By Jeff Foust on 2008 September 24 at 7:26 am ET It would seem to be a little late in the legislative season to introduce a new bill, but earlier this week Congressmen Ron Klein (D-FL) and Charlie Melancon (D-LA) introduced the Hurricane Satellite Modernization Act. The legislation, according to a Klein press release (the bill is not yet available through Thomas), would authorize the development by NASA of a pair of spacecraft to replace QuikSCAT, a nine-year-old spacecraft that measures ocean surface winds. QuikSCAT has long exceeded its planned lifetime but there are no approved plans yet to replace it; its utility in hurricane forecasting has been debated, including a controversy last year that ultimately led to the dismissal of the head of the National Hurricane Center last summer.
According to a report in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the bill proposes that “two Constellation satellites would be rocketed into space by 2013 at a cost of about $2.8 billion.” Besides the confusing name “Constellation” (a name already reserved for NASA’s new space transportation system), the cost is surprisingly large: the original QuikSCAT satellite had a “total mission cost” of under $100 million when launched in 1999, and proposals to replace it with a single satellite have carried price tags of a few hundred million, not nearly $3 billion.
This is not the first such legislation Congressmen Klein and Melancon have authored: in 2007 they introduced the “Improved Hurricane Tracking and Forecasting Act of 2007″, HR 2531, that authorized a single QuikSCAT replacement satellite at a cost of $375 million. That bill didn’t make it out of committee. In his press release Klein said that their new bill “builds on their previous work” but doesn’t explain the increased cost nor why it’s introduced so late in the current Congress.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 September 23 at 8:05 am ET While the Obama campaign issued a statement Monday generally supporting a wide variety of options for dealing with the Shuttle-Constellation gap, Senator Obama is being a little more specific. In a letter from Obama’s Senate office to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Obama explicitly calls for an extension of NASA’s INKSNA waiver so that the US can “keep that option open” for accessing the station after 2011. Also, he asks that Congress demand that NASA do nothing “that would make it more difficult or expensive” beyond 2010, similar to what John McCain and two other Republican senators requested of the president last month. Finally, Obama asks for unspecified additional funding for NASA in FY 2009 to fund an additional shuttle flight that’s included in the NASA authorization bill.
While these requests are more specific than the general claims in his campaign’s message to the Orlando Sentinel, they fit into the same theme of keeping as many options open as possible for the next administration, as this paragraph in the letter explains:
Administrator Griffin has initiated an analysis of the third option to determine its feasibility, cost, and schedule implications. The results should be available in the November timeframe so that the President-elect’s transition team can prepare appropriate action along with appropriate FY2010 budgeting. NASA’s appropriators, however, should be prepared to consider increasing NASA’s budget to extend safe Shuttle operations beyond 2010 and to accelerate government and private-sector efforts to provide human access to low-earth orbit. Any effort to extend the Shuttle program must receive adequate funding, ensuring that progress on developing new vehicles is not further delayed by diverting funds to the Shuttle.
Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, chaired by Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, is scheduled to take up the waiver extension bill today during a business session. The Sentinel reports that, so far, Congressman Dave Weldon, who opposes the extension, has failed to win over other lawmakers, including Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida. However, as the article notes, there’s limited time to get the bill through, and since supporters are trying the unanimous consent approach, a single senator could block the bill. Moreover, Congress’s bandwidth is consumed right now with the financial bailout proposal, so it’s not clear how much time members in either house will give to other legislation like this before they’re scheduled to adjourn by the end of next week.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 September 22 at 2:17 pm ET The Orlando Sentinel reports this morning that the Obama campaign has issued a brief statement on how it would close the gap in ISS access between the shuttle’s retirement and the introduction of Constellation. The statement, in response to a question by the newspaper about his stance on an extension of NASA’s INKSNA waiver, doesn’t commit the campaign to any specific option:
Senator Obama will be taking steps to help ensure that the next president has as much flexibility as possible in closing the gap. This includes potentially increasing funding for an additional shuttle flight, freezing NASA efforts to retire the shuttle, accelerating the development of the next generation vehicle, tapping the ingenuity of the commercial space industry, and passing a waiver to enable us to use Soyuz vehicles if necessary.
This is all part of Barack Obama’s multi-pronged approach to closing the gap and maintaining an American presence in space. This presence is critical to both maintain our global leadership on this issue and to protect aerospace jobs here in Florida and around the country.
We are not in an ideal situation, but there are not many options left to us after President Bush and John McCain led us to this point.
In other words, they’re open to just about anything and everything, and don’t feel the need at this time to commit to any particular direction. It does seem difficult, though, to be able to keep a US presence on the station after 2011 unless part of that plan includes a waiver extension to permit additional Soyuz purchases (something that, in the language above, almost looks to be a last resort) unless the campaign feels that “the ingenuity of the commercial space industry” can come through with an alternative quickly.
And perhaps they do. The Sentinel report includes this note: “Campaign sources have said that Obama space policy advisers were looking at the possibility of tapping commercial aerospace companies to see if they might be able to use existing rockets to develop a fast, safe and inexpensive rocket that could more quickly replace the shuttle to get astronauts to the space station while NASA continues to work on a larger moon rocket.” The “fast, safe and inexpensive” passage above, ironically if unintentionally, sounds a lot like “Safe, Simple and Soon”, the phrase ATK used to sell the shuttle-derived approach that became Ares 1 and Ares 5.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 September 20 at 10:07 am ET There have been conflicting statements about how sort of NASA budgets John McCain would propose if elected president. His space policy proposes to “Commit to funding the NASA Constellation program to ensure it has the resources it needs”, and other statements suggest that he would at least be amenable to additional NASA funding. However, his economic policy includes a one-year “spending pause” on non-defense, non-veterans discretionary spending, which would include NASA. So which policy holds precedence?
A McCain campaign advisor suggests the latter. Ike Brannon, an economist and senior policy advisor, told scientist lobbyists that “there’s been no talk within the campaign of allowing any flexibility in the proposed freeze”, according to a ScienceNow report. “The purpose of the freeze is to evaluate each and every program, looking at which ones are worthwhile and which are a waste of taxpayer dollars,” he said, although he did appear to leave the door open to reallocating dollars within the overall freeze, although it wasn’t clear if this would apply to the FY2010 budget or future years. “But the freeze applies to the entire budget, most of which doesn’t relate to science,” Brannon said. “He [McCain] hopes to be able to find savings from earmarks, from unnecessary subsidies, and from other programs that could then be applied to research.”
Although, given what’s been called “the most sweeping government intervention in the markets since the Great Depression” this week with the bailout of financial firms, fiscal pressures may be so severe on the next administration that trying to find any additional money, for NASA or any other discretionary program, may simply not be possible.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 September 19 at 6:40 am ET Congressman Dave Weldon (R-FL), who has emerged as at least the most vocal opponent of Congressional efforts to extend NASA’s INKSNA waiver, lays out his position in an op-ed in Friday’s Orlando Sentinel. There’s not much there that he hasn’t said previously, particularly when he vowed to “pull every lever I have” to block the extension. Weldon rejects the idea that the US has no choice but to extend the waiver so that the US can continue to access the ISS after the shuttle is retired in 2010. “The truth is, we have a choice, and we don’t have to rely on Russia,” he claims.
He’s not specific on what that choice is, other than accelerate the development of Ares 1 and Orion and “continue a reduced rate of shuttle operations” until they’re ready. (As previously noted, this approach does not permit US astronauts to make long-duration stays on the ISS, something Weldon does not address in the op-ed.)
“To change plans and do the right thing will cost money,” Weldon, who is retiring this year, acknowledges. “But the majority in Congress and the White House want to spend that money elsewhere. Sometimes we do things to save money that we end up regretting, and I believe this is one of those moments.”
By Jeff Foust on 2008 September 19 at 6:29 am ET On Thursday the Council on Foreign Relations released a report on US-China competition in space, with a particular emphasis on the threat posed by space weaponization. Unlike some other reports that call for a blanket ban on space weapons, the “China, Space Weapons, and U.S. Security” report acknowledges that “some degree of offensive space capability is inevitable” but that the US in particular needs to take a leading role in ensuring that this doesn’t lead to armed conflict in orbit. That effort should be done with “vigorous diplomatic initiatives as well as defense programs and strategy”, adding that any offensive space capabilities the US chooses to develop should be “primarily for deterrent purposes”. As for China, it needs to “give serious consideration to steps that can help it play a more effective role” in this area, particularly in light of its January 2007 ASAT test.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 September 17 at 8:35 pm ET Did you know there’s going to be a space policy debate tomorrow in Washington? No? That’s okay, because you’re probably not invited anyway, the Orlando Sentinel reported late today. The Thursday event, organized by the Aerospace Industries Association, will feature some familiar people: Lori Garver, representing the Obama campaign; and Floyd DesChamps for the McCain campaign. Garver represented the Obama campaign in a debate last month at the Mars Society conference in Colorado, while DesChamps represented McCain at the May ISDC debate in Washington that also featured Garver, at the time representing Hillary Clinton.
However, the debate is “closed, definitely closed,” an AIA spokesperson told the Sentinel. “I think there has been a lot of public debate and not every forum has to be a public event.” There has indeed been a fair amount of debate on space policy in this campaign—more than what one might have expected early this year—and there may be reasonable logistical reasons (like room size) for making this a closed-door event. However, the fact that there’s been “a lot of public debate” suggests there’s a lot of interest in the topic, at least in space community: it would be nice, at a minimum, to provide a recording, transcript, or other record of the event for those who cannot attend.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 September 17 at 12:59 pm ET One of the key arguments against proposals to extend the life of the space shuttle beyond 2010 is that it only solves part of the problem with access to the ISS. The shuttle can ferry crews to and from the station, but it cannot remain on station for extended periods to serve the “lifeboat” role that the Soyuz currently does. Unless…
A NASA SpaceFlight.com article today reviews the current status of a NASA study into the feasibility to extend the shuttle’s life beyond 2010. The article notes the lifeboat problem, but adds:
[T]he issue of a US-controlled ‘lifeboat’ is also being evaluated on several fronts, especially in relation to opening discussions with COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) partners on providing such a vehicle.
Known as ‘Capability D-minus’, several companies have noted the ability to make available a lifeboat vehicle from 2012 (names and details currently embargoed due to ongoing discussions).
Orbital Sciences, which has one of the two funded COTS awards, could well be one of those companies. Its Cygnus vehicle is currently designed to only carry cargo to the station (COTS Capabilities A and B), but at a commercial space panel event organized by Women in Aerospace in Washington last night, Robert Richards, vice president and COTS program manager at Orbital, discussed a potential upgrade path for Cygnus. The first step, he said, would be to develop a cargo return capability (Capability C). “After you demonstrated the ability to return safely with experiments and things like that,” he said, “it might be your the next step after that to return people in some kind of emergency return system.” That would then be followed by the full Capability D human transportation role.
However, he noted that upgrade path is only a notional approach, and that the company is focused on cargo delivery. Since Orbital’s COTS demo flight is planned for late 2010, it would be highly ambitious for them to have a Cygnus version capable of serving the “D-” lifeboat role by 2012.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 September 16 at 8:00 am ET In this week’s issue of The Space Review, I write about a recent step forward in space solar power research, the successful long-rest test of microwave power transmission in Hawaii that was featured on the Discovery Channel last week. Most of the press conference last Friday that announced this “breakthrough” focused on the actual accomplishment and its importance to the future development of space-based solar power.
At the end, though, a “special guest” spoke for a few minutes: Paul Rancatore. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because he ran on a very strongly pro-space platform for Congress in Florida’s 15th district, advocating space solar power, among other things, and winning the endorsement of Buzz Aldrin. However, he lost the Democratic primary in August. Currently, he’s spending time in Washington meeting with members of Congress and their staffs trying to promote space solar power. In his words, he’s trying to “educate members about what space-based solar power can do for our country, create that dialogue, and possible create a ‘space-based solar caucus’ within Congress for them to fully understand the ramifications for our country and the world and start get members involved.”
After the press conference he said that he’s met with Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA), who chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, among others, looking for someone willing to champion space solar power in Congress. He expects to make more progress in January, when a new Congress convenes.
Rancatore added he’s also focused on other space issues, including the Shuttle-Constellation gap, something he said he’s working with Aldrin on. He said they’re looking at three options: a “Shuttle-C” design (which he didn’t elaborate upon), an EELV/capsule approach, and vastly increased funding for COTS. On the last option, he said that COTS should be funded at $2.5 billion, about five times its current level.
By Jeff Foust on 2008 September 15 at 1:14 pm ET That’s the argument made by Jim Armor in an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review. He has considerable experience on this issue: he is a retired two-star general whose last position before retiring less than a year ago was as director of the National Security Space Office (NSSO). “[D]espite Air Force protestations that air and space are a seamless ‘aerospace’ medium, USAF priorities for space are clearly lower than for air superiority,” he writes. Its space situational awareness capabilities are limited, it suffers from an outmoded command and control system, and it has suffered from “horrific” cost overruns on a number of major space procurements, among other flaws.
What’s the solution? There are any number of alternatives (one idea of his he mentions in passing is creating an autonomous “Space Corps” within the Air Force analogous to the Army Air Corps prior to the creation of an independent Air Force), but the key is to get away from how space is currently treated by the Air Force. “[I]t is clear that the status quo, using existing Air Force management and doctrine, simply will not work in an age of an increasingly contested space domain. Support of a non-existent ‘aerospace’ regime not only prevents space from thriving, it equally undermines Air Force leadership of the vital air superiority mission.”
|
|
