Space Politics

The space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee is planning a markup of the planned NASA reauthorization bill next Tuesday, the 20th, at 10 am. The planned legislation has not been released yet; the hearing announcement did not even include a bill number for it.

Wednesday’s hearing of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee on the planned reauthorization of NASA and the Vision for Space Exploration covered familiar ground: discussion of the Shuttle-Constellation gap, the belief that NASA is being asked to do too much for too little money, worries about being dependent on the Russians, and a little bit of concern about Chinese space developments. The only senators present were the chairman, Bill Nelson (D-FL), and the ranking member, David Vitter (R-LA), who had to leave for another event partway through the hearing.

The agency’s staunchest supporter at the hearing arguably was not either senator but instead former NASA flight director Gene Kranz. He spoke strongly in favor in NASA’s current approach to implementing the Vision, heaping praise on both it and the agency’s current leadership. “This is the best game plan that I have seen since the days of President Kennedy,” Kranz said of ESAS, comparing it to the DC-3 and the B-52. “The system that Griffin’s team is putting into place will be delivering for America 50 years later… so the message I would give to you and to the US Congress is to stay the course, stay on track.”

In one of the few questions Vitter was able to ask before leaving, he asked Kranz whether the future reauthorization bill should devote any language to studies of alternatives to ESAS, citing in particular the “Jupiter-120″, a shuttle-derived concept from the Direct proposal. Kranz rejected that suggestion. “I believe it’s important that we don’t waste too much time looking back,” he said. “I have personally been a victim, and I believe NASA has been a victim, of so many studies that seem to be never-ending that burn up the resources, delay the schedule, [and] disenchant the people who are executing them.”

Later, Robert Dickman, executive director of AIAA, offered another alternative to closing the gap involving EELV. “For less than the cost a single space shuttle mission, they could be human-qualified and… a relatively simple capsule to go to low Earth orbit could be built” for access to ISS, he suggested.

Nelson pushed back on this idea, seeing it as something of a threat to Constellation. “The question is, where are we going to get the money?” Nelson asked at one point.

“Chairman, I would simply say, the same question of where you going to get the money is the question if you try to accelerate Constellation,” Dickman responded. “It’s the same dollars, it’s just the question of whether you use it to accelerate Constellation or you keep Constellation on its current path and build something that has a unique capability to haul humans to station and back.”

“I am told that the cost estimates for human-rating of an EELV range from 500 million to a billion dollars. And under this funding profile, I just don’t know where we’re going to get that,” Nelson said.

Fortunately for Nelson, Kranz stepped in and described the cost in money and schedule he experienced man-rating the Atlas and Titan for the Mercury and Gemini programs. “I don’t see how this helps close the gap,” he concluded. “All I see it, again, is as a diversion from the basic plan that you’ve got. As I said, I think you’re building the DC-3 or the B-52 and this is the right plan.”

While the attention of most people has been focused on issues like food and fuel prices, the presidential campaign, and so on, a problem has been developing that potentially could have repercussions for space policy. In the last few weeks tensions have been rising between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia over two separatist regions of Georgia. This has included reports of shooting down unmanned reconnaissance aircraft in Georgian airspace, either by the Russians or separatist groups. Yesterday the White House criticized Russia for its actions in the region in recent weeks. Russia’s envoy to NATO, meanwhile, claimed that Russia and Georgia were “very close” to war and that Georgia was to blame.

Should hostilities break out between the two countries, would it affect US-Russia cooperation on the ISS, and if so, how? Would Congress be less disposed to grant an extension to NASA’s ability to purchase Soyuz spacecraft after 2011, or put additional conditions of some kind on that capability? Or, fearing that such a move would effectively keep the US off the station until Orion or a commercial vehicle entered service, would they do nothing? Hopefully we won’t have to find out.