By Jeff Foust on 2008 November 4 at 6:49 am ET Last week the Space Frontier Foundation announ ced it had found a funding source for the human spaceflight option (“Capability D”) of COTS: the $2 billion in additional funding that both John McCain and Barack Obama have promised for NASA during the presidential campaign. “It’s time that our national leaders give American entrepreneurs a shot at closing this gap. Let’s take the two billion dollars in the candidates’ plans and fund up to five winners of COTS-D,” Foundation chairman Berin Szoka said in a press release.
But as I reported in an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review, the two companies that currently have funded Space Act Agreements with NASA under COTS have very different viewpoints on when COTS-D funding should be turned on. Speaking on a panel at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in New Mexico October 22, SpaceX vice president Diane Murphy said SpaceX wanted to get started as soon as possible. The sooner NASA enables the $300-million option in its current agreement, she said, the sooner the company can get started on long-lead items like an escape tower for the Dragon spacecraft, which will take 18-24 months to develop.
A contrasting viewpoint came from Robert Richards, vice president of Orbital and manager of their COTS program. “I don’t think it would even be prudent for NASA to fund a Capability D without seeing tangible process on the cargo side,” he said. “The path that we’re on, as a company, is probably the most prudent for NASA, which is to really put resources into making sure this cargo system is operating reliably and repeatably, and then move on to Capability D.”
Murphy argued that there’s no risk to NASA, since the agency only pays under the terms of the COTS agreements when the companies actually achieve stated milestones. “There’s no downside here. So I don’t understand why anybody would really object to getting going with this because you have to prove you can do it before the government pays.” Richards, though, insisted that a focus on cargo-only for now provided “the most value for the buck”, and that a “robust” cargo system “will pay dividends down the road to a manned system, but it should be a step-by-step approach.”
Cynics will point out that this difference in viewpoints may be based on the technical aspects of the two companies’ systems: SpaceX designed Dragon from the beginning to support both cargo and crew, while Orbital’s Cygnus is initially designed only for cargo upmass, with studies on cargo recovery and crew options currently in only the early stages. But it might be easier to win support for additional COTS-D money of any kind if the two current funded companies were on the same page.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 November 2 at 11:42 am ET The Planetary Society has published its “Principles of the Roadmap to Space”, its guiding principles for NASA that it asks the next president to endorse. The key elements of these principles:
- Human exploration of Mars should be a primary goal
- The United States’ human space flight program is an enduring symbol of global leadership, and an incomparable engine for technological innovation
- Science and exploration are inseparable
- NASA’s mission—including the development of human space flight capabilities—needs to be realistic in scope and time
The society also has the results of a survey of its members, with nearly half endorsing human Mars missions as the “driving goal” for space exploration. Nearly three-quarters also said NASA should invest more in Earth sciences work to support climate monitoring.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 November 2 at 11:32 am ET Today’s Houston Chronicle asks Houston-area Congressional candidates questions on key issues, which, not surprisingly, includes NASA. Specifically, the Chronicle asked the Democratic and Republican candidates in the 7th, 10th, and 22nd Districts, “Do you favor the Bush administration’s budget blueprint for NASA? Would you increase funding for the space agency?”
The sound-bite-sized repsonses published by the paper show that, in general, there’s very little difference among all the candidates in their support for the space agency. John Culberson, the Republican incumbent in the 7th District, states that he believes that “rhis administration has vastly underfunded NASA” and decries the Shuttle-Constellation gap. That gap is also criticized by Nick Lampson, the Democratic incumbent in the 22nd District, and his Republican challenger, Pete Olson, as well as Michael McCaul, the Republican incumbent in the 10th district. Culberson’s challenger, Michael Skelly, credits NASA for the “immeasurable return every year” the agency provides on its investment, while McCaul’s challenger, Larry Joe Doherty, states that NASA is “vital to the Texas economy and our nation’s scientific and educational future”. You could probably scamble the candidates’ names and positions on this issue and not tell the difference.
Meanwhile, in the “Parker vs. Parker” race to succeed Congressman Bud Cramer in Alabama’s 5th District, which includes Huntsville, Republican Wayne Parker and Democrat Parker Griffith each have op-eds in today’s Huntsville Times. Parker Griffith states that he is “ready to fight for our NASA, Missile Defense, Army and Intelligence jobs” and that, if elected, will align himself with conservative “Blue Dog Democrats” in the House “as I work for our NASA and defense programs.” Wayne Parker lashes out at ads that have claimed that he would cut funding for NASA and other popular programs in the area: “I do not support cutting jobs at Redstone Arsenal, NASA or TVA.” He also takes a moment to criticize the Democratic presidential candidate: “Obama has stated that he will cut tens of billions of dollars from ‘unproven’ missile defense systems and that he will not weaponize space. He has even proposed postponing NASA’s Constellation program by five years.” On that last point, it appears Wayne Parker is getting his information from that leading news source in northern Alabama, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 31 at 7:24 pm ET Remember when I complained back in late August that the AP was still claiming that Barack Obama would delay Constellation by five years if elected, although early that month he made it unequivocally clear he would not? (Whether he’ll follow through on that pledge, of course, is a different manner, but one beyond the scope of this post.) At the time it seemed a little embarrassing: you’d expect the AP to know better, but then again, space is a relatively minor policy issue. By now, though, one assumes everyone is clear what his campaign’s official stance is—except for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, it seems, talking about Obama’s education plan:
Obama would pay for his plan by ending corporate tax deductions for CEO pay and delaying NASA’s moon and Mars missions.
It looks like the Star-Tribune is simply running the AP issues comparison piece from August (there’s only a vague “News Services” credit near the end), although the piece does begin “As both campaigns enter the final days before the Nov. 4 election…”
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 31 at 7:21 am ET While both major presidential candidates have promised to increase NASA’s budgets, those promises are just that. It will be up to the next Congress to pass budgets that incorporate—or not—that additional funding, and at least one key House member is expressing his opposition not just for additional NASA funding, but for current spending levels. In an October 26 debate, Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) said he would seek to cut back spending in a number of areas, including human spaceflight, according to a report by PolitickerMA.com:
Reducing the amount of money spent on sending humans into space would be another priority, Frank said. “Space exploration is very important and has great scientific and practical results, but sending human beings to Mars and back will cost hundreds of billions of dollars for very little scientific worth.”
Frank is already infamous in the space community for pushing for measures that would prohibit spending money on human Mars exploration. The language in the debate suggests that he might take more aggressive measures in the next Congress to slash NASA funding, particularly for programs like Constellation.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 31 at 7:07 am ET As the Orlando Sentinel earlier this week put it, “My astronauts are better than yours”. Both the Obama and McCain campaigns have signed up a number of former astronauts as supporters and even campaigners. The so-called “Obamanauts” have signed up former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart as well as former shuttle astronauts Kathy Thornton and Dan Barry. That’s in addition to the Sally Ride endorsement of Obama earlier this week. In addition to the endorsements, Schweickart plans to do some door-to-door campaigning Saturday in Titusville, Florida.
Schweickart isn’t the only former astronaut doing some campaigning. The Sentinel article noted that former Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham “toured cities around Florida” last weekend in support of McCain. (Cunningham, readers may recall, also represented the McCain campaign in an August debate at the Mars Society convention in Colorado.) There are other former astronauts serving as “surrogates” for the McCain campaign; I had been in contact with a campaign official to try and arrange an interview with one or more of them, but it doesn’t appear that will come through before Election Day.
Obama supporters have also picked up endorsements from space- and science-related people<, including Bill Nye, the science educator and vice president of The Planetary Society; Lon Levin, the co-founder of XM Satellite Radio; and Peter Diamandis, chairman of the X Prize Foundation. Diamandis also wrote a brief editorial supporting Obama, saying that the Democratic candidate “seems to understand the challenges we face in space, and has put forward a policy that is refreshingly broad and specific.”
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 29 at 9:19 pm ET Remember last week when McCain was criticized by Democrats for not mentioning NASA in his list of programs that would be exempt from a budget freeze, less than a week after vowing to add $2 billion to the agency’s budget? The campaign, it appears, has learned its lesson, based on a speech McCain gave Wednesday in Miami:
I will freeze government spending on all but the most important programs like defense, veterans care, NASA, Social Security and health care until we scrub every single government program and get rid of the ones that aren’t working for the American people. And I will veto every single pork barrel bill Congresses passes.
Miami is far from the Space Coast, but it seems the campaign wanted to avoid giving the Obama’s Florida campaign any ammunition. It should be noted, though, that the passage above is similar to speeches McCain has given elsewhere, in recent days, like Hershey, Pennsylvania on Tuesday and Dayton, Ohio on Monday; neither of those speeches, though, included NASA in that list of “important programs”.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 29 at 7:53 am ET Former astronaut Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, made clear her support for Barack Obama in an Orlando Sentinel op-ed Wednesday. Part of her reason for supporting the Democratic candidate is his stance on space:
Obama also has impressed me with his grasp of the challenges our space program faces and his agenda for where we go from here. Obama clearly understands the importance of human spaceflight and exploration. That is why he supports increasing NASA’s budget to close the gap in American spaceflight capability.
However, he also sees the potential for NASA to expand its research capabilities to study things like global warming and aeronautics. And most important to me, he has included plans to integrate our space program into educational curricula around the country so students can experience the thrill of science through remotely controlling cameras on the international space station or, perhaps one day, rovers on the moon.
Related: this week’s print issue of Aviation Week claims that Ride’s name “has come up on both candidates’ lists” of potential replacements for NASA administrator Mike Griffin. (Essays like this, though, would presumably not help her chances in a McCain administration.) However, the same report also claimed that Chirinjeev Kathuria—one of the backers of MirCorp and current chairman of PlanetSpace, a small company partnering with ATK, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin to win a commercial ISS resupply contract—is also on Obama’s shortlist to replace Griffin. (Kathuria, as readers may recall, ran for the Senate from Illinois in 2004 but lost the Republican primary; that was the seat won in the general election by none other than Barack Obama. Kathuria also made a failed bid for lieutenant governor of Illinois in 2006, also as a Republican.)
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 29 at 6:19 am ET Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden did not have much of a reputation as a space advocate during his long tenure in the Senate. However, he’s learning the language of space policy on the campaign trail, particularly in places like Florida and even Colorado that are both key to the general election and also have concentrations of voters with strong interest in the subject. Last night Biden was speaking in Melbourne, Florida, and the campaign supplied this excerpt from his speech:
When John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to go to the moon, he noted that the space industry not only demanded the best minds, it also created the best jobs.
Ladies and gentlemen, the objective was not just to go to the moon. But it was to get another 435,000 engineers and scientists and mathematicians.
When the Shuttle is retired, NASA estimates that 3,500 jobs could be lost – and that doesn’t count the impact on local businesses or the long-term cost of allowing our global leadership to atrophy. The Bush Administration has left our space program in a very difficult position. And John McCain, as Chairman of the Commerce Committee hasn’t helped. He oversaw the plan to retire the Space Shuttle before a replacement was ready.
Barack Obama and I have a different idea. We’re going to work with Bill Nelson; we’re going to invest an additional $2 billion in NASA to reduce the gap between when the Shuttle is retired and the when the next generation of space flight is introduced.
We want to reinvigorate our national space program and that includes creating an environment for a vibrant commercial space program.
What John F. Kennedy said 46 years ago, still resonates with us today: “Now it is time to take longer strides… for this nation to take a… leading role in space achievement.” That’s as true today as it was then. Folks, that’s the goal that Bill Nelson, Barack, and I share.
As it did in the Kennedy Administration — it will help create a new generation of engineers, mathematicians, scientists… and a few more astronauts – like Bill Nelson, as well. It’s a goal that will not only inspire the nation, it will also create jobs.
[emphasis above in original]
A few days earlier, Biden was interviewed on the “Your Show” program on Denver TV station KUSA. The very first question he was asked was from a Lockheed Martin employee who said her colleagues were convinced that an Obama administration would mean “budget cuts for NASA and other science-based research”. Biden’s response:
Absolutely the opposite. I was just down in Florida, and we were talking about what we’re going to do, how we’re going to pump and how we’re going to make jobs available within the space program. We think there should not be this hiatus piece between the present vehicle we have and the new vehicle. We think we should be investing right now. John McCain’s the guy that’s going to interrupt this flow. So the fact of the matter is, the people of Boeing, as it relates to our NASA programs, will do much better under Barack Obama and Joe Biden than they’re going to do under John McCain, and he has so stated.
A similar message, even if the language isn’t terribly precise (and not to mention confusing Lockheed Martin and Boeing).
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 26 at 3:07 pm ET On Friday New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson paid a visit to Las Cruces International Airport to participate in a press conference with the Rocket Racing League and Armadillo Aerospace about their new joint venture to develop suborbital vehicles (with support from the state to help develop facilities at the airport for manufacturing the vehicles). At the tail end of the press conference a reporter asked Richardson if he would take a position in an Obama administration.
“I am very happy where I am,” Richardson replied, then added, “But here’s what I want to be sure of: that the Obama Administration is pro-commercial space. [applause] We’re going to push that. We’re going to make sure it’s pro-space: pro-government space but also pro-commercial space. I think it’s in the interest of our national space industry that commercial space be properly developed. So I’ll be an advocate wherever I am, hopefully here still as governor of New Mexico, but you never know.”
Richardson’s visit coincided with Armadillo Aerospace’s effort to win Level One of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge; in fact, the press conference took place as the Armadillo team was on the pad prepping their vehicle for the flight that would win them the $350,000 first prize. Richardson stayed around the flight, which took place a few minutes after the press conference ended, then departed for other commitments in town.
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