By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 9 at 7:02 am ET In an interview with Orlando television station WKMG, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden touched upon space policy during a discussion of what changing factors had caused support for the Obama-Biden ticket to increase in Florida recently, as measured in some polls:
“Well, I think there are a number of things,” Biden said. “One, you have more home foreclosures in one month than any place in the United States of America — more than 44,000 to 45,000 home foreclosures. Number two, look what John wants to do with the space program. He wants to essentially put it on ice. I think it is clear, Florida is hurting.”
Doubtless McCain supporters will take issue with that assessment of their candidate’s space policy. However, this is part of a trend by Democrats to portray McCain as someone who would fail to support NASA, primarily by pointing out McCain’s pledge for a one-year freeze on all but unspecified “vital” programs. And while McCain supporters can point to previous statements by McCain that indicated he would provide additional funding for NASA, their work would be a lot easier if the candidate himself spoke out directly on the subject, particularly in light of the changes in the national economic situation in the last couple months.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 8 at 7:38 am ET The closest thing to space in last night’s debate was this quip by John McCain criticizing what he considered to be Barack Obama’s big-spending ways:
He voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?
$3 million does sound pretty pricey for an overhead projector: can’t you pick up one of those pretty much for free, collecting dust in a corner of a classroom or office, having been passed over in favor of more modern computer projectors? Well, the “overhead projector” that Obama sought funding for was a little more sophisticated than that:
Adler Planetarium, to support replacement of its projector and related equipment, $3,000,000
One of its most popular attractions and teaching tools at the Adler Planetarium is the Sky Theater. The projection equipment in this theater is 40 years old, and is no longer supported with parts or service by the manufacturer. It has begun to fail, leaving the theater dark and groups of school students and other interested museum-goers without this very valuable and exciting learning experience.
So was Obama expressing his interest in science and education by seeking the money, or was he trying to reward some campaign donors who serve on the planetarium’s board of trustees, as some allege? For the planetarium, at least, it’s a moot point: the funding didn’t come through.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 8 at 7:17 am ET As the New York Times notes, “It’s not every day that the head of a federal agency in a Republican administration during an election year writes a glowing thank-you note to the Democratic candidate for president.” But that was the case last week, when NASA administrator Mike Griffin wrote a letter to Sen. Barack Obama saying he was “deeply grateful to you, personally” for helping get the INKSNA extension through Congress last month (the full memo is available here).
Griffin is referring to a letter Sen. Obama sent to the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, specifically requesting an INSKNA extension “so we keep that option open for allowing U.S. astronauts to utilize the ISS beyond 2011.” (The letter also called for Congress to “demand” that NASA take no steps to prevent extending the life of the shuttle after 2010 and add extra money for NASA to support the additional shuttle flight in the NASA authorization bill that Congress approved.) In the Times, Sen. Bill Nelson, who has become something of an Obama campaign surrogate on space issues, claimed that Obama’s letter “changed the game” and got the INKSNA waiver extension included in the continuing resolution bill Congress passed several days later.
On a related note, the waiver extension that was approved was more expansive than an earlier separate bill. The extension passed into law allows for both Progress and Soyuz purchases until July 2016; the earlier legislation would have permitted on Soyuz purchases, and only until Orion or a commercial vehicle becomes available. Although NASA got more authority than requested, the agency said it still plans to stop Progress purchases after 2011 and rely on commercial vehicles under development to ferry cargo to the station. However, new NASA leadership would have the ability to change their minds on that, although in the Space News article linked to above, Elon Musk of SpaceX—who would presumably lose out if NASA decided to keep buying Progress spacecraft for some reason—didn’t sound worried. “Neither [U.S. political party] likes sending money overseas if there’s a U.S. supplier,” he said.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 8 at 6:49 am ET In last night’s debate, Sen. John McCain reiterated his campaign’s stance on reducing spending through a (nearly) across-the-board budget freeze:
So we’re going to have to tell the American people that spending is going to have to be cut in America. And I recommend a spending freeze that — except for defense, Veterans Affairs, and some other vital programs, we’ll just have to have across-the-board freeze.
The “other vital programs” phrase keeps the door open for space advocates to hope that NASA will be exempt from the freeze, although the McCain campaign has not delineated exactly what those “other vital programs” are. Florida Democrats, though, are assuming that it doesn’t, and will make their case at a press conference this afternoon where they will, in their words, “denounce Senator John McCain’s plan to freeze NASA spending and his Republican Party’s attack on the space program.” They plan to play up the potential loss of thousands of space industry jobs (ironically, on the same day that NASA plans to deliver a report to Congress saying that fewer jobs will be lost after the shuttle’s retirement than previously reported.)
The full release about today’s press conference follows:
JUST LAID OFF FROM THEIR SPACE INDUSTRY JOBS, WORKERS TO RESPOND TO GOP’S ANTI-NASA STANCE
As RNC Attacks Obama’s Plan To Save Space Industry Jobs, NASA Administrator Praises Obama’s Leadership
ORLANDO – TOMORROW, WEDNESDAY, October 8, engineers and other space industry workers will hold a press conference to denounce Senator John McCain’s plan to freeze NASA spending and his Republican Party’s attack on the space program.
Workers will also be making phone calls to Space Coast voters to inform them about McCain and his Republican Party’s troubling stance on NASA and Senator Barack Obama’s plan to invest an additional $2 billion to help save vital space industry jobs.
The Republicans’ criticism of Senator Barack Obama’s $2 billion plan to save space industry jobs comes as NASA Administrator and Republican appointee Dr. Michael Griffin thanked Senator Obama personally for his “leadership†in getting critical legislation passed to help maintain an American presence in space. Griffin wrote to Obama: “without your leadership, this would not have happened.†Obama urged the Congressional leadership to pass the waiver NASA had asked for, which will allow it to purchase trips for American astronauts aboard Russian spacecraft if necessary to maintain an American presence in space. The New York Times also recently credited Obama with breaking the gridlock on this legislation and helping get it passed.
Obama’s plan would reduce the gap between the retirement of the Space Shuttle and the launch of its replacement, helping to save the jobs of thousands of space industry workers and keep their families from becoming victims of Florida’s historic economic slump. Speaking during a conference call with reporters on Monday, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida said the Republicans do not understand the impact of letting NASA fall apart.
“They’re attacking now Barack and me about wanting to put more money into NASA in order that we don’t end up where we are, laying off American NASA engineers,†Sen. Nelson said. “This is not only ridiculous. It shows they are just totally out of it and don’t even know what they are talking about.â€
Event is open to the media:
WHO: IBEW Union Members and Space Industry Workers
WHAT: Press Conference; phone bank to follow
WHERE: Space Coast Labor Council, 1122 Lake Drive, Cocoa, FL
WHEN: WEDNESDAY, October 8 at 2:45 pm
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 7 at 7:31 am ET Many bloggers profess their disdain for the so-called mainstream media, in particular one of its central institutions, the New York Times. Yet some are willing to take their commentary cues from articles published in the paper, including this article Monday about the US reliance on Russia for access to the ISS once the shuttle is retired. For those who follow this topic, there wasn’t anything really new in the piece, but it did appear to serve as fodder for those who don’t follow the subject closely.
In a piece on the web site The Huffington Post, Adam Blickstein warns that the gap is evidence that John McCain “wants to effectively kill NASA”. That’s because, he argues, that McCain’s hard line against Russia could come back to haunt NASA when it needs to rely on Soyuz spacecraft to access the station:
Russia’s space monopoly, and a surging Chinese presence beyond Earth’s atmosphere, means the U.S. will have to rely on nations McCain’s campaign has already deemed as “obviously not allies” in order to bridge the 5 year gap between the Space Shuttle program and the Constellation program. It’s unclear how a President McCain would, in fact, maintain America dominance and presence in space while also throwing Russia out of the G8, and casually tossing around bellicose statements towards the only countries capable of sending people and large payloads into space. A President McCain could mean a comatose American space program, creating yet another area of science and technology where the U.S. falls behind. This would not only be dangerous to our national morale and international prestige, but severely put us behind from a strategic, economic, and global perspective as Russia and China would be able to leap light years ahead of our own space ambitions.
The logic of a five-year gap (with or without Soyuz access to ISS) creating a “comatose” US space program isn’t explained in the piece, unfortunately. But then, Blickstein writes that “a Vice President Palin would be the Chair of NASA’s board.”
Blickstein’s Huffington Post colleague, Ronald Mirman, also sounds off on space policy, in blunter language. “Both Barack Obama and John McCain have spoken on space policy, and both are wrong,” he writes. The piece reads like an extended rant against human spaceflight, which he describes as “being useless and wasting huge amounts of money”: arguments you’ve probably seen presented before, and perhaps more eloquently than here. (The site doesn’t include a bio for Mirman, other than the books he’s written; with titles like Group Theoretical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory, Conformal Group Theory, Conformal Field Theory, it would appear that he’s a physicist.)
On one of the New York Times’s own blogs, Douglas MacKinnon, a former press secretary to Bob Dole, wants both candidates to understand the importance of spaceflight, something he believes has been lacking in the White House for a long time. “Not since John F. Kennedy, has a president truly understood the incalculable value of space,” he claims. What exactly he wants either a President McCain or a President Obama to do isn’t clear: he believes that relying on the Russians “looks more and more risky”, but is skeptical about either closing the Shuttle/Constellation gap or looking to the commercial sector. “As of now, the United States has basically zero options for the four to six years our human spaceflight program will go dark.” He concludes:
While no one expects Mr. McCain or Mr. Obama to be Kennedy-esque with regard to this issue, a number of thoughtful people in and out of the business do feel that both men need to understand that if we forfeit our hard fought preeminence in space, it’s a position we may never get back. Coupled with that fear is the understanding that no nation on earth is more dependent upon its assets in space than the United States.
How a five-year gap in human space access would somehow jeopardize military, civil, or commercial satellites, as MacKinnon suggests, is also logic not fully explained in the piece.
Maybe the best approach is simply to scare people: “Russia’s Space Program Could Crush the U.S. Over the Next Decade”, proclaims the headline of a post on io9, a blog usually devoted to science fiction. (This post came just before one about a planned sequel to Tron. That’s right, Tron.) Hey, it worked 50 years ago…
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 7 at 6:44 am ET The Republican National Committee’s “Obama Spend-O-Meter”, which includes Obama’s plans to increase NASA funding as part of a “liberal fiscal agenda”, has attracted the attention of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL). “The McCain campaign has just stepped in it,” Nelson said, according to Florida Today. Some more Nelson comments from the Orlando Sentinel: It’s not only ridiculous, it shows how totally out of it they are… They simply don’t know what they are talking about.”
Those comments, and continued confusion about how an overall freeze on non-defense discretionary spending, as proposed by John McCain, would affect NASA, does present an opportunity for the Republican candidate to expand upon his existing space policy with additional details. Does he support increased funding for NASA, and if so, how much and how would it be paid for? He could also use it to address proposals that Barack Obama put into his space policy in August, such as re-creating the National Space Council and making revisions to export control policies. If nothing else, there may be a few voters in Florida who care about these things, and election day is only four weeks away.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 5 at 7:43 pm ET The Obama campaign forwarded to me the following statement (not available on the campaign web site, as best as I can tell) ostensibly about World Space Week, which started Saturday and runs through the 10th. Reading through it, though, it’s clearly designed to differentiate Obama from McCain on space policy, particularly for Florida audiences:
Senator Barack Obama issued the following statement today on World Space Week and the 50th Anniversary of the inception of NASA:
“This week, we join more than 50 nations around the world in celebrating World Space Week. And this year, as we mark the 50th anniversary of NASA, our space program is at a crossroads.
As other countries are moving forward in space, my opponent’s vision would cause us to fall unacceptably behind. His pledge to freeze all discretionary spending for programs other than veterans and defense would assure the loss of thousands of jobs in Florida, and seriously threaten America’s leadership in space. I have a different vision. My plan to revitalize our space program will reduce the gap between the Space Shuttle’s retirement and its next-generation replacement; and we’ll increase funding for a robust human space exploration program and research that pushes the very boundaries of discovery.
Throughout its history, NASA has united Americans to a common purpose and inspired the world with accomplishments we are still proud of. As President, I will lead NASA down a new path for the 21st century that guarantees our preeminence in space today, tomorrow, and the day NASA celebrates its 100th anniversary.â€
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 5 at 7:36 pm ET The Republican National Committee recently issued a document dubbed the “Obama Spend-O-Meter”, describing what it calls “Obama’s liberal fiscal agenda”. And in the midst of that lengthy list of spending initiatives, totaling over $1.2 trillion, is this one:
Obama Has Proposed $2 Billion In Additional NASA Funding. “Sen. Barack Obama has detailed a comprehensive space plan that includes $2 billion in new funding to reinvigorate NASA and a promise to make space exploration and science a significantly higher priority if he is elected president.” (Marc Kaufman, “Obama Suggests $2 Billion In New Funding For NASA,” The Washington Post, 8/19/08)
The list, it should be noted, doesn’t mention where planned spending is offset by cuts elsewhere (recall that Obama’s early education program, in its original incarnation, was infamously funded in part by delaying Constellation), or which programs a McCain administration would similarly fund. But on the face of it, it’s a little jarring to see space associated with liberal spending agendas…
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 2 at 7:43 am ET Yesterday, of course, was the 50th anniversary of the inception of NASA, and it’s not surprising the anniversary was marked in Florida. In fact, governor Charlie Crist issued a statement for the occasion, calling it “NASA Day in Florida” and even taking time to congratulate Congress for passing HR 6063, the NASA authorization bill.
It wasn’t clear from the headline of the statement, though, exactly what Crist was celebrating: “STATEMENT BY GOVERNOR CRIST REGARDING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF FLORIDA’S FIRST SPACE LAUNCH”. Excluding suborbital launches and failed attempts, “Florida’s first space launch” took place 50 years and 8 months earlier, with the launch of Explorer 1 on the night of January 31, 1958.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 October 2 at 7:34 am ET A former president and a former Senate majority leader both hailed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s stance on space policy this week. Former president Bill Clinton, speaking in Florida, called Obama’s space policy a sign of the candidate’s ability to “an eye on the future”, according to the Orlando Sentinel:
“He has a plan to support the space industry, which I think is important not just to Florida but to America. This is a very big deal,” said Clinton during his speech in Orlando. “We have a vested interest in staying on the frontiers of technological change and many of the answers to our environmental and other challenges will be found by continuing the push into space.
“Every president has to tend to the present, but keep an eye on the future even when it may not be so popular to do so. The last thing we ought to do is to reverse our investments in medical research and development and other kind of scientific research and into the space program. We need to keep pushing America into the future. That’s how we’re going to bring the economy back. That’s how we’re going to become energy independent.”
Meanwhile, former senator Tom Daschle, a national co-chair of the Obama campaign, touched upon space policy briefly during an interview with the Alamogordo (N.M.) Daily News:
Finally, Daschle said Obama has long believed the importance of space cannot be overestimated.
“We need the research, progress and the investment to provide worldwide leadership,” Daschle said. “Obama believes that we need space exploration out of necessity.”
Of course, several months ago, when Obama’s policy was less certain and appeared to involve a five-year delay in Constellation, it wasn’t at all clear that Obama viewed space exploration—at least as envisioned by many space advocates—as a “necessity”.
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