By Jeff Foust on 2009 February 4 at 7:51 am ET If you saw this Orlando Sentinel headline—“Former Fla. lawmaker to help Palin on space”—the first thing that may have popped into your mind was the former vice presidential candidate was already assembling a coterie of advisers to prepare for a future run at national office. And while that might eventually be the case, the news was instead linked to Palin’s current position as Alaska governor: she appointed former Congressman Dave Weldon to the board of directors of the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation, the state corporate that operates the Kodiak Launch Complex.
That selection doesn’t sit well with the editorial board of Florida Today, and for reasons having nothing to do with any political ambitions of Governor Palin. The paper is worried that Alaska will use Weldon’s experience and connections to win business away from the Cape, and calls Weldon’s decision to joint the board “disappointing”. An excerpt:
Palin cited Weldon’s experience on the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics for the appointment. But what she didn’t say undoubtedly played a part in the decision:
His insider knowledge of Florida’s plans to utilize Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – which also was in his district – to lure private rocket and satellite companies.
That – coupled with Weldon’s Washington know-how in steering space projects to states – could cost Brevard County more jobs in the fierce competition among Florida and other states to attract launch business at a time when the shuttle’s retirement next year will result in about 3,500 job cuts at KSC.
There is, as you might have guessed, a problem with this assessment: Cape Canaveral and Kodiak aren’t much in competition with one another. While the Cape focuses primarily on larger launch vehicles, including the EELVs and the Shuttle, Kodiak can only currently host small launch vehicles. The Cape can’t support launches in polar orbits (at least not very well), while Kodiak can essentially only do polar orbit launches. And in recent years pretty much the only launch activity out of Kodiak has been in support of missile defense tests, as opposed to satellite launches. So, while it’s good to be vigilant, there’s a fine line between vigilance and paranoia.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 February 4 at 7:46 am ET Belatedly, a couple of articles from Monday’s issue of The Space Review about NASA and its future direction:
Taylor Dinerman examines some of the issues that the next NASA administrator is going to face, but goes beyond some of the tactical issues like supporting the shuttle workforce and making a decision on the future of Ares 1. The next administrator “must be ready to spend far more time spreading the message that space exploration and scientific discovery are essential to our way of life.” Also: “One trap that some previous administrators have fallen into is to concentrate on cultivating the Congress. This is of course very important, but ultimately politicians respond to the voters. Whoever becomes the head of the agency should spend a little less time with the pro-space industry choir and get out to places where NASA’s message rarely is heard.”
Separately, I look at the issue of how space advocates should be communicating with the public about space. There’s a certain frustration among NASA supporters that the public doesn’t care about space, and what’s needed is more outreach by supporters, something former CNN space correspondent Miles O’Brien opined about in a Space News op-ed a few weeks ago. The question I ask is whether the issue is the frequency of communications, or instead the message itself: arguments that worked in the 1960s aren’t necessarily effective nearly a half-century later.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 January 29 at 7:26 am ET The House passed Wednesday evening HR 1, the stimulus bill, with $600 million for NASA for Earth sciences, aeronautics, and hurricane repair work. As the Houston Chronicle notes, the bill does not include the additional $2 billion to reduce the Shuttle-Constellation act that had been sought by freshman Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL). Indeed, it’s hard to figure out what happened to that proposal: Kosmas announced Tuesday that she was offering the amendment, but the amendment does not show up on the list of amendments that were debated on the House floor on Wednesday prior to the vote. In any case, it’s up to the Senate, whose version of the stimulus bill is a little more generous to NASA, to give NASA, and in particular spaceflight programs, additional funding—and hope it survives the eventual House-Senate conference to reconcile the two bills.
Update: A reader pointed me to a statement in yesterday’s Congressional Record by Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) where he expresses his “deep disappointment at a missed opportunity” in the stimulus bill, namely, adding funding to reduce the gap. At the end of the statement he notes that Kosmas’s amendment was rejected by the Rules Committee, for reasons unspecified.
Elsewhere in the statement, Hall says, “It makes me sick that we are bailing out failed banks and corporations while ignoring the support of a successful Space Station and space program—a program that could defend our nation from space and provide a cure for our most deadly diseases.” [emphasis added] Unfortunately, Hall doesn’t elaborate on how the ISS or other NASA spacecraft can protect the US from attacks by, say, China, Iran, or the Klingon homeworld.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 January 28 at 7:13 am ET While the US Congress debates how much NASA should get in the proposed stimulus package, and for what programs, the Canadian government is proposing a budget increase for its own space agency. The Budget 2009 Plan, released Tuesday, proposes to add C$110 million (US$90 million) to the Canadian Space Agency’s budget over the next three years, specifically for space robotics. From the section of the budget plan associated with supporting businesses and communities:
Canada is a leader in the design and construction of robotics for the space industry, and is well known for the Canadarm. The Canadian Space Agency plays an important role by working with the private sector to support advanced research, development and prototyping for new space-based technologies. Budget 2009 provides the Canadian Space Agency with $110 million over three years so that it can contribute to the development of terrestrial prototypes for space robotic vehicles, such as the Mars Lander and Lunar Rover, and for the further development of other technologies and space robotics.
According to that document, CSA would get the first $20 million in the 2009-10 budget year and $60 million in 2010-11, with the remaining $30 million coming in 2011-12. CSA’s current budget is about C$350 million (US$285 million).
The proposed spending increase was endorsed by the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada, which said it was “pleased” with the funding.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 January 27 at 7:09 am ET While the House’s version of the proposed stimulus package offers only a modest amount for NASA, and none for spaceflight programs, the Senate appears to be in a more generous mood. A Senate Appropriations Committee press release about their bill notes that NASA would get $1.5 billion, compared to only $600 million in the House. The release is vague about how the money would be spent, specifying only that one-third of it be used for Earth sciences missions. According to Florida Today, though, another third of that $1.5 billion would go to “space exploration” [link updated after Fla. Today broke their own link], including efforts to shrink the Shuttle-Constellation gap; how much of that $500 million would go to that goal, and how, isn’t mentioned. (Also: $500 million would only shorten the gap by a modest amount—perhaps several months—at best.) Another $250 million would also be allocated to aeronautics programs.
The Florida Today article also adds that Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), who previously announced plans to seek an additional $2 billion for NASA in the House version of the bill, will formally file an amendment today asking for that additional funding. The money would be used either for shuttle life extension or Constellation acceleration, something she mentioned in an Orlando Sentinel op-ed last week.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 January 27 at 7:08 am ET A few items from this week’s issue of The Space Review:
Dwayne Day discusses how the new administration might lead to declassification of historic documents about early reconnaissance programs. Plans to declassify some of those projects, long since declared obsolete, were in progress in the Clinton Administration when they were suddenly halted, and the Bush Administration did little to press for further declassification of these records. Declassifying these records would not only be of historical interest, it could also “improve the image of the intelligence community, particularly the NRO, after nearly a decade of negative publicity and some embarrassing recent missteps like the Future Imagery Architecture.”
Dave Huntsman argues that rather than focusing on just who the next administrator of NASA should be, we need to look at who the “top NASA team” will be, including the administrator, deputy administrator, inspector general, and chief financial officer. “Right now, neither the Congress nor the American people trust NASA to cost-effectively manage NASA’s programs,” he writes. “To reinstate that trust, NASA doesn’t just need a new administrator: it needs a new top team with a different attitude that will join the agency at the hip with the rest of the Administration.”
Stokes McMillan writes that he expects that President Obama, like his predecessors, will stumble in some manner in their first 100 days in office. President Kennedy did, he noted, and responded in part by seeking bold new steps in space, something McMillian hopes Obama will consider. “President Obama will now have the opportunity to make his own bold decisions that yield an enduring legacy. Let’s hope that he chooses to follow President Kennedy’s lead in creating a legacy of space.”
By Jeff Foust on 2009 January 23 at 7:07 am ET When Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) wrote a letter to House leadership last week asking for an extra $2 billion for NASA in the latest stimulus bill, it appeared that she was advocating that the money be used primarily, if not exclusively, for accelerating Constellation. “This infusion of funds will accelerate the Constellation program, which will create new infrastructure and high-tech jobs and minimize our dependence on Russia during the impending space flight gap,” she wrote in the letter, making no explicit mention of extending the shuttle beyond 2010.
However, in an op-ed in Friday’s Orlando Sentinel, she takes a different stance in her call for that extra $2 billion. “Increasing funding for NASA in the recovery package will allow for the extension of our shuttle program and the acceleration of the Constellation program,” she writes. “Minimizing the spaceflight gap will ensure that taxpayer dollars, which would otherwise go to foreign countries to ferry our cargo and astronauts to space, will stay in the United States and drive our economy.” Given that NASA estimates it would cost $3 billion a year to keep the shuttle program going at even a minimal level after 2010, that $2 billion wouldn’t go very far in minimizing the gap.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 January 22 at 9:33 pm ET The Democratic leadership of the House Science and Technology Committee announced its subcommittee assignments Thursday. Picked to chair the space and aeronautics subcommittee is Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). Entering her second term in Congress, Giffords is probably best known in space circles not for her legislative work—she was on the science committee, but not the space subcommittee, in the last Congress—but for her husband: NASA astronaut Mark Kelly. She acknowledges this connection in passing in her own press release announcing her appointment: “My personal experience in learning about the space program gives me a jumpstart,” she said.
Might there be a conflict of interest, though, in a subcommittee chair being married to a highly visible member of the agency the subcommittee has oversight of? A spokesperson for the full committee tells the Orlando Sentinel that Congressman Bart Gordon, committee chairman, is not concerned since Kelly is technically not an NASA employee: he is a Navy officer detailed to NASA. “He works for the Navy, so it’s not a conflict of interest,” the spokesperson explained to the Sentinel.
The other Democrats assigned to the space subcommittee are:
- Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
- Rep. Parker Griffith (D-AL)
- Rep. David Wu (D-OR)
- Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD)
- Rep. Steven Rothman (D-NJ)
- Rep. Baron Hill (D-IN)
- Rep. Charles Wilson (D-OH)
- Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)
- Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL)
Several of these people also have connections to NASA, although these are geographical and not familial in nature. Griffith and Kosmas, both freshmen, represent districts that include Marshall Space Flight Center and Kennedy Space Center respectively; both had previously announced they would be on at least the full committee. Fudge’s Cleveland-area district is close to, but does not include, the Glenn Research Center. Edwards’s serpentine suburban Washington district comes close to the Goddard Space Flight Center. Even Grayson’s central Florida district extends far enough east to perhaps include some people who commute to the Cape.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 January 22 at 6:54 am ET Congressman Pete Olson (R-TX) has been named the ranking Republican on the space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee, according to a statement released Wednesday by the congressman’s office. Olson, who defeated Nick Lampson in November, represents a district that includes NASA’s Johnson Space Center, making him a logical choice for the position after the subcommittee’s previous ranking member, Tom Feeney (R-FL), lost reelection in the fall. Still, it seems at least a little unusual to see someone who just started his Congressional career given such a position; were no other more senior eligible members of the committee interested in the position?
The committee has not announced who will be chairman of the subcommittee; in fact, Democrats have not listed its members of the overall committee or its subcommittees, although Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) announced last week she had been selected to serve on the committee, and presumably the space subcommittee as well, given that her district includes NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. (Recall that Kosmas defeated Feeney in November.) The subcommittee chairmanship is open since the previous chair, Mark Udall, left the House to run (successfully) for the Senate. The chairmanship of the subcommittee had been promised to Nick Lampson, but of course he lost—to Pete Olson.
By Jeff Foust on 2009 January 21 at 7:30 am ET
President Obama’s first official interaction with NASA appeared to be a success: he was seen smiling as the NASA entry in the inaugural parade, featuring the SS-126 crew and a lunar rover prototype, passed by. Of course, he could have simply been happy that the parade had finally come to an end, since NASA was at the tail end of the long parade. Now, though, work turns more serious as much of the space industry is on tenterhooks about exactly what sort of change the new administration will bring to NASA. What sort of things should people be looking for in the days and weeks to come?
Who will be administrator—and his deputy. Most of the speculation in the last several weeks has focused on who will replace Mike Griffin as NASA administrator. For the last week that speculation has centered around retired Air Force major general Jonathan Scott Gration, although an announcement that once seemed imminent has been delayed, perhaps because of objections by Sen. Bill Nelson. Eventually, though, either Gration or someone else will be formally nominated. What will then be interesting is who the administration nominates to be the deputy administrator. Presumably this will be someone who will complement the administrator: someone will considerable NASA or other space experience if an outsider like Gration is nominated, for example.
How the administration will address NASA’s budget. Conventional wisdom is that the new administration won’t be able to put its mark on the agency until the FY2011 budget proposal, given that it’s very late in the cycle for preparing the FY2010 budget. However, the appropriations process has become warped in recent years, with spending bills being delayed well into the fiscal year, or even abandoned in favor of year-long continuing resolutions, as happed for FY2007. That’s the case for FY2009, as much of the federal government, including NASA, is operating under a continuing resolution that expires in March. That suggests there’s more latitude for the administration to make more changes earlier than conventional wisdom suggests—if they so desire.
Another factor that could accelerate change is the new stimulus bill working its way through Congress. For spaceflight advocates, the news isn’t encouraging: the bill includes $600 million for NASA, but for earth sciences, aeronautics, and facilities work, and not for shuttle, Constellation, or related programs. There is an effort to get more money for NASA, specifically for Constellation, but NASA isn’t the only agency looking for more funding.
How, and how quickly, the administration will implement the campaign’s space policy. There are people out there who doubtless hope that new administration will move quickly to reform or even jettison Constellation, or at least Ares 1. Any major changes to the Constellation architecture, though, likely would take time to implement, and also require coordination with Congress, particularly among current advocates of the exploration architecture. The same is true for other elements of the policy, particularly those that require new appropriations or other Congressional consultation.
Some elements, though, could be implemented fairly quickly. One example is the proposal to re-create the National Aeronautics and Space Council to coordinate space policy throughout the federal government. One thing to watch for is when the administration does establish the council and how it’s set up, in particular what authority it’s given to carry out its mandate.
What other relatively near-term issues should people be on the lookout for in the early days and weeks of the Obama Administration?
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