NASA administrator Mike Griffin said Thursday that he has no confidence that Congress will pass an extension to the existing waiver in the Iran North Korea Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA) that would allow NASA to continue to purchase ISS flight services after 2011. In interviews with CBS News and Florida Today, Griffin said that a lack of action by Congress to pass the extension, exacerbated by the Russian-Georgian conflict last month, made him doubtful the extension would be approved by the end of the year—which means, given the three-year lead time needed to build Soyuz vehicles, that there will be no US or other non-Russian crew on the station after the end of 2011.
Here’s an excerpt from the CBS interview (worth the read—lots of interesting stuff there beyond INKSNA) where he discusses what went wrong with the waiver extension:
Q: Was there progress on the waiver before the Russian action in Georgia? It’s not clear to me that you wouldn’t be telling me the same thing even if that hadn’t happened.
Griffin: Well, I might, but I think the probability changed, to be honest. I think because the administration had requested the exemption through State (Department) and because I had been articulating our case on the hill, I think I had most of our critical folks, you know, ready to hold their nose and support, if you will. Now, there still was some possibility it wasn’t going to happen but we were looking at different legislative vehicles for that and no one was really objecting, they were in fact helping us. So the climate did change with the invasion of Georgia and at this point, people who were already suspicious, like Sen. (Bill) Nelson, changed from being suspicious to being downright against. And I, in the larger perspective, I understand. I’m not being critical. I am trying to outline and elucidate that this is a consequence of a policy decision we made several years ago as a country that it was OK for us to depend upon the Russians for access to our space station. We made that decision. This is one of the consequences of it, the position we find ourselves in today.
Griffin also discusses the study he’s kicked off on options to extend the shuttle’s life beyond 2010, but admits that even that is not a complete solution to the problem of ISS access:
And all of these things ignore the fact that flying shuttle does not ameliorate in truth our dependence upon the Russians because we still need them for crew rescue. So if we continue to fly shuttle, either we’re flying without crew rescue capability, in other words putting crew on station and then leaving them there without a way to get home in an emergency, which we have never done, or our tenure on station is only during the two weeks you get when the shuttle visits a couple of times a year.
Innovation is our future — in our approach to energy, to education, to health care, and especially to government. As a symbol of that commitment, we share the vision of returning Americans to the moon as a step toward a mission to Mars. In advancing our country’s space and aeronautics program, NASA will remain one of the world’s most important pioneers in technology, and from its explorations can come tremendous benefits for mankind.
On its own this statement doesn’t mean much: the McCain campaign has released a far more detailed space policy than that passage, just as the Obama campaign has issued a policy far more detailed than that fleeting mention in the Democratic platform. The 2008 Republican platform passage, though, is more detailed than what appeared in the 2004 platform, which only briefly mentioned space at the end of the “Research and Development” section:
The President’s support for NASA and vision for space exploration will also enhance scientific development and technological breakthroughs.
Compare that brief mention (odd, given that the Vision for Space Exploration had just been announced earlier that year) with this vision for space in the 2000 Republican platform:
In addition, the Republican Party will remain committed to America’s leadership in space research and exploration. We will ensure that this Nation can expand our knowledge of the universe, and with the support of the American people, continue the exploration of Mars and the rest of the solar system. We consider space travel and space science a national priority with virtually unlimited benefits, in areas ranging from medicine to micro-machinery, for those on earth. Development of space will give us a growing economic resource and a source of new scientific discoveries.
Later in the same document came this:
We will, as an urgent priority, restore the integrity of the nation’s space program by imposing sound management and strong oversight on NASA.
There was a little frisson online this evening as people watching the video introducing Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama noticed Obama mentioned seeing Apollo astronauts return to Hawaii with his grandfather. His grandfather told him, Obama recalled, that this was evidence that Americans could do anything they put their minds to. Naturally, space enthusiasts got all excited: Obama’s talking about space (if indirectly) at the convention!
Of course, this is hardly the first time Obama has told that story.
He did use it in preface to his discussion of space policy in Titusville early this month, as this video shows:
(Scroll ahead to about 25 seconds in). What he said then:
I still remember sitting on my grandfather’s shoulders as some of the astronauts were brought in after their capsules had landed in the middle of the Pacific. And I could just barely see them; I was waving at them an American flag. And I remember my grandfather explaining to me, “This is what America’s all about, we can do anything when we put out minds to it.”
One of my earliest memories is of sitting on my grandfather’s shoulders and watching the astronauts come to shore in Hawaii. I remember the cheers and small flags that people waved, and my grandfather explaining how we Americans could do anything we set our minds to do. That’s my idea of America.
So be careful about reading too much into that little story in the video.
The Huntsville Times reports this morning that Alabama’s two senators agree with the proposal by three colleagues to preserve shuttle infrastructure—provided that there is more money appropriated to NASA to cover any additional shuttle missions. “If the Bush administration intends to propose additional shuttle flights, then we must have a corresponding increase in the NASA budget request,” said Sen. Richard Shelby. “Otherwise, I would oppose any such effort that will undercut our research and development of America’s next generation of space flight.” Shelby and Jeff Sessions were responding to a letter earlier this week by Sens. John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and David Vitter, asking the president to direct NASA not to take any steps that would prevent additional shuttle flights beyond 2010.
Meanwhile, at least one member of Congress is concerned about reports that a Russian cosmonaut took images of Georgia from the ISS earlier this month just after Russian troops entered the country. The images were taken for “humanitarian” uses, an explanation that satisfies NASA, but not necessarily Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL). “It is a concern when any of our international space partners use the station… for what could be used for strategy or tactics,” he told the Washington Times.
David McGinnis, a former Army National Guard general who has also been active in the senior officers group, said that aside from media appearances and speaking at campaign events, the group’s members do a lot of vetting of national security policies and field questions from the campaign and Obama himself. The group has discussed topics with Obama and his campaign ranging from the economy as an instrument of national power to the nation’s space policy, McGinnis and other officers said.
…in one of the most space-savvy districts in the nation, a candidate who talks about three ways to shorten the gap, promotes space-based solar power, and has the endorsements of both a major newspaper and Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin can get trounced in a primary election by someone who thinks the Chandra X-Ray Observatory is a radio telescope and spells Mars with a lower-case “m”. Perhaps Paul Rancatore can use his new free time offer to sharpen the space policy of Democratic nominee Steve Blythe. Not that it necessarily matters, though, as Tuesday’s primary results showed.
Three members of the US Senate, including Republican presidential candidate John Mccain, have asked President Bush not to take any steps that would preclude extending the shuttle’s life beyond 2010. In a letter to the president dated Monday, McCain and Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and David Vitter (R-LA) said uncertainty about US access to the station, given relations with Russia, may mean that the shuttle will be the only near-term option for getting US astronauts to and from the station. The three sounded skeptical that an extension of NASA’s existing waiver in INKSNA would be taken up this year, saying Russia’s incursion into Georgia this month “has raised new questions about the wisdom of providing that exemption.”
That potential deterioration in US-Russia relations, they argue, strikes at one of the foundations of the Vision for Space Exploration: retiring the shuttle in 2010 to free up money for the exploration initiative. “That decision certainly made sense from a fiscal point of view,” they write, “and making use of the Russian Soyuz vehicles as an expansion of the original partnership between the U.S., Russia and our other International partners was also seen to be of value.” But, they argue, “Our concern is that we do not have a guarantee that such cooperative and mutually beneficial activity will continue to be available.”
The senators state that they continue to support acceleration of Ares/Orion as well as development of commercial transportation alternatives, but that “neither of these efforts offers a clear near-term solution” for US access to the station. Thus, “we request that you direct NASA to take no action for at least one year from now that would preclude the extended use of the Space Shuttle beyond 2010. We understand that several such actions are pending in the near future, and believe that allowing them to continue would remove an option for U.S. human spaceflight capability that must not be irretrievably lost at this time.” The letter adds that similar language us contained in the Senate’s version of the NASA authorization act (S.3270), but that it may not be possible to get that bill enacted because of “the limited time available for consideration of legislation this year”.
This is the first time I’m aware of that McCain has openly suggested that the shuttle’s life be extended beyond 2010. His campaign space policy still notes that “Current U.S. space operations policy commits the U.S. to completing the International Space Station (ISS) by 2010 and then terminating the Space Shuttle flights,” although he is vague about what options he would consider to minimize the Shuttle-Constellation gap. The request to “direct NASA to take no action for at least one year” is a little odd, since there will be a new president—McCain or his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama—in less than five months. (Perhaps that’s intended to provide a little insurance during an extended transition period.) However, since Obama’s space policy supports “at least one additional Space Shuttle flight”, there appears to be a growing possibility that the shuttle may not be retired in 2010 after all.
We are told that Barack Obama believes too much in an America of high principle and bold endeavor, but when John Kennedy called of going to the moon, he didn’t say it’s too far to get there. We shouldn’t even try.
Our people answered his call and rose to the challenge, and today an American flag still marks the surface of the moon.
(APPLAUSE)
Yes, we are all Americans. This is what we do. We reach the moon. We scale the heights. I know it. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. And we can do it again.
Nelson also took a little credit for the Obama space policy announced earlier this month. I’ve discussed with Barack several nuances and details that he put in his program for space,” Nelson said at a breakfast meeting with organized labor in Denver. “The space program is the symbol of this nation’s technological prowess and Barack understands that, just as John Kennedy understood it.”
Residents of Florida’s Space Coast can take a break today from work to dry out and clean up from Tropical Storm Fay by going to the polls for primary elections for a variety of local and state offices, as well as Congress. And it’s the Congressional elections that will be of interest there this year, as one member of Congress retires and another faces a stiff challenge to reelection.
The latter case is relatively straightforward: Tom Feeney, the current member of Congress from the 24th district, will secure the Republican nomination for Congress today, and will likely face off in the general election against Democrat Suzanne Kosmas. Feeney’s space positions as well-known, although his space policy statement on his campaign web site, while at the top of the list of issues, needs a little updating to reflect the status of HR 6063, the NASA Authorization Act of 2008. Kosmas, meanwhile, devotes a single paragraph to space, like most other issues, on her site, with general support for NASA and KSC in particular.
The neighboring 15th district is more interesting, since current Rep. Dave Weldon is not running for reelection, creating contested primaries for both parties. Earlier this month the Orlando Sentinel gave a lukewarm endorsement to Bill Posey, who the paper calls the most qualified Republican candidate but “no longer appears, hands-down, the most qualified candidate” overall. Posey doesn’t appear to have a formal position on space policy on his web site (or if it is, it’s hidden away), but he did issue last week a press release praising presidential candidate John McCain after McCain talked with local leaders about space. The release also notes Posey’s long history working state space issues as a member of the state legislature.
The same Sentinel editorial that endorsed Posey gave a more enthusiastic endorsement for Paul Rancatore, who “shows a deft hand explaining how Congress can expand NASA’s budget while also trimming the fat that NASA and Congress too often add to space-based programs.” That deftness isn’t in full display on his web site, which only mentions that he has “three specific proposals” to close the Shuttle-Constellation gap and “provide a secondary method of space access once Orion is operational”. Rancatore is one of the only major candidates for Congress—maybe the only one—to explicitly endorse space-based solar power, calling it “an economic generator not seen since the Apollo program.”
Late last week, Rancatore picked up another endorsement: Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Aldrin said that endorsed Rancatore “because I believe he truly understands the direction our space program needs to go and has formulated a plan that will create jobs, revitalize our space infrastructure and keep America on the leading edge.” This is not the first foray into politics for Aldrin, of course: in 2006 he campaigned for Nick Lampson as the Texas Democrat sought to return to the House. In 2004, though, Aldrin spoke at a campaign rally for President Bush in Florida at, appropriately enough, Space Coast Stadium.
Rancatore is facing Steve Blythe in the Democratic primary. Blythe doesn’t have the endorsements of the Sentinel or a former astronaut, but does have a detailed space policy statement on his site. It’s something of a rambling statement, that could use some copyediting as well (it’s “Mars”, Dr. Blythe, not “mars”; and Chandra is an x-ray telescope, not a radio telescope.)
