon in favor of more of an emphasis on energy and environment research, as well as long-term planning for missions to near Earth objects. What other response has that report generated?
I had an opportunity last weekend at the AAAS conference in Chicago to ask Lane, after a panel session about the future of the OSTP (Lane was President Clinton’s science advisor), what sort of feedback he’d received. “Mostly favorable,” he said. He alluded to Cernan’s opposition to the proposal that was published by the Houston Chronicle, but wasn’t surprised since Cernan is “still kind of a space nut. He wants to go go go, out to Mars.”
Lane, by comparison, doesn’t think the nation is interested in human missions to the Moon and Mars. “It would be fine to go to the Moon if there was a reason to go to the Moon, and the people wanted to, but they don’t,” he claimed. “People don’t care about going back to the Moon and there’s no rationale for going back to the Moon. I would really like to see NASA go forward in a big way and have a larger and more exciting space program. But right now there’s not the support for it, and NASA’s flailing.”
That’s why, he said, he and Abbey decided that NASA would be better advised to focus on “solving the energy problem” and build public support for the agency that could be leveraged for other missions in the future. “If we keep blowing all our money on Constellation there will be nothing left,” he said. “Our hope was to put something out there that would actually be good for NASA, helpful, and give it a solid foundation to build from again until the American people get excited again about space exploration.”
Lane said he hasn’t gotten any feedback from the Obama Administration about the study, but he believes that the administration will change course from the current exploration architecture. “I think it’s clear since Mike [Griffin] left that they don’t intend to go down the same road,” he said. “If you were going to just continue, why not keep him in, right?”
So who might replace Griffin as administrator? Lane said he didn’t have any insights. “They’ve looked at some capable people. I don’t know if they’re going down a long list and having trouble finding anybody willing to do it, or if it’s something with the vetting, or something else. I don’t really know what’s going on right now. With [presidential science advisor] John Holdren in place now I suspect he’ll give a high priority to finding somebody, because he certainly cares, and he knows the agency needs leadership.”
By Jeff Foust on 2009 February 17 at 7:29 am ET Today’s Houston Chronicle offers a possible explanation regarding why it’s taken the Obama Administration so long to select a new NASA administrator: a battle among businesses and politicians for the future of the Ares 1. On one side are supporters of the Ares 1, including ATK, Boeing, and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, as well as Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL). On the other side are United Launch Alliance, which would like to see the Ares 1 replaced with an EELV-derived vehicle, and its Congressional supporters, which the article claims includes Sens. Mark Udall (D-CO) and Richard Shelby (R-AL) (which appear in the article to be tied to this because they represent states where ULA has facilities, and not, unlike Nelson, of any statements they made.)
By Jeff Foust on 2009 February 13 at 8:05 am ET Late last night the House Rules Committee published the text of the version of HR 1, the stimulus bill, that emerged from the House-Senate conference this week. The best place to look for details is the “Joint Explanatory Statement”, which includes both the funding amounts for NASA and how the money is to be used (look under Title 2, on page 16 of the 13.9 MB PDF file):
Science: $400 million, intended to “accelerate the development of the tier 1 set of Earth science climate research missions recommended by the National Academies Decadal Survey and to increase the agency’s supercomputing capabilities”.
Aeronautics: $150 million for “system-level research, development and demonstration activities related to aviation safety, environmental impact mitigation and the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen).”
Exploration: $400 million, with no description of how the money is to be spent.
Cross Agency Support: $50 million, primarily intended to “restore NASA-owned facilities damaged from hurricanes and other natural disasters occurring during calendar year 2008.”
What’s most interesting about this, of course, is that Congress hasn’t stipulated how that $400 million should be spent on “exploration”. The statement does stipulate that NASA is directed to submit to Congress “a spending plan, signed by the Administrator, detailed its intended allocation of funds provided by this Act within 60 days of enactment of this Act.” Given that NASA doesn’t have an administrator yet, and that it will probably be several weeks before one is in place (taking into account the time needed for the Senate to confirm whomever is nominated), how to spend that money is going to be among the next administrator’s first decisions.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 February 11 at 9:52 pm ET Members of Florida’s Congressional delegation who met with President Obama during his trip to the state to help sell the stimulus package tell the Orlando Sentinel and Florida Today that the president has narrowed down his list of candidates to be the next NASA administrator. The Sentinel says that Obama is down to four names, while Florida Today reports that he said “several names are under consideration”, but in neither case did he give any names and other hints. (He did ask Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas is she had any suggestions; she told Florida Today that she didn’t specify anyone in particular to the president other than the administrator needs to be an “advocate of manned space exploration”, a criterion Obama said he’d support.)
So who might those four (or several) be? If reports like the article Saturday in the Wall Street Journal are to be believed, Lester Lyles is likely one of them. So may be Jonathan Scott Gration, the sure bet in mid-January who since faded, but is still under consideration according to the Journal report. And the rest? Whoever they are, one thing is probably a safe guess: their tax records are being thoroughly reviewed.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 February 11 at 9:38 pm ET That’s what the Orlando Sentinel is reporting this evening, based on a message from an aide to Sen. Bill Nelson. Of that $1 billion, $400 million would go to exploration, only slightly less than what the Senate approved earlier this week (and a major victory for spaceflight supporters given the House version contained nothing.) The breakouts for science, aeronautics, and facility repairs were not disclosed. How that $400 million for exploration would be spent isn’t clear; the Sentinel reports that “Presumably that money would go to NASA’s Constellation program”, although one suspects SpaceX is hoping that $300 million or more would be available to exercise its COTS-D option.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 February 11 at 6:37 am ET SpaceX has made clear to anyone who would listen its interest in Capability D of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program—usually simply called COTS-D—for crew transportation to and from the ISS. SpaceX has a COTS-D option in its existing Space Act Agreement with NASA, but that option is not funded. Now, as the House and Senate meet to reconcile their versions of the stimulus bill, SpaceX is making a public appeal for support for including COTS-D funding in the package. Overnight the company sent out the following message through its mailing list:
This will be a very big year for SpaceX and the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. In 2006, SpaceX won the NASA COTS competition to demonstrate transport of cargo and optionally crew to and from the International Space Station. Under that agreement, SpaceX will conduct the second flight of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle and first flight of its Dragon spacecraft in 2009. The final flight, scheduled for 2010, will demonstrate Dragon’s ability to berth with the Space Station.
Immediately thereafter, SpaceX will begin conducting the first of 12 operational cargo flights to the Space Station, awarded under the Cargo Resupply Services contract a few months ago. The CRS contract has a minimum value of $1.6B and a maximum value of $3.1B and, as stated by NASA, its success is vital to the future of the Space Station.
However, what most people aren’t aware of is that SpaceX designed the F9/Dragon system to carry astronauts as well as cargo, and even the word “cargo” here includes biological payloads like plants and mice. F9/Dragon meets all the NASA human rating requirements, such as extra structural safety margins, multi-redundant electronics and acceptable g loads through all phases of flight and abort.
Dragon even has several windows and hatches that open both inwards and outwards to ensure astronauts can exit if a pressure relief valve fails. Moreover, NASA will certify Dragon as habitable for crew even under the COTS A-C program, as it necessarily becomes an integral part of the Space Station and is occupied by astronauts when attached.
The only significant missing element is the launch escape rocket, which carries the Dragon spacecraft to safety in the event of a launch vehicle failure. That can be developed within two years, which means F9/Dragon can be ready to transport astronauts by mid to late 2011. By that date, Falcon 9 will have flown a dozen times and Dragon will have done a round trip journey to the Space Station roughly half a dozen times with cargo, proving out reliability well in advance of carrying people.
What this would mean for taxpayers and high tech jobs in the United States is very significant. Let’s consider the default plan under way, which expects that our country will use the Russian Soyuz at the currently negotiated price of $47 million per seat for the period between Shuttle retirement (2010) and Ares/Orion reaching Space Station (2016). Even assuming that we drop the number of US astronauts going to Station from the current 30 per year with Shuttle down to 14 per year, the cost will be approximately $3.3 billion. However, there is also a human cost in the thousands of jobs that the money could have supported back home.
In contrast, F9/Dragon would cost less than $20M per seat and it is 100% manufactured and launched in the United States. We are estimating that it would create well in excess of a 1000 high quality jobs at Cape Canaveral and an equivalent number in California and Texas, where we do our manufacturing and testing. Moreover, the total cost would only be $1.5B, so taxpayers would save nearly $2B.
NASA has already reviewed our cargo F9/Dragon and is comfortable enough to assign it the bulk of the operational transport duties following Shuttle retirement. Although a lot more work would be needed to certify it for astronaut transport to and from the Station, that work can readily be accomplished before the end of 2011, particularly given the empirical flight history it will have by then.
COTS Capability D can be completed within two years from date of funds receipt. In fact, with a little extra money and some modifications to the plan, it can be accelerated even further.
Since COTS Capability D is an existing option in an already competed contract, NASA could exercise it right away, resulting in immediate job creation. It is also worth noting that COTS D, like the COTS A-C funding, is a fixed price agreement and is only awarded as each milestone is achieved. If SpaceX is unable to pass the milestones, no taxpayer money is spent.
If you think this makes sense, please contact your representatives in the House and Senate, as well as Rep. Mollohan and Senator Mikulski who lead the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittees. Please encourage them to fund NASA Exploration in the Stimulus Bill and provide the $300M in funding necessary to begin COTS Capability D.
Phone calls are best, but email is great too. The information for your support options are below. Thanks in advance for supporting our efforts to supply an American solution to astronaut transportation.
–Elon
[Emphasis in the above is from the original.] The email also includes email addresses and phone numbers for Sen. Mikulski and Rep. Holloman, as well as some “Key Points”:
- Providing NASA Exploration with $500 million to help close the space gap will stimulate the economy by creating new high-value, high-wage manufacturing and engineering jobs and the development of domestic manufacturing capabilities.
- The $500 million in proposed funding will immediately create a significant number of domestic jobs and develop critical space transportation infrastructure.
- Unless action is taken now, once the Shuttle retires, NASA will be left with no option other than sending hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Russia for the transport of US astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
- If COTS Capability D is executed, it could save taxpayers nearly $2 billion.
- Funding for COTS Capability D is only paid when milestones are met so there is no risk to the taxpayer.
It’s not surprising that SpaceX would make this push, given that the stimulus package is perhaps the best opportunity to get the additional COTS-D funding they have been seeking for some time. What’s a little odd is that they’ve waited until this late in the process—negotiations have already started between House and Senate conferees—to make this call for public support, especially since a deal on a final version of the bill could be reached as early as today.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 February 10 at 9:15 pm ET With the Senate approving today its version of the stimulus bill, featuring $1.3 billion for NASA, more than double what the House version of the bill provides, you’d think Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), whose district includes NASA/KSC, would be pleased. And she is, but only up to a point, the Orlando Sentinel reports. “I am glad to see that the Senate included dedicated funding for NASA’s space program, which will help minimize the gap between the Shuttle Program and Constellation,” she said in a statement provided to the paper. “But unfortunately, the Senate cut important investments in school construction and education – investments that will create jobs, prevent teacher layoffs and help us provide children with a 21st century education. I am hopeful that the final recovery package will restore much of this critical funding.” The question is: if she had to choose between the extra NASA funding in the Senate version and the education funding in the House version, which would she pick?
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